Shoreridge III
Role: Farming and materials
Circumference: 27,060 miles
Population: 330,000
Orbital Path: Third
Rotational Period (days): 1.75
Orbital Period (days): 283
Primary Function: Agriculture, minerals, mining
Retention Index: 3
While not technophobic, the people of Shoreridge III resist change. They live a prosaic, bucolic life which they value greatly and do not wish to see altered. New technologies have to be used on their behalf, as generally speaking, the colonists will not embrace anything innovative or different.
Unlike the other great agricultural colony of the Federation, Iskander, the colony of Shoreridge III has never experienced any sort of strife among its people. This is likely due in part to the fact that there are only a handful of citizens on this colony; without living with the ‘other half’ there is little incentive for the kind of dissatisfaction that manifests itself on Iskander.
Just as very few citizens make their home on Shoreridge III, very few citizens come from Shoreridge III. Year after year, the colony has the lowest Federal Service recruitment numbers of any place in Federation space. In fact, it is common for years to go by without a single colonist choosing to enlist. Although enlistment in Federal Service is always voluntary and even discouraged in peacetime, the pitifully small number of recruits coming from Shoreridge has caused some concern in SICON, and Military Intelligence has kept a careful eye on the planet for some time. However, all indications are that while the colonists are loyal civilians of the Federation, they simply want to be left alone.
Even with the advent of war against the bugs, the Federal Service Information & Recruitment Centre in Shoreridge Colony 1 (similar centres were opened in the capital city of every stellar colony following the commencement of the war) stands empty except for its bored staff.
History
Shoreridge III has had an uneventful life. Founded in 2263, the colony has changed the planet far more than its people.
The highest concentrations of the planet’s population are found in its five cities, formed around the core of the original colonies. Each of these cities still offi cially bears the rather unimaginative designation it was given at the time of the colony’s founding (S.C. One, S.C. Two, S.C. Three and so on). Naturally, each of the cities has been given different names by the inhabitants of the planet but each of them is known by a different name by the people in the other five cities and still more names from the people living outside the cities, making the entire situation frightfully confusing to an outsider. Upon receiving his post as governor of Shoreridge system, Vice Admiral Markus Brown fielded a question from a savvy FedNet reporter about the different names for cities in this colony and whether he would be pushing for a standardisation of names there. Vice Admiral Brown answered her question by attempting to summarise the way the names work on Shoreridge, an answer so confusing the press conference ground itself to a halt.
While the cities are the most concentrated areas of population, the majority of the inhabitants are not urban dwellers. Rather, they are spread across the surface of the planet, mining the planet’s mineral wealth and tending crops and herds the spread across millions of acres of the planet’s surface.
Originally, there were six cities on Shoreridge III but an unexpected and exceptionally violent earthquake four decades ago all but destroyed one of them. More than 2,000 people died in the disaster and the city was never reoccupied afterward. Even after 40 years, the great quake is one of the most common topics of conversation on the planet.
Generally, life on Shoreridge III goes on uneventfully, so much so in fact that the rest of the population of the Federation tends to forget the colony even exists. That is exactly the way the colonists want it.
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