Olympia

Olympia is the homeworld of Mark and Ryan Stannum, or Echo 312 and and Snow Bird 26, respectively. Located 37 light years from Earth (a close distance in relative terms), the planet was one of the first in a wave of planets to be colonized by Humanity. It was considered to be under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Space Administration until 2389, when URG forces liberated the world. Its capital is Verne City.

Discovery & Role
Olympia was discovered in 2135 and was one of the first worlds to be colonized by the CSA's Humanity. It has spent the majority of time under CSA control, being very deep within the defenses of the Celestial Interior. Its settlements were initially where many science projects took place, and Olympia itself quickly gained the reputation as a colony that focused on science, knowledge, and progress.

For nearly two centuries, Olympia was the source of many of Humanity's inventions and was considered a scientific gem of the CSA, but its importance as a scientific world faded more with time as the CSA relocated many scientists and programs to the Antaro System, leaving the world without much of its claim to fame. For this reason, from 2299-2307 the world experienced a recession, having lost a great deal of economic revenue to the military and inspiring a new wave of defections to the Insurgency.

After its recession, Olympia turned its slump around and became the home of many public and private institutions' headquarters, becoming very economically successful. Its capital, Verne City, was populated by 33 million Humans as of 2381, with the planetary population at four billion. The planet had regained high economic status in the CSA's territory as well as a highly regarded education system and had once again become a center of science and arts for non-military projects.

Terrorism
Despite its success among the CSA colonies, Olympia was still unable to escape the reach of the Insurgency, and in June 2373 it experienced several strikes across the planet, from targeting key public institutions and CSA outposts to seemingly random bombings, one of which resulted in the near-death of the young Mark Stannum and the actual death of his love interest, Satie Nevim. This was in fact the reason that Mark joined the CSA Military and became Echo 312. After the strikes, the CSA committed all Snow Birds to investigate and pursue any leads on the Insurgency, as well as increasing security on Olympia. The world wouldn't see more violence

SHADE Conflicts
While the Omega SHADE terrorized Earth in 2381, the SHADEs that it spawned in its wake spread out to attack Entente and CSA targets alike. One large SHADE did attack Olympia and while the SHADE in orbit was decimated after a fairly intense battle, the surface of the planet was quickly overwhemled and was only saved after Omega was killed in Sol. Olympian infrasturcture sustained mild damage across the planet, and suffered 5,000 casualties.

URG War
As the Insurgency grew under Alpha's efforts and the Capture of Aneera, Alter-Echo requested that efforts be made to capture Olympia, knowing that Mark would want his parents to be safe even if he could never return. Several attempts were made to attack the colony under Supreme Admiral William Aberforth, eventually succeeding at the end of 2386 with help from a large amount of defecting civilians and officers on the surface. Among the defectors were Mark's mother Victoria Stannum, who had been part of the resistance for a long time and was actually passing on information to URG spies who posed as her students at the University of Verne. While her interests aligned with the URG, her husband and Mark's father, Matthew, remained loyal to the URG. This difference, however, never caused problems with the couple, though Victoria did keep her activities with the resistance. Though Matthew did surrender initially, the process of making sure he was loyal never came to fruition.

Tutorean Conquests and URG Capture
Despite Aberforth's military success at Olympia, with only 50,000 casulties, the newly captured URG world quickly fell into the hands of the Tutorea, which began processing and systematically eliminating the population. When Orocovis arranged a truce with Angelico, the world became CSA once again, and due to the large population, the world was used heavily in the empire's sick experiments. Luckliy, Victoria Stannum was off-world at the time. Matthew, however, was trapped on Olympia and underwent hellish things there. Though he survived the Tutorean occupation, he was reduced to a nearly mindless drone at the hands of the CSA, who effectively brainwashed their soldier at that point, and when the world was finally recaptured by the URG in 2389, Matthew Stannum was killed at the hands of URG troops, and he became another one of the two and a half billion Olympian casualties that perished during the Tutorean and CSA occupation.