The Colonization Of Daedalus

Fully inhabitable terrestroid planets are rare and artificial worlds have obvious limitations so some planets have to be terraformed, for example, Daedalus, discovered by David Jones, which, in its natural state, grows no food edible to human beings or Tigeries. Native soil has to be sterilized to bedrock, then a terrestroid ecology, when introduced, has to be nurtured and protected from the native life which tries to return. Islands are easiest to defend and some baronies were rich enough to buy a non-interference pledge from the Empire.

Light is refracted around the curve of Daedalus so that, instead of a horizon, an endlessly receding landscape is seen with the setting sun perceived as a ring. The Highroad River links the capital Aurea to the Phosphoric Ocean where an autonomous cloned community (but see here) inhabits the island, Zacharia.

The single moon of Daedalus is, appropriately, called Icarus. 

Admiral Olaf Magnusson, based on Daedalus, is from the harsh planet Kraken which we have not seen (I don't think) whereas his wife, Vida, is from the oceanic world, Nyanza, where Flandry counteracted Merseian subversion. We know from the next installment of the Technic Civilization series that Kraken will be a centre of interstellar activity during the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire.