Ep.2 - Grab your hammer!
1890: UAS Delfinia launches settlers and marines to shore
The settlers get to work led by Governor Willham
With a steady stream of incoming colonists, the town of Delfoni gradually takes shape.
The Jukes and Snow families are the first to buy farmland, right next to the settlement. The Governor and the councillors aren't too happy about it, but the money is too good to refuse. However, after initial land buyout, the council decides to increase the local taxes on land for anything other than urban development, to avoid all the new coming wealthy families seizing valuable real estate.
The port is expanded. Great news for entrepreneurs looking to make a fortune in the developing city.
The taxes reform doesn't stop Bullen from acquiring land for an even bigger farm just north east of the settlement.
With land prices low upriver, however, at the turn of the century, new colonists travel up the delta to colonize a strategic bottleneck they name Rodigate
Soon after, major players are quick to put their hands on that sweet sweet land that will very likely be worth a fortune one day. For now it just looks like a boring outpost in the middle of nowhere, with the only access being a cumbersome sail experience filled with mosquitoes and disease up the Rielly distributary.
The swamps of the delta however are not annoying or diseased enough to stop people coming in. Rodigate becomes so important to commerce that the port is expanded and projects are brought forward to have the rail mainline from the current capital Quicke travel to it. The plan is to follow the river downstream to Rodigate and open a crucial route inland where prospect farmers can set up their empires, and industry can revolutionize their business.
Meanwhile, Governor Willham is more preoccupied with fortifying the estuary. This sketch clearly shows the plan for seawalls and towers in red, and canals in blue. Willham's plans for the mainline is to use it to support the fortification project with a steady income of stone and other materials from the industries blooming upriver. Whichever your preferred political lobby, you can't argue the byproduct of Willham's priorities. He is re-elected again and again and supported throughout this campaign. Everybody wants the rail to come to Delfoni.
With this level of support, even his ambitious project for a massive coastal fort, bapthized Fort Dare, isn't at all laughed at. Immediately after Willham announces it in 1914, a fleet of colonist ships sets sail from Quicke. There is a surge in population and consequentially in housing estates and resource requirements. Ports are upgraded, construction firms evolve into fully fledged companies, and the freight business starts to become lucrative. Lady Maybelle Weller, mayor of Delisley, amazed at the progress, organizes a gala in her palace - where all major players attend - to celebrate this important moment in history as "that time where Delfoni became a city".
1920 is near. The rail mainline has made it to Rodigate. The last stretch to Delfoni will be completed soon. Just in time for the Second Gardian War. If you aren't joining the army, then join us, in the next issue of The New World, as we watch Fort Dare come to life, and the rail bring new opportunities to Delfoni!
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