Gentlemen,
The madness continues...
Four Cultures, Not Three
CT's TCS adventure says that space aboard the three ESA STL colony ships was divvied up according to nationality, with one vessel carrying English colonists, another only Frenchmen, and the third just Germans.
IMTU's Islands, the colonists aboard those three vessels didn't fit into neat packages with national labels. There were plenty of other people from many other places. The names of the various systems in the Cluster bear me out on this. EU countries other than the three named had contingents aboard the colony ships.
Very roughly speaking, the 'British' ship contained colonists from both the British Isles and the British Commonwealth. The 'French' vessel had colonists from across the francophone world; Quebec, West Africa, Indochina, Polynesia, etc. The 'German' vessel included many Scandinavians and 'middle' Europeans. Each vessel also carried small numbers of colonists from other EU member states. The colonists shipped out from Sol were a polygot, not just Brits, French, and Germans.
TCS also mentions that upon arrival in the Cluster the crews of the colony ships decided not to settle on the worlds below with their frozen charges and instead returned to the deep space, STL life of exploration they'd always known. These wandering STL crews quickly found and settled Serendip Belt. This is the 'Fourth' culture I'm babbling about; everyone descended from the various belters, spacers, and shuttle jockeys who were recruited to man the vessels carrying the frozen colonists. While the people who colonized Amondiage, Neubayern, and New Home were they same people who had bordered the STL vessels at Sol, each ship's crew were the distant and direct descendents of the initial crew who had left Sol.
So, four initial, major cultures and not three; British, French, German, and Belter. The first three listed might not like the idea, but there really were four big cultures aboard the mission.
The Great STL Colony Ship Race
Look at Amondiage compared to Neubayern or New Home. It isn't a very attractive world, rather barren with a low hydrographics rating. Amondiage is not even attractive when compared to many other worlds in the Cluster. So why was Amondiage one of the initial three worlds colonized? And ponder these odd facts too; Of the three initially colonized worlds, Amondiage is closest to Sol and yet was settled last. Why did 'Voyageur' choose Amondiage and why so late?
My goofy 'answer' to part of this puzzle is that 'Voyageur' really had no choice in the matter at all. They got 'stuck' with Amondiage because the other two systems had already been claimed by 'C-Jammer' and 'Van de Lubbe'. Those other and better systems ended up being claimed because the other two STL ships got to them first. 'Voyageur', and the colonists aboard her, somehow lost a race and had to settle for third place; Amondiage.
TCS states that computers aboard the ESA vessels 'locked onto' the Islands Cluster as a colonization target 'early' in the voyage. Thus, the ESA hadn't dispatched the mission to the Islands, the Islands were somehow surveyed and chosen after the mission left Sol. I believe this may answer the other question regarding Amondiage; why was it settled first, before better worlds in the same subsector like St. Denis, Sansterre, or Colchis.
The ESA vessel targetted the Cluster early in their voyage and performed a survey of prospective colony worlds then, at what must have been a great distance. For whatever reasons, only three systems out those that could be surveyed at that distance; Neubayern, New Home, and Amondiage, met the criteria for colonization. 'Voyageur' didn't aim for St. Denis or Colchis because she didn't know enough about those systems to risk ending her mission there. Amondiage was simply all that 'Voyageur' knew about and that system was her only choice when she lagged behind the other two vessels.
So, 'Voyageur' somehow ended up with the short end of the stick. Despite the fact that all three vessels left the Sol system pretty much at the same time and despite the fact that all three vessels pooled their sensor resources to choose the Islands as a target and select prospective colony sites there, 'Voyageur' lost out. 'C-Jammer' and 'Van der Lubbe' got to the Cluster first and had their pick of the three known colony systems. 'Voyageur' arrived last and got stuck with the consolation prize; Amondiage.
Why did 'Voyageur' lose out? Beats me. Perhaps her drive was just a few tenths of a percentage less efficient than the others. Something like that could add up over the +2000 year flight time of the mission. Perhaps her radiation shielding was suspect and she needed to keep below a certain fraction of c while the others didn't have that worry. Like I said, I don't know why 'Voyageur' lost, all I do know is that she did.
Next up, thumbnail descriptions of the eight major powers in the Cluster. Yes, I know I know, reducing the billions of people on a single world to a few paragraphs is iditotic. Fortunately, I'm just the idiot to do it.
Sincerely,
Larsen