Newosweik

Overview
Newosweik is a planet a couple light years away from ours. Even though the people who inhabit it don't agree on the exact location, some saying that it's near Alpha Centauri and others claiming that the constellations point towards somewhere in the Big Dipper, only one thing is certain: it's a freaking long distance away from Earth. Newosweik's population derives from 21st century colonizers that decided to make a home somewhere else, far away from the much and trouble of Terra. The thing they didn't realise is that, well, humans tend to bring it everywhere they go. {|

Etymology
The name Newosweik is bad PIE (Proto-IndoEuropean) for 'new village'. When people started filling up rockets and space stations to leave for a better place, some linguist suggested the idea and even though is stuck with the people, it was deformed. His intention was to give at least something that would remind them of the history they carried, but he forgot that many people that went to colonize this planet weren't even of IndoEuropean origin, notably Japanese and Indonesian peoples.

How come the planet was habitable to begin with?
During the late 21st century private megacorporations and some governments invested a lot into this, because everyone who would be leaving would be paying tons of money. Some average people were included too just so that the population would not be unequal. Scientists used an idea similar to that of comets bringing the elements necessary for life to another planet, akin to panspermia, and later introduced a number of species. In essence, thousands of rockets with stuff were sent to a lifeless planet that was known to already have water and a decent atmosphere.

But...

The point of this article is NOT how the planet was made habitable, but WHAT happened when people settled in.

Solar System
Newosweik orbits a yellow-orange sun two thirds the size of ours at a distance similar to Venus' orbit around our sun. The year is 386.4 days and the planet spins at a slightly less tilted angle than Earth. This means that there is less seasonal variation.

(more to come on the rest of the planets)

Newosweik has two moons of roughly the size of Pluto that orbit it at around half the distance the moon does from our planet. One of the moons always faces Newosweik with only one face while the other that orbits a bit further away does not.

Composition and size
Similar physically to Earth, Newosweik is 95% of the mass of Earth but has a diameter 105% percent of Earth's. This means that things weigh slightly less on Newosweik. The lesser density is due to the fact that the mantle seems to be of a lighter and more liquid material. The main theory explaining this is that the planet itself is geologically much younger than Earth (about a quarter), so that the core must be hotter, taking up more volume. The planet is more tectonically active than Earth, with average plate movement reaching 10 cm a year (about the movement of one of the fastest Earth plates, the IndoAustralian one). Coastlines and rifts indicate that roughly 100 million years ago all continents were joined together but separated quite rapidly. There are 6 or 7 (depends on who you ask) continents on Newosweik, of which some display some high mountain ranges that were formed during Pangea while others are from later development.

Climate
Around 80% of the surface is covered in oceans and lakes. In contrast to Earth, seas in Newosweik are much less saltier and in some rare cases can be drinkable although locals will often tell you not to risk it. As there is less continental mass near the poles and the climate is generally warmer than the terrestrial counterparts, the icecaps on Newosweik are much smaller and thinner and tend to fluctuate a lot more than *here*. The coldest temperature recorded is at the north pole, reaching minus 15 degrees Celsius. Tropical areas are seasonally hit by hurricanes of comparable force to the terrestrial ones, making a few coastal regions both sides of the tropics nearly uninhabitable. The planet spins in the same direction as ours, making the sun rise in the east and winds to blow more towards the west coasts of land masses.

Early settling
Several 'human pods' land on the southern continent later dubbed 'Tierra Nueva' (how original) by an explorer who, according to several sources, was called Gustavo Eisenbaum. The first years are characterized by strenuous work and little free time as people look for sources of food, asses dangers of the place, do reconnaissance of the continent and build bases. The majority of settlers coming into Nueva Tierra were Spanish-speaking. The main reasons are that during the time of space colonization, Latin America had become an economic powerhouse. Also, even though English-speaking nations also sent many colonists into space, most ended up elsewhere. A significant portion of Japanese colonizers settled in the eastern side of the Nueva Tierrian Gulf, while Spanish speakers settled across both sides of it. Culturally this created a new group of people of mixed Japanese-Hispanic origin who were the predecessors to the Esupanyá culture. Meanwhile other settlements mixed with Indian and Indonesian and the sporadic Irish created other mixed populations. Westernmost English speakers set their villages and some mingled with the Spanish ones.