The origin of the Colonists  is a collection of several sytems known to them as the Core Worlds.  In the last two generations, the worlds have been  rocked by populace upheaval concerning the emergence of Meshie clans, A war of extinction against an Insectoid invasion (that would likely have proved to be the end of them all had not a faction of the Insectoid power structure not turned to help defend the 'soft' races), and the end of a ten year civil war between the three governments and an interplanetary corporation with interests in seeng them all fail. 

 

        The civil war delayed the deployment of the fleet by ten years both because of the war itself, and because of the influx of Core worlders who signed on for the expedition in the wake of the divisional ruin of the economy and political instability that followed it.  More ships needed to be built to transport the trebled numbers wanting to gain a fresh start.  When the orbital construction of the fleet was finished, it consited of nine ships that were designed for a single landing.  Once grounded, they will convert to buildings and facilities to center and cater to the needs of the colony.  

        The landing zone, and area of the colony itself is on a grassy plateau hemmed in at the east and west by rugged mountains and dotted with copses of trees that eventually give way to deep forests.  To the north, less than a mile from the cordon, is a sizeable fresh water lake fed by several small rivers and beyond a massive range of peaks that soar to some thirty-six thousand feet above sea level.  To the south, past a line of evergreen woods the land drops sharply into a lush great river valley.  The elevation is high enough that the nights cn take on a bitter chill even in the summer, but year round the plateau is denied both true killing cold and dangerous heat.

 

         Overall, the colonists find what they are expecting to, except one thing.  The Novum Sibi.    The Sibi was the advance flagship sent out a decade and a half earlier than the fleet to establish  an area for the colony to be established.  The flagship is massive, and should have been easily detected from orbit by the fleet when it arrived, but was not and no beacon was active.  instead, they encountered  A single satellite located in orbit over the world. Battered and barely maintaining its own power, it transmitted a single audio-only message and a set of coordinates before becoming just another inert piece of flotsam in the great Void.

 

        The fleet dispatched a pod with a scout advance team to the coordinates.  The trio consisted of one of the fleet's best pilots, the fleet resource manager, and the lead field researcher.  It took them a week to survey out the new cordon for the fleet, and to deploy the beacon that will guide the fleet down to thier final landing.  All of this while puzzling out the enigma of the morphic waves of scanner readings that seem to underlie everyting on the planet and to confound the technological readings of the surface.  For better or worse, they are here to stay, the ships do not have the fuel to return to the Core Worlds.  With the options of taking thier chances on the Planet, or surely dying in orbit, the decision was not difficult.