On the other extreme, the Navy IAR reported a planet that, while habitable, was largely devoid of interesting ores, characterized by brown, steppic expanses, and devoid of significant indigenous life. Once again, the context of these fly-bys must be noted: they were never intended as systematic surveys. Conducted by sector patrol ships just prior to outbreak of the Secession Wars, their primary aim was to ascertain what, if any, profitable industries might be quickly established in New Utah’s orbit. The Naval survey was aimed at identifying potential profitable resources for industrial-scale usage in space, not for local development needs. Since New Utah has only one moon—a small, lumpy, rock devoid of metals—and no significant asteroids, it was clear that any industrial resources would need to be planet-based, significantly increasing transport costs for either ores or finished products. Nothing likely to be profitable was identified in the IAR, and the report did not recommend undertaking the expense of more intensive follow-up.
Thus, from the perspective of New Utah colonizers, New Utah was heaven: readily available surface water, arable land, abundant grazing for pastoral production, and sufficient game to see the colony through the first few winters. Further, as compared to the extreme winter temperatures of Glacier Valley, the Saint George climate was exceedingly mild. However, from the perspective of the Imperial Fleet, there was nothing of interest that was not more readily available from (already remote) Maxroy’s Purchase or the recently terraformed planets of New Caledonia. Indeed, at the time, there was a good deal of political pressure to provide justification for the high investment made to terraform New Ireland and New Scotland.
By local standards, the New Utah colony was a quick and enduring success. According to MP True Church records, within one decade the Saint George colony not only became self-sustaining, but stockpiled the rotating four-year surplus advocated by LDS doctrine. At the conclusion of that decade, explorers and provisioned settlers had established farmsteads on the fertile plains surrounding what is now Bonneville, and TC tithe-houses quickly followed. Stock-grazing expanded rapidly, and the 20-year report shows in-kind payments of course and fine mohair fabrics made to the Colony Foundation. Urban centers at Saint George and Bonneville grew and, for a time, even thrived, fueled by locally developed energy resources, particularly solar. Although New Utah remained fairly remote, additional settlers trickled in via Maxroy’s Purchase, gradually increasing the urban population. Many of these were non-dogmatic Mormon “Sixers,” excommunicated and shunned by the True Church expansion on Maxroy’s Purchase, who passed through Saint George and on to the Bonneville frontier.
The question then becomes: what happened during the intervening three centuries? Until now, we knew only that the agricultural boom did not last. As early as sixty years after foundation, Saint George tithe records show that net production began to decline. The colony remained “successful,” but remained in stasis. Little or no further exploration was undertaken, and no new colonies were established on New Utah. This trend continued until, at this writing, Saint George crop and livestock production had become completely dependant on rare earth mineral supplements, in particular, selenium. Data are not available for Bonneville, which from shortly after foundation operated its affairs semi-autonomously. If Bonneville filed annual reports with the main Temple at Saint George, they have been subsequently lost.
No doubt the onset of the Secession Wars played a role in this. New Utah and Maxroy’s Purchase were distant even from New Caledonia, and both remained largely neutral. It is likely that no external capital—from either Imperial or Secessionist forces—for further exploration and colonization was available. The True Church did (and does) continue to finance a Mission to Saint George, providing selenium-enhanced fertilizers and nutritional supplements, but New Utah agricultural operations now operate on a break-even sustenance, not a profitable surplus, basis.
More complete answers may lie in private, family records in Bonneville. From the outset, Saint George was a True Church Farm Colony (and protectorate). Farming was conducted along strict doctrinal lines, with emphasis on high-yield production. The colony did not include a geochemist, xenobiologist, xenobotanist, or any other member dedicated to basic science. Although a TC institution for higher education was soon established, its focus was strictly vocational-technical. None of these observations is intended as criticism, rather as a description: this was a working colony, and could not afford much in the way of overhead.
Bonneville, however, was, from the outset, a good deal more eclectic. “Sixers,” while Mormon, are descended from six LDS dissidents of the twentieth century who advocated freedom of rational intellectual inquiry. For them, investigation of basic questions is not merely a matter of interest: it is of a matter of religion. Given the severe limitations on access to information they endured—no Imperial libraries, no Universities, not even access to the True Church Archives in Saint George—most of these personal intellectual quests were at best amateurish.
Nevertheless, amateurs often prove to be very keen observers, and some are even keen recorders. Which brings us, finally, to the crux of this paper. Although we have virtually no official surveys of the flora, fauna, or natural history of New Utah, one such keen observer and recorder did exist there. In the course of his occupational travels, during the first 50 years of New Utah’s colonial existence, John David Swenson, professional provisioner and amateur naturalist, traversed the length and breadth of all inhabited areas. He observed, imaged, and recorded the behavior of dozens of species, but became particularly enamored of a class of animals, now extinct, herein referred to as Swenson’s Apes, in honor of his discoveries.
Swenson’s records might well have been lost to posterity, had they not on his death in Bonneville been ceded to the newly founded Saint George Technical Institute, where, he said in his will, “he hoped they might do some good.” That Technical Institute grew to become the Saint George College of Arts and Sciences, and finally Zion University. During those growth years Swenson’s notes were not in fact doing anyone much good. Due to lack of interest, they were never scheduled for data migration, and so eventually became unreadable. However, during the run-up to New Utah’s 300th Founder’s Day celebration, for her senior project an industrious Zion undergraduate took it upon herself to dredge up and transfer as many founder’s era records as possible to current media. In the course of this endeavor, she discovered Swenson’s remarkable material, and brought it to my attention.
Swenson’s recordings are nothing less than phenomenal. At the time, these animals were classed as agricultural pests, and subject to local extermination. Swenson saw them otherwise, and became determined to record all he could before they completely disappeared. In addition to his meticulous observations, he acquired many killed specimens, conducted meticulous autopsies, and rendered three-dimensional holographic recordings. He made equally meticulous investigations of their reproductive habits, nutritional requirements, and of the plants on which they primarily depended. In the course of his work, Swenson became convinced that the creatures—or at least some of them—were sentient and deserving of protection. The Church disagreed: his work was ridiculed and suppressed, and thus his work, save the keen perception of one sharp student—was very nearly lost for all time.