Yele
On Terra Nova, the name Yele is synonymous with medicine. Yele is the most important pharmaceutical production center in the NLC , and on the planet itself.
Hundreds of different medicinal plants are raised by local farmers and processed by Yele’s giant drug companies. Yele is also home to the Yele Medical Center, reputed to be the best hospital on Terra Nova. The YMC has been responsible for dozens of medical innovations since it was established in TN 956. The hospital is able to perform the most advanced medical treatments known to Terranovan medicine, including genetic reconstruction, viral surgery, tailored anti-pathogen viruses and advanced cryogenics.
Yele started off as one of the new colony’s medical centers. Early exploration revealed the presence of the medicinal plants, prompting the development of the city as the prime Terranovan manufacturing site of medical supplies. At the time, it was cheaper to create a manufacturing center — even in a remote zone of the planet — than to import the necessary supplies from distant Earth. Besides, since many of the plants found near the site provided certain pharmaceutical products at a fraction of the cost required to synthesize them in a laboratory, a limited export trade began. By the time Earth withdrew from Terra Nova, Yele had already been a self-sustaining city for quite some time.
The presence of the Yele Medical Center has, in modern times, made the city-state a municipality with its fair share of wealth and prestige. Cutting-edge medicine is the province of the rich and doctors and patients alike are very wealthy, indeed. Students at the YMC have developed an unsavory reputation as hardened party animals, relieving the stress of long hours with recreational drugs of their own devising. This cottage industry is very difficult to regulate and few parties happen without chemical enhancement. The current king of the drug market is a very potent hallucinogen/stimulant called Spike (or sometimes Hit).