The Canalside Museum of Art in Talavera
The New Madrid system, formerly known as H4, was heavily fought over by the Bugs and Tech Infantry for over two decades starting with the first Tech Infanty assault landings in 2010. By 2035, the planet was finally cleared of Bug infestations. It was subsequently colonized largely by settlers from Iberia and Latin America, with a minority of colonists coming from elsewhere on Earth and other settled systems.
Culture and Settlement
In addition to English, Spanish is still frequently heard there as a second language, with Portuguese and Guarani occasionally spoken in some of the more rural districts populated mainly by direct descendents of the original colonists to settle that area.
Planetary Geography
Major continental landmasses are mostly named for historical regions of Spain on Earth, with major cities mostly named for cities in Iberia and Latin America. Nuevo Barcelona on the continent of Catalonia is the largest, and is the planetary capital. A narrow isthmus between two of the continents is of course called New Panama, and is home to a large canal dug via nuclear demolition charges in the early days of colonization to be a magnet for future settlement. It didn't quite work, and the canal gets little shipping traffic, but the city of Talavera, second largest on the planet, is there nonetheless, and the canal does attract many tourists as one of the largest such structures in the Federation.
Recent History
New Madrid fell to the Tech Infantry Rebel faction early in the 3rd Civil War, and it became the focus of a major effort to recapture it by the Grand Council Loyalists. It was the site of a raid by a destroyer squadron under the command of Commodore J.J. Adams which damaged the planetary defense battlestations and destroyed the docked Star Control Ship EFS Jutland, which had been captured by the rebels. Shortly thereafter, Task Force 23 invaded the system, and successfully captured it after heavy and prolonged ground fighting. The Council Loyalist forces were forced to begin destroying crops and food storage facilities in an effort to starve out the Rebel forces, before the final push on Talavera could succeed.
Spared the worst effects of both the Vin Shriak and Caal invasions, the planet was the destination of many refugees fleeing those conflicts. After the Battle of Avalon, Earth Fleet ships that had failed or refused to answer the call for reinforcements at the capital gathered at New Madrid and declared their loyalty to a newly-reconstructed Grand Council under the leadership of Admiral Smythe, and their opposition to the new Holy Terran Empire under Emperor Vin Dane. Talavera became the capital of the new Earth Federation.
Behind the Scenes
New Madrid was named for the New Madrid Fault in southern Missouri, which produced some of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history in the early 1800's. Mostly quiet since then, the fault is still occasionally featured in apocalyptic predictions of doom for the midwest. One such scare had recently been in the news when the first season of the game was being played, so the name was fresh on the minds of the midwestern residents playing the game at Illinois State University, only a couple hundred miles from the fault line in question. Much of the backstory for New Madrid was not established until Season Eight, when it was the home of Icarus Hicks and the beginning of his plotline.