While many planets with the potential for settlement have been detected, one, about 20 auds¹⁾ away, caught the particular attention of scientists. While the physical features of the planet appeared hospitable there was a peculiar sort of geographical attunement to certain elements, organised in zones around twelve elemental ‘poles’. Nicknamed Hexographia for the roughly hexagonal shape these zones seem to take, it is to this planet that the New World mission has been sent.

Hexographia is a hospitable planet with a generally temperate climate - both the polar and equatorial regions are fit for human life, though testing suggests that the poles themselves (all 12 of them, rather than just the axial ones) are likely to be extremely dangerous. Citizens have been instructed to avoid them at all costs.

Preliminary scans and calculations have suggested the presence of animal, as well as vegetable life. Whether the floral and fauna of this planet will bear any resemblance to our own remains to be seen, with some scientists citing the universality of the elemental laws as evidence for, and others citing the alienness of the planet as evidence against. Regardless, there are likely to be any number of useful creatures and plants.

The natural fertility of the land also suggests that there is plenty of potential farmland. The barren deserts that cover a significant amount of the planet can likely be infused with Air and Energy to become more fertile, or otherwise turned to industrial purposes.

<hex map>

The elemental energies appear to be centred around 12 distinct “nexus” regions, with Void on the north and south poles and the other elemental nexuses ringing the tropics. All other regions also appear to be attuned to one particular element, though to a far lesser extent than the nexuses. Exactly how this manifests remains to be seen, as does the mechanics of the borders between zones.

The Curiosity is projected to land in a temperate area to the West of the Upper Elemental Nexus of Air, marked as ‘Landfall’ on the map. The intent is that once the ship lands, it will at first form the central part of the city founded, with most people continuing to live in their shipside quarters until permanent accommodation is created.

A large number of pre-fabricated buildings have been stored within the ship to be used for some initial spill-out buildings, notably including central hubs for most of the major interest groups involved, and buildings for agricultural settlements further out from the ship.

Sending communications is far quicker than sending physical objects, but the time taken is still considerable, if variable. According to calculations, the shortest possible time to send a message and receive a reply should be around a week, but in practice a fortnight, or even longer is likely due to variations in things like weather, interstellar phenomena, and size of the communication.

Static images, text and numerical (or numerically stored) data are all fairly easy to send back to the Homeworld via transmission, sound has proven more difficult over the long distances. The technology needed to send film without encoding every single static image has yet to be developed, let alone those rare cases of synced sound and moving image. Those will have to be transferred back physically. A shuttle is scheduled to return to the homeworld six months after the Curiosity makes landfall, including preliminary results, samples, and so on.