The forbidden colony

Gail Daley

www.Gaildaley.com

St. Antoni

Table of Contents

A History Of St. Antoni

ST. ANTONI NATIVE ANIMALS

TECHNOLOGY

CITY STATE CAPITOLS

SMALLER CITIES AND TOWNS

A History Of St. Antoni

WHEN THE technology to locate and open gates to other worlds was discovered on earth in the late 21st century, access to this knowledge was tightly guarded by government and industry hoping to exploit the vast resources on these new worlds. The Portal Settlement Act made it a crime to open a gate or emigrate through a portal to any world not released for settlement by the United Earth Government. The fact that it took relatively little energy to power up a gate made taking advantage of these new worlds doubly attractive to government and industry. To ensure the legal outposts thrived, Settlers on Earth's approved colonies received the best in technology and supplies available. The sanctioned colonies also had the militaries of earth to prevent anarchy.

Despite government's tight control, the knowledge that it was possible to open a doorway to other worlds couldn’t be kept secret. The Portal technology was leaked, and unregulated gates popped up like fleas on a dog in summer. These Colonies came to be called "the Forbidden Colonies". Of which St. Antoni was one of many. Immigrants who reached St. Antoni were desperate to escape earth. St. Antoni was named for an early settler's fondness for a little jingle that goes like this: "St. Antoni, please look around—something is lost and must be found." Being a maverick at heart, he changed the spelling of Saint Anthony in the original rhyme to suit himself.

Immigrants who snuck in through illegal Portals only had the supplies and technology they could carry to build their new life on a new world. They depended on their wits, ingenuity and sheer cussedness to defend themselves against the alien plants and bizarre animals found on the new worlds. But they came because of man's lust to explore and because they wanted freedom and adventure. Unlike citizens of officially recognized colonies, who had the powerful earth government and industry to help them build homes and plant crops for food, immigrants to the forbidden colonies like St. Antoni had to do the same under very primitive conditions With intelligence, courage, and determination, they built a new society on a new world. In the first two hundred years they created a civilization as different from that of earth as Mars is from Venus. City states were controlled by powerful families or groups, and the outlying ranches and mines outside them were held together like medieval baronies by guns and guts.

The new citizens of St. Antoni found themselves dumped on a primitive world; there was no law to protect the new colonists from each other and for a time anarchy and lawlessness ruled. In due course and after many bloody battles, a system of government loosely based on what had been used in the mining districts and cattle associations popular in the early nineteenth century, with a smattering of that found in feudal medieval societies. These regulations were enforced by Peacekeepers inside the City States.

Each of the Seven City States was run by a single family or a group of individuals who seized power during periods of civil disturbance. While most of the ruling families gave lip service to electing councils with representatives to make major decisions, somehow it always happened that those elected were related to or owed allegiance to the family who held the power in that state. Regulations passed by these councils were enforced inside areas claimed by each City State.

A similar set of laws, based on those passed by each City State, held sway inside the smaller towns around them. These laws were enforced by locally elected sheriffs and passed by town councils. Outlying ranches and mines, much like the feudal barons in earth history, kept their own armed retainers to ensure the safety of the workers and families living on or around them.

A loose agreement between the City States authorized roving marshals to track down lawbreakers in the wilderness areas between them. Although theoretically independent of control by any one City State, District Marshals were paid out of tithes collected by the city nearest them.

But the St. Antonoians new civilization had a flaw: a man or woman could commit crimes in one City state flee to another and be safe from pursuit. To combat this flaw, the Enforcers were created to supplement the District Marshals. Only this group of brave men and women, an elite law enforcement agency commissioned by the combined city states, dares to pursue outlaws across the borders. When they catch up with them, they serve as judge, jury and sometimes executioners...

On some illegally opened worlds, the new communities failed miserably, but others like St. Antoni, thrived. It was the luck of the draw that the illicit portal opened onto a planet that closely resembled its parent world. St. Antoni possessed a yellow sun, darker than the one that shone on earth, and that sun looked down on blue seas, land masses covered with lush grass, gray Ironwood forests, high snowy mountains, hot dry deserts and continents threaded by large rivers and small streams. Plants and animals had developed along lines genetically close enough to earth to support human life, and St. Antoni's temperature range was close enough to Earth to make living there bearable for humans.

Civilization on St. Antoni succeeded where some of the others didn’t, because of a few lucky conditions. The animal and plant life on St. Antoni was compatible with humans and could support human life. Native plants readily adapted to being farmed, and cuttings and seedlings the settlers brought with them thrived and grew in the new soil. A native cotton-like plant was discovered and harvested for clothing in the warmer climates. Native grains were adapted to make bread, and even some beans and leafy plants were harvested as substitutes for Coffee and tea.

TECHNOLOGY

Technology levels in the forbidden portal worlds differed, but in all of them a rich trade in books, diagrams, information and other needed items flourished, brought in by daring Portal Runners who made the perilous trip back and forth to earth, risking discovery and imprisonment. Of course, a Runner didn't perform this service for free. A Portal Runner making the dangerous trip to smuggle in people and technology charged a high price for the service.

St. Antoni, like most of the other illegally opened worlds, survived by using technology not requiring massive amounts of electrical power. The discovery of Bluestones, a mineral when mixed with water produced heat and steam made it practical for St. Antonians to build a variety of steam engines to power lights, steamboats and even a steam engine train. Mines and foundries were developed to excavate the metals needed for these endeavors.

By sheer grit and determination St. Antonians fought their way back to the steam age. Much of St. Antoni was using technology based on steam engines. Unlike engines of their mother planet which had used coal to create steam, St. Antoni's steam engines were based on the use of Bluestones, providing a clean burning fuel that did not pollute the environment. Settlers who could afford them had steam operated generators for their homes and businesses. Steamboats plied the waterways, and a newly built railroad system ran Steam engine trains between the large cities. Settlers were spreading out over the single continent where the original gateway had opened, and ships were exploring the seas. Steamboats plied the waterways and a railroad system allowed for travel between the City States. It was rumored that someone had brought through a copy of the Tesla theory and experiments were being done to build a Tesla Generator.

St. Anthoni's illegally founded portal in Gateway City had been open for several hundred years, giving its settlers time to develop seven City States with loosely connected governments. Except for areas directly connecting the City States, much of St. Antoni was still wild and unexplored. In the years the St. Antoni gateway had been open, Portal Runners had brought in a steady trickle of new settlers and other items highly valued on a planet without its own technological resources.

The industries developed by the settlers, were mostly farming, ranching and mining in the interior, and fishing along the coastal areas, although manufacturing was growing. Travel took the form of steamboats along the deep rivers, and a newly built railroad system connecting the largest City states using steam driven trains. To get to anywhere else, the settlers walked, rode or drove a tricorn pulled wagon. Named for their three horns; the animals had two spikes set high in the forehead, and a third at the end of their noses. Tricorns were herd animals, and like the horses they resembled, once domesticated, served a variety of purposes for the settlers.

The area around River Crossing and its companion across the river, Minerstown, was dominated by six powerful families who together controlled mining and ranching in the area. Rather than decimate their livelihoods by fighting until only one family was left standing the families of Kenefic had jointly come to an agreement to settle their differences with a joint council. The mountains above River Crossing were rich in gold, silver, bluestones and gems. The Lucky Strike, owned by Michael St. Vyr, mined Bluestone, the other mines owned by the six families, worked gold, silver and various gemstones.

ST. ANTONI NATIVE ANIMALS

Out of necessity, native animals were domesticated and adapted to human use. A prime example of a domesticated native animal was the tricorn, who ranged the valleys and plains of the new world in large herds. Tricorns resembled large horses with two slim horns on their broad forehead and a shorter one on the end of their nose. They were striped like a zebra, but the stripes came in a variety of colors; the most common being red and black. Once tamed to man’s use, the settlers rode tricorns, used them to pull plows and other forms of transportation much the way their ancestors on earth had used the horse.

Overlarge, shaggy coated goats were another native animal that proved compatible with humans. About the size of a Herford cow, both sexes possessed large horns curving on the sides of their heads. Living mostly in small family groups in rocky areas, they fed on the short, dark grass growing there. Combining the purposes cows and goats had served on earth, St. Antoni goats produced drinkable milk and edible cheeses. Their long, soft hair was sheered and collected yearly to be woven into cloth. Most goats were striped black or brown and white, enabling them to blend in with the rocks around them

Early settlers also domesticated several species of native birds for meat and eggs. Most popular was a large, rainbow-colored bird, who made honking noises reminiscent of the geese they were named after.

The cattle caught and herded by the settlers for meat and leather, were not actually cattle but another ruminant. They resembled a Texas longhorn cow with four horns, a long shaggy coat and a spiked tail. Like their Texas namesakes, they came with a mean disposition.

There was a species of feline dubbed Bobcat by the settlers who first saw them. A St. Antoni Bobcat weighed around twenty-five pounds, with a short-haired coat, a stubby tail, tuffs on the ears, and gold and black stripes. Bobcats soon adopted the human settlements as a place to find much of the small game they fed on, and it wasn't long before humans returned the favor and they became household pets.

A small mammal the size of an earth cat but closely resembling foxes were also adopted as pets. They had four legs, a long, fluffy tail with a white tip and retractable claws. The creatures had a wedge-shaped head with a pointed nose and big eyes. Their soft, smooth skin was covered in thin red fur.

There were more unpleasant animals as well. A nasty reptile the settlers called Sanders lived in the hotter areas of the planet and often hid under bushes and rocks. Sanders had a venomous bite, were bright orange and closely resembled earthly snakes.

Dire Bears, so called because of their enormous size and vicious dispositions, made dens in the thick pink bushes along the rivers. Solitary omnivores, they fished the streams, ate small animals and berries, and warred with the equally large prides of grey striped lions who lived in the areas above some of the rivers. The mountains above the valleys were home to tree-climbing, spotted lupine packs whose main food were the goat herds.

Foxes: a mammal about the size of a small cat, has four legs, a long, fluffy tail and retractable claws. A wedge-shaped head with a pointed nose and big eyes. They have a soft, smooth skin covered in thin, soft fur, which is usually light red and white, It is an Omnivore,

CITY STATE CAPITOLS

Copper City (inland & midway between Breakwater and Azure)

controlled by the Jones and then Later by the Smith's after a hostile takeover

Local Women's Circle leader

Breakwater (coastal)

Controlled by

Local Women's Circle Leader

Azure City (coastal)

Controlled by the Sullivan Family

Local Women's Leader – Marie Lebeau

Emerald City (inland)

Controlled by

Local Women's Circle Leader

Gateway City (where the original Portal came out)

Controlled by the Bertelli family who took it away from the Tresoni's

Local Women's Circle Leader Antoinette Rodriguez

Bitterstone

Controlled by

Local Women's Circle Leader

Highland Mountain

Controlled by

Local Women's Circle Leader

Kenefic – located in a long valley surrounded by mountains. Access is through river travel.

(controlled by a consortium of ranchers and mine owners)

Women's Circle Leader – Giselle St. Vyr, Later Bethany MacCaffey

SMALLER CITIES AND TOWNS

Junction City (located inside Kenefic) The second oldest settlement next to Gateway City

Essentially islands between three rivers, Junction City is claimed by the City State of Kenefic. Designed and shaped by waterways, it is a combination of three separate towns (Marigny, Huron and Black Water) connected by ferryboats crossing each river. Each township has its own sheriff and police department, town council and mayor. A general counsel of all three townships, presided over by a representative of the Kenefic City State, met several times a year to decide matters of importance to all three towns. Locals and visitors usually traveled around town by rickshaw, although tricorn pulled carriages for rent met the steamships. Railroad tracks met at the intersection of the three rivers and headed out to Azure City on the Coast, then on to Breakwater, further up the coast. A second railway led to Copper City which lay inland midway between the two coastal City States. Copper City rated its own railway because it was the source of most of the copper used to create the steam engines used by most St. Antonians. The third railway was a straight shot to Gateway City.

River Crossing/Minerstown (located inside Kenefic)

The area around River Crossing and its companion across the river, Minerstown, was dominated by six powerful families who together controlled mining and ranching in the area. Rather than decimate their livelihoods by fighting until only one family was left standing the families of Kenefic had jointly come to an agreement to settle their differences with a joint council. The mountains above River Crossing were rich in gold, silver, bluestones and gems. The Lucky Strike, owned by Michael St. Vyr, mined Bluestone, the other mines owned by the six families, worked gold, silver and various gemstones.

Ferry Crossing (located inside Kenefic)