Renewable Energy
A reader asked why I didn’t give the settlers a renewable source of energy and the technology to harvest it and put it to use. This is a great question. The planet gives everyone the energy they need, but this reader was talking about technology as we know it.
I considered that leaving earth, even these dedicated environmentalists would cheat. If I ever publish the prequel with the whole and complete backstory, you’ll see that while the settlers in theory were dedicated to doing things the old way, they wasted space and weight in their shipping containers on solar panels and wind generators.
Those sophisticated pieces of equipment broke at the worst times, needed parts that were only found on old Earth and cost coins the settlers did not have. It was a nightmare and eventually the materials were repurposed into something useful.