A tidal marsh would be here if that sort of plant life had evolved yet
The Chalfont system lies on the southeastern rim of human space, along the border with the Jurvain Commonality between Kalintos and Circe. Colonized by the Earth Federation in 2225, as of 2275 it had been occupied by the Jurvain.
Astrography[]
The Chalfont system consists of four major planets and two large asteroid belts. The two rocky, inner worlds are both slightly larger than Earth, but also drier. The innermost world is victim of a runaway greenhouse effect much like Venus, and has not yet been sufficiently terraformed to allow settlement. The second world is human-habitable and colonized. The outer two gas giants are not yet settled, but several of their moons are suitable for domed mining colonies or other limited colonization. The asteroid belts are rich in Carbonaceous Chondrites, but have not yet been fully industrialized, with only a few mining platforms constructed.
Geography[]
Chalfont II, commonly simply known as Chalfont, is very much like a younger Earth, although with slightly less than half of its surface covered by ocean, the remainder being made up of several large continents only recently separated from each other by tectonic forces. Life evolved on this planet sufficiently far for extensive algae and seaweed forms to give it an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but plant and animal life are still in the Cambrian Era stage of development, only just beginning to colonize dry land and move out of the oceans. Human settlement is clustered on one continent so far, as the limited state of evolution of local microbial and macroscopic life forms have not yet produced organic-rich humus in the soils. Soil conditioning procedures are an ongoing process to prepare the soil for agriculture, and this terraforming process and some mining are the main industries on this colony world. Only about 800,000 humans live in the Chalfont system, about 10 percent of which live on orbital stations or in the limited asteroid-belt mining facilities.
History[]
Chalfont was only settled in the 2220's, and much of the initial colony was wiped out by a Jurvain invasion during the Third Civil War. Eventually taken back from the Jurvain by the Federation during the Clarke administration, the planet was partially resettled and terraforming work resumed. After the Caal Invasion shattered the Federation, Chalfont sided with the Holy Terran Empire during the Ascension War in 2265. However, a double invasion first the Jurvain and then the Bugs wrecked much of the rebuilt infrastructure. A raid on the system by the Earth Federation that year captured an Arachnid Queen, but did little to slow down the Bug assault. With humanity busy fighting each other, it was the Jurvain who finally stopping the Bug invasion of the system, and consequently laid claim to it. In the peace treaty ending the Ascension War, the Empire (weakened from the war, still preoccupied with consolidating its control over human space, and in no shape to win a war against the Jurvain) ceded the system to the Jurvain Commonality (although it took them many years to completely clean the Bugs off the planet once the Arachnids had established a firm beachhead).
What happened to the human population of Chalfont is uncertain. They may have been wiped out by the Bug invasion, or the Jurvain may have executed, enslaved, or quarantined the entire community.
By Season 10 (2285?), Chalfont had once again been reconquered and re-colonized by the Holy Terran Empire under House Richards.
Behind the Scenes[]
Chalfont is named after the Duke of Chalfont, a fictitious title that the main character aspires to in the movie "Kind Hearts and Coronets," a favorite of one of the players. Apart from being a very good British dark comedy, this 1948 film has a young Alec Guinness playing the entire d'Ascoyne family, who slowly get murdered through the course of the film.