Star system information

Star System information
A complete list of locations within all charted systems. You can vote to name any location or colony you find or found. Please let me know if I ever forget to update anything.

Expanse region
G-426 – main sequence star
•	Leeland: Capital, elliptical orbit causes extreme summer/winter cycle. Thick cloud cover blocks most sunlight but a dense atmosphere keeps most of the heat from escaping, making the surface hot and humid. Unusually active core creates a high EM field, disrupting most forms of EM based communication.
•	Asteroid Belt: A small accretion disc of stellar debris, likely formed from failed planetary formations or multiple collisions. Scrambles scan attempts and pose a danger to ship movement.
•	Asteroid Mining base: A large oblong asteroid several kilometers long. A small hive and drone population have initiated mining operations on the ore rich asteroid, creating a hidden bunker and early warning satellite in the process.
•	Gas giant: Large hydrogen based gas giant that contains numerous large asteroids in its orbit, in addition to three planetoids.
•	P1: Small, rocky planetoid that is devoid of life but geologically active. The surface is littered with steam geysers, indicating both geothermal activity and the presence of water beneath the crust. Thin atmosphere of methane, nitrogen, and trace amounts of oxygen with dangerous levels of sulfur oxide in both the air and water.
•	P2: This elliptical shaped planetoid is composed of various metals, with visible rivers of mercury running through mountains of crystallized rock formations. The day lasts roughly six minutes, causing tremendous strain on the planet, maintaining its nearly disc like shape. At the equator, a geostationary orbit is enough to escape orbit, making any landing attempt dangerous at best. Atmosphere is thicker in the poles, and is composed of a mixture of sulfur oxide, argon, and nitrogen. Due to geothermal anomalies likely a result of its rapid rotation, forests of crystals are a common sight across the planet.
•	P3: This small planetoid is covered in ice, with openings and caverns dotting the landscape. There is no atmosphere, but actively changing ice formations indicate geothermal activity below the frozen shell.

Dagmar – Red dwarf (Space pod cloaked here)
•	Kaltara: Population, 158. A volcanic proto-planet covered in flowing lava rivers and spewing volcanoes. The planet holds a thick atmosphere of toxic fumes and possesses no detectible water. Despite its hostility, a large mining operation has been deployed here due to the rivers of lava holding an extremely high mineral richness.
•	Gibson: Nitrogen ice giant that holds a number of rings in its orbit.
•	Gibson station: Population, 3. Command center for mining operation in Gibson’s belt.

Koenig – main sequence star
•	Accretion disc: Large asteroid field composed of gas and small dust particles with mixed ice and rock asteroids.
•	Tadeki Station: Fully automated mining and refining facility that passively collects and condenses particles from the accretion disc into usable materials, and subsequently uses said materials in the construction and repair of ships.
•	Calpamos: Large gas giant is one of the largest refueling sites in the expanse.
•	Calpamos Station(s): Population, 682. A large station that serves as a counterweight for a tether, which holds a series of gas mining platforms just within the Calpamos atmosphere. The station itself offers water and hydrogen refueling stations as well as repair and construction yards, and serves to distribute incoming supplies to new colonies in the system, as well as manage exports.
•	Acheron: Population, 932. Medium sized primordial world that possesses a primitive, but breathable atmosphere. Terraforming efforts are underway, and construction of atmo-processors is underway.
•	Deckard’ claim: Population, 182,000. Simple world with primitive biosphere of low-gravity adapted animal and plant life. No native intelligent life. Colony efforts are under way under the leadership of the discovering surveyor, Commander Lucas Deckard.
•	Djin: Population, 6,340. A small planet covered in porous holes. The planet is covered in water, and the network of caverns and interconnecting caves have yet to be even remotely explored.

New Port – Main sequence star
•	Callahan: A hydrogen gas giant filled with multiple rings and small planetoids of ice, all mined for both water and hydrogen fuel. A number of automated stations fill its orbit, as well as Callahan Station, which serves as the command and control for gas mining, and as a fueling and repair station for passing ships.
•	Asteroid belt: A moderately rich belt containing precious and heavy metals.
•	Bedrock: Population 3,270. One of the largest asteroids within the belt, a number of rockets cover its surface and have sent it into a spin. On its axis there is a docking port where ships enter the hollow interior. Mining platforms surround the space city, and there is heavy traffic in the area.
•	Darwin: A small, low gravity world where a forest of thick vine-like plants has nearly totally covered the otherwise lush planet, with the layers of vines growing hundreds of meters into the air in some places. A large military presence has been deployed, and a small research settlement has been established in the center of a clearing, which expands as the military continues to remove the vines. A temporary orbital tether has been constructed using a construction cruiser as a counterweight.

Juric – Main sequence yellow star
•	Brandenburg: A husk of a Unity server ship hollowed out and reinforced into the start of a space city. Holds the beginnings of civilian infrastructure, and houses military and construction workers who work to seal the tears in the hull and finish large weapon installations across the plating, as well as stabilizing thrusters and docking facilities. Most is closed to the public, but the open maw of the ship serves as a small free port for trade and commerce where initial settlers have opened businesses and industry around the docks.
•	Billiard: Relatively small compared to other gas giants, and holding a somewhat larger than usual core, this planet seems to be situated firmly in a grey area of classification. Regardless of its technical term, the planet is a featureless white ball as seen from space, leading to its name. Its atmosphere is a thick and dense multi-layered network of gas, with pockets of hydrogen and oxygen, and wind speeds low enough to allow cities to be built in the form of giant floating airships, witch drift along the currents to mine the gas. The cities themselves are largely self-sufficient with small populations maintained by aeroponics and wind turbines, which periodically dock with the orbital tether to unload gas and trade for resources to support the planet’s population of several million.
o	Norfolk: With an apparent population of several thousand, this decently sized moon is little more than an outpost. The surface is covered in storms as a response to the atmospheric generators, and the air is thin, but breathable.

Telarum – Binary red giant: holds some level of canderon, however gravitational distortions render G-field sensors ineffective.
•	Van den Broeck Superluminal corporate outpost: A large mining station that maintains several of the star drills, and stores the canderon they extract.
•	Krasnikov Interstellar corporate outpost: A competing corporate station operating its own star drills.
•	Military defense perimeter: A loose shell of sensor, weapon, and logistic platforms set in scattered orbits around the system, which serve a considerable fleet of warships and passing tankers, and protect a number of star drills.

Sentinel – Blue super-giant
•	Sentinel Post: A staging area consisting of a five moderately sized military stations holding sensors, weapon platforms, and docks. A battleship and associated fleet is docked at each one, and use the stations as bases of operations to patrol the boarder to Commonwealth space.

Tannhauser (Space pod cloaked here)
Alternate names: Kerik Ashka – Binary star system of two main sequence stars, one slightly smaller than the other. Recently given an official name by Union officials due to recent Valen settlement projects. Was once the Skyl home system, named for two characters of ancient Skyl mythology, it has no proper translation.
•	Aral: precariously perched in the habitable zone, this planet is dry, hot and heavily eradiated. Despite its hostile nature, life has found a way to flourish on the surface. Most of the planet is covered in a shifting dune sea, with a number of mountain ranges isolating a series of relatively small barren landscapes. A number of large valleys exist, carved out by harsh winds and a select few rivers that flow from exposed underground sources. The air is thin, but breathable, however the extreme surface temperature would severely hamper the speed of any above ground activity, and the scarcity of water is cause for concern for any potential colonization effort. The planet is the site of a Valen colonization attempt under Union supervision.
•	Debris field: The remains of the Skyl homeworld mixed with naturally occurring debris. The field holds a mixture of minerals and ice, and causes frequent impacts and meteor showers.

Wayward Hope
Alternate names: The Garden – Red dwarf first settled by the Gardener thousands of years ago, has recently been abandoned by the Union after loosing contact with the USV Hope. Has since been renamed in memory of the lost crew, and flagged as dangerous territory.
•	Barren rock: This lifeless rock is scorched by the star during the day, and freezes during the night. The planet rotates very slowly, with a day lasting several months at the equator.
•	Asteroid belt: A relatively small belt of asteroids that are, for the most part, held in a stable orbit around the star. It is likely the result of a failed planet.
•	Raligha: This lush, tropical planet is covered in water, fertile plains, and sprawling jungles. The planet appears as a deep purple with vast, dark blue oceans covering much of the planet. The atmosphere is thick with extremely high concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Native primitive creatures worship the local hive, bolstering nutrient income via tribute.
•	Ice giant: A supermassive ball of ice and gas. Mostly composed of inert gasses with little detectable useable resources.

M-199
Alternate names: Wellbuilt – Red dwarf (Space pod located here)
•	Dense debris field and nebulae shell around star
•	Cracked barren planet. Once the capital of the Builder's hive, nothing remains but boiling rock. The planet has been shattered into several large pieces and is slowly dissipating across the accretion disk of the star. It will likely grind itself to dust within the next billion years.
•	Ancient hive ship wreckage and mixed debris field. Heretic has entrenched the Skyl driveship within the debris, creating a makeshift FTL gate and shipyard.

M-323 – Red giant
•	A single, broken debris field of high metal concentration. The debris field contains the remnants of a Skyl mega structure, as well as the remains of a construction yard. Little remains of the facility.

A-295 – White dwarf
•	Frozen ice planet
•	Monitor satellite orbiting ice planet
•	Binary volcanic planets, high metal concentration
•	Barren, irradiated planetoid

Desmond – Binary star, one red giant and one blue dwarf
•	Accretion disc: A thin ring of stellar debris spinning around the two stars containing a microbial substance capable of feeding on metallic materials.
•	Pegasean Gas giant: This “Hot Jupiter” is heated by a combination of its core’s rotation and its proximity to the two stars, causing rolling firestorms  in the dense hydrogen layers of the planet’s atmosphere. The effect is rather stunning, but makes mining efforts useless. If the Union has observed this system this was likely a major factor in their departure.
•	P1: A frozen ball of ice with no atmosphere. It is barren and remote, with a crust composed of a mixture of rock and frozen inert gas.
•	P2: A thin atmosphere, geothermal activity, and high levels of oxygen make this small primordial world’s future a bright one, if the star lasts long enough for life to form on it. For now, however, there is little but pools of primordial soup, and lakes of a strange animated dark blue ooze made of a liquid carbon solution.
•	Asteroid belt: This sparse field holds small amounts of usable metals, but is relatively barren and filled mostly with rock and ice.
•	Ice planet: This small, dead planet is unremarkable in its appearance, A frozen world of gasses likely built up over millions of years from gas blasted away by the system’s formation.

Unity space
Zero Five – Blue dwarf
•	Gas giant: The lone planet is vast in size, and likely devoured most of the system’s resources and catapulted any others out of the system. It holds a large number of rings filled with ice and metal ore. Trace energy signs can be detected within the rings, likely unity drones left dormant to defend the location.

One Five – Brown dwarf
•	Server city

Zero Three – Red giant
•	Ring of gas from a failed gas giant
•	Asteroid belt
•	Unity mining base eating a metallic planet

Zero Two – Unstable neutron star
•	Research server ship in orbit

Zero One – Yellow Main sequence star
•	Hydrogen gas giant
•	Super earth with megacity. The planet is lush and offers a diverse range of biomes, but its mass means its gravity is beyond what most would consider comfortable. A massive, ever expanding city of servers and wandering maintenance drones spreads out from the equator, covering hundreds of kilometers in all directions. Most of the communications within are hardwired, but enough are broadcasted via radio waves that you can listen in on a small fraction of the city’s activity.

Union space
Tau Ceti – Yellow main sequence star (Space pod located here)
•	Gemini system: Two planets of similar mass orbiting at a distance of roughly 480,000 kilometers from each other. The planets are locked in their orbits and always face the same way relative to each other.
Gemini Alpha is the largest of the two worlds, commonly referred to as simply Gemini, and is the site of Parliament as well as one of the most active trade and cultural centers in the Union with a population of roughly 20 billion humans, as well as a small but bustling alien population concentrated through various immigrant heavy cities and districts with an estimated 80 million Ceph, 25 Million Valen, and an unknown number of Taidarens. Due to the fact that most Taidarens live as squatters within drainage canals and other infrastructure an organized census is impossible, but independent estimates indicate a population of at least 90 million.
Gemini Beta is the military center of the Union, housing the greatest collection of training facilities, universities, and shipyards of any other colony in the Union. Most of the planet is highly restricted, although several large cities are open to public access. Most of the planet consists of carefully managed nature reserves used to stage combat training exercises or weapons testing, with most of the cities concentrated on the side of the planet facing Gemini Alpha. Constant shuttle traffic between the planets brings in a constant stream of tourists, businessmen, and military personnel. The various cities on the planet contain affordable housing for veterans and their families, as well as some of the most esteemed colleges and universities in the Union, creating a large and diverse population of nearly 3 billion humans from colonies across the Union. It is illegal for non-humans to live on Gemini Beta.
•	Ockham: this small temperate world was once the regional capital during the rule of the Confederation. Since then it has been the target of several major conflicts and bombardments. The planet has suffered from the damage to its ecosystem, becoming a cold and harsh world with little fertile soil or usable resources. Despite all of this, its relatively weak gravity makes it an ideal location for tourists that flock to the expansive Thermo-domes that cover several popular tourist attractions and hotel locations, it also makes it both painful and expensive for natives to move off world, as adapting to the gravity of most other colonies requires extensive use of painful braces and muscle therapy, or highly expensive cybernetic augmentations. A disproportionate number of military recruits come from Ockham as it offers a way off world and covers the cost of the therapy to counter muscle atrophy. Ockham holds a population of nearly 3 Billion, millions of which are retired, resting in the low gravity of the planet from the comfort of one of countless rest homes and resorts under the warmth of the Thermo-domes. Most live beyond the domes, either commuting to work in the tourist-heavy cities or struggling in the harsh mountainous wilderness.
•	Long Island: a torus in orbit over Ockham with a population of nearly a million, it is one of the largest space colonies in the Union. It pre-dates the Union itself, and once served as a trade port for Ockham when it was the regional capital under Confederation rule. It has since become a place both high class luxury, and shady ill repute. When Ockham no longer sent trade through the station Long island turned to exploiting passing tourists, and offering trade of a less reputable nature. While the only advertised services of the station are its casinos and high class restaurants, it has become romanticized in popular media for its rumored popularity among smugglers and mercenaries as a common place of business.
•	Asteroid belt containing a mixture of precious metals and ice
•	Zeno: this frigid ice capped wasteland is, ironically, a bustling trade hub and major agricultural world. Beneath the thick ice is a network of subterranean cities built at first as a secret bunker during the colony wars, since then it has expanded outwards to create a network of cities, space ports, and hydroponic facilities that feed not only most of the Tau Ceti system, but export produce all across the Union. With a population of less than a billion, most of Zeno’s economic activity is from the export of produce and the import of heavy metals and industrial goods. Several of the leading technological corporations can trace their lineage to Zeno, and many still hold their headquarters beneath the icy plains of the planet.

Sirius – Binary star, blue giant with white dwarf in close orbit (Space pod located here)
•	Mentan: Population 53 billion. What was once a harsh and unforgiving landscape has been turned into a lush and inviting world in an act of defiance against nature itself. Mentan holds a proud history (which it broadcasts along its radio transmissions nearly constantly) as the location where the first of the Atmospheric processors were built, as well as the home world of their inventors, the scientists and engineers of the Behring Angstrom Corporation, which served as the ruling government until the planet was annexed by the Earth Confederacy. Its corporate oligarchy remained in place due to the corporation’s numerous contracts with the Confederation, however, it was among the first to join Gemini in declaring independence, striking a massive early blow to the Earth’s military force, as most of its military defense contractors originated from Mentan. Today, Mentan holds some of the Union’s largest and most prestigious academies and scholarly institutions, and has been the source of many advancements in the fields of medical, social, industrial, and xenological sciences. Now the position of CEO of the Behring Angstrom Corporation is determined by a local election, and the CEO is granted a seat in Parliament as recognition to the efforts of Mentan during the Colony wars and since. The clouds are thick and serve to protect the surface from the harsh light of the nearby star, and the remains of long decommissioned atmo-processors have become sprawling arcologies to house the swelling populace of intellectual elite and manufactory workers alike. The population itself is heavily stratified between the two primary casts of native born, who live primarily in sprawling cities surrounding the arcologies and serve as workers in the massive industrial complexes, and the intellectual elite, composed primarily of students, scientists, and engineers from off world who are attracted to Mentan’s many schools, academies, and corporate opportunities and make up the majority of the voting populace and dominate the local political landscape.
•	Arnim: Population 33 Billion. Before the domination of the Confederation, space was colonized by a number of independent Earth born governments, one of which was the German funded Pan-European Coalition. Arnim was among the first of Earth’s extra-solar colonies, and was quickly expanded into a major metropolitan metropolis and held as the poster child of pre-confederation colonization efforts. Today Arnim is one of the Union’s largest economic centers, holding some of the largest and most active trade ports as well as serving as the headquarters of some of the largest and most influential banking corporations in the Union, most of which now operating under Valen parent companies.
•	Leto: Population 967 million. A frozen, barren rock, Leto is a shining example of just what humans are willing to put up with to colonize a planet. Beneath the shifting ice flows of the surface there is an ocean of water sloshing in a primordial soup that initially attracted the scientific minds of Mentan to establish a xenology lab, but quickly initiated a gold rush to settle the harsh world when it was discovered that within the churning, volcanically active ocean lies one of the largest supplies of Terbium ever detected by man, as well as not insignificant amounts of many other valuable elements and minerals. It didn’t take long for the region to take notice, and after a number of contractual agreements with Behring Angstrom, the Astra Mining Corporation broke ground in what is now the city of Tiberfaust. Each city is covered in a massive dome due to the lack of a proper atmosphere, and is mounted on a series of adjustable posts that keep the city level, regardless of changes in the surface, which regularly cracks and shifts with ice-quakes. The local economy is dominated by the Terbium mining and refining industries, and Astra employs nearly 73% of the employed workforce. Nearly all of the processed goods flowing from Leto move through Arnim’s trade ports before leaving the system, and much of the funds return to either Mentan, or to the many banking companies of Arnim that help fund the massive mining cities.

Virgo – Yellow dwarf (Space pod located here)
•	Talgo: Population 13 billion. Mostly an agricultural world, Talgo has spent most of its existence under the radar of modern society. While the Union consumes its endless supplies of food willingly enough, it holds some reputation as being technologically and socially backwards in comparison to other colonies. Originally founded due to its rich potential to sustain life with little effort, it quickly became a gathering ground for religious separatists fleeing the Earth Confederation’s perceived oppression as a result of the signing of the White Covenant at the end of World War 3 banning the act of missionary service or religious conversion, with most migrants coming from the then recently disbanded Empire of the United Americas. By the time the Confederation had expanded to Virgo, it had adopted a method of administration that mostly overlooked the relatively underdeveloped world, resulting in the coining of the phrase “They don’t care about Talgo, and Talgo don’t care about them.” Being stated by an unknown individual, which quickly became the unofficial motto of the colony.
o	Dharius: Population 130 million (Human). With a weak gravity field and a dense atmosphere of greenhouse gas, Dharius is home to towering trees spanning for miles in all directions, avian beasts the size of houses roam the sky, and all manner of strange beasts fill the planet. While a good deal of the colony is dedicated to the tuerism, medical, and biochemical industries, the main export of Dharius is the many minerals found beneath the ancient Yggdrasil tress, which can grow three miles high in some places. Mining is inherently detrimental to the trees, which are one of the primary tourist attractions of the planet, causing some level of outcry among members of the Green party, and giving rise to environmental extremists who regularly pose protests and attempt sabotage against mining operations.
o	Coral: Population 32 billion. Often considered a paradise, its founders are recorded as saying “naming it something like Eden or Nirvana would be too obvious, it would just be asking for something bad to happen.” It was instead named after the strange, glowing reef-like life inhabiting the lush shallow seas. Despite initial assumptions and the first impression of many tourists, Coral is not actually supportive of human life. The many samples of life on the planet are actually silicon based, and as such fast hydroponic facilities cover much of the planet to support the tremendous population of retired, vacationing citizens, and wealthy elite of the Union. With so little land mass beyond the small collection of islands, most of the population inhabits floating cities and submerged hydro-domes where tours of the strange native life is given at a premium charge to flip-flop clad foreigners, and Taidaren con artists sell coastal cottages on islands that don’t exist to those with more money than sense.
•	Path: Population 112 billion. In the wake of the economic collapse of the People’s Republic of China, and the social uprising bringing about the Chinese Federation, the Japan led Oceanic Alliance saw opportunity in their new democratic neighbor. With what was at first a tenuous alliance, the mineral depleted and overpopulated nation began rebuilding with the aid of the Alliance, turning itself into a bustling center of trade, agriculture, and industrial production where once there was torched farmland, empty mines, and battle-scarred cities. The alliance was eventually sealed with the formation of the joint settlement project, which resulted in the colonization of Path. Today, Path has assumed its own culture built from the two parent nations that founded it, with the concept of Japanese or Chinese a mere matter of semantics. Path is one of the most heavily populated colonies within the Union, covering most of the planet with metropolitan sprawl and towering arcologies. The planet is cold and covered in stormy overcast. It was once a frozen tundra, but the mixture of industrial development and terraforming efforts have given Path a thick cloud layer of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. Path is a major industrial giant, and is one of the largest manufacturing and industrial focused colonies within the Union, importing much of its food from the nearby Talgo, and growing the remainder in vertical hydroponic towers that dot the endless carpet of sky scrapers and mega-structures.
•	Path Gate: Orbiting not far from Path is a large ring shaped metallic structure. The Valen operated Hyper Gate bustles with activity as ships file in and out of its artificial event horizon to and from systems unknown.

Eridanus – Yellow dwarf (Space pod located here)
•	Graystone: Population 8 billion. Graystone is a harsh landscape of irradiated rock and windswept canyons. The thin atmosphere does little to protect the planet from the radiation of its star as the planet skims just a little too far from the habitably zone most of the year, but the rich ore deposits are too good to pass up. With a mining and refining economy that places it in prominence within the Union, it brings in considerable wealth to the few corporations and traders willing to put up with the heat and dry landscape. The cities and mining facilities of the planet are encased within protective domes, or are buried underground near subterranean springs and natural reservoirs.
•	Huron: Population 12 billion. With deep oceans filled with all manner of strange and terrifying creatures, and a climate that generates at least twelve hypercanes per year, what is at first a prime tourist attraction quickly becomes a hell scape of immense aquatic carnivores and unrepentant storms. Acrologies dot the islands, standing against the torrent of winds, and large, mostly automated fisheries capture strange and exotic animals from the dark abyss of the planet’s ocean for sale as novelties and fashion food in high class restaurants.
•	Eridani: Population 16 million. Eridani was never a welcoming place, but after the space city of Mombasa collapsed along with the irradiated wreckage of the fusion powered CSS Alabaster and its accompanying fleet, the planet became nearly uninhabitable. Several small settlements make a living within the few domes that remain intact, but with wide spread poverty, sustenance farming with shoddy hydroponic facilities is all that the local economy can support. Most of the local populace are too poor to leave, and their plight is often the topic of late night donation drives and guilt trip filled commercials offering cheap shirts and novelty mugs in exchange for monetary pledges. The planet at large is still mineral rich, with deposits of diamonds and other such valuables, although such substances can be easily synthesized, rendering the cost of resettlement too high to be profitable.
o	Corbin: Population 1.2 billion. Corbin is tidally locked to its star, renduring half the planet a frozen wasteland, and half of it a scorched desert. Winds strong enough to rend flesh from bone whip into torrents as the super-heated air mixes with the atmosphere of the dark side of the moon. The only habitable location is along the equator, which is turned at nearly 90 degrees, and is bathed in perpetual twilight. Cities in protective wind domes create a thin ring of civilization amid the wasteland, which is each home to strange and terrifying creatures that seem too different to be from the same planet. Corbin has gained a reputation for an association with the criminal underground, and is romanticized in modern media as the location of many a major crime drama and action movie.

Gliese – Red giant (Space pod located here)
•	Mercy: Population 70 billion. An agricultural world gone wrong, it is often said that Mercy is too welcoming for its own good, offering settlers a vast and lush landscape to farm. Its population now swells to such a number that most of its food is grown via hydroponic facilities, although it is still a major exporter of food to other worlds. Most of the planet’s population lives within underground arcologies, with artificial plains and farmland above offering “natural” produce as a premium product at marked up prices for sale on polluted industrial worlds. It’s main economy has long switched from farming to agricultural engineering, and many strange and interesting new species of produce has been invented here, from the rapidly growing “soy tree” to the horrendously strange and unappetizing “Hippo-chicken” that has become the wildly popular secret of cheap food chains across the Union, Mercy offers a produce for every need, with entire districts dedicated to hydroponic labs of a certain breed or environmental need.
•	Tadega: Population 930 million. Tadega is a harsh world originally settled as a military testing ground for the Earth Confederacy, it quickly out lasted its purpose and is now a training base for new recruits of the Space Force’s Mobile Infantry division, as well as the site of several top secret facilities and suspected weapons labs of unknown location.
o	Tori: Population 272 million. Tori is the recently settled location of a vast commercial shipyard owned and operated by the Anchorage Shipping Corporation. It serves as a trade port and holds a large number of shipyards and docking facilities in its orbit, with a number of Union ships under construction or maintenance at any given time.
•	Dorson: A gas giant showing signs of large amounts of hydrogen and helium.
o	Exon Station: Population 220 thousand. Exon station is one of the largest and most active gas mining stations in the Union, and controls several hundred roaming mining platforms within Dorson’s atmosphere, as well as repair and refueling services to passing ships.

Sol – Main sequence yellow star: The birthplace of humanity, Sol is a thoroughly exploited system and settled system, with colonies or traces of past habitation in places that would be instantly passed over in modern times. Despite its historical importance and its still considerable economic activity on Mars, Sol is widely considered a backwater system that offers little to interstellar society. Despite this reputation, Sol remains in a tense situation on the border between to opposed human governments, its local industry and ecnomic activity is almost entirely held alive today by its heavy military activity, both from local military stations and ship traffic moving resources to other locations in Proxima or running patrols and deep scans of interstellar space.
•	Mercury: A barren, sun scorched rock incapable of supporting life. Several baked ruins of probes and smoldering wrecks of automated rovers are the only traces of human activity.
Venus: A baking, acidic hell world ironically named after an ancient human deity of love, the planet is as hostile to life as could be possible, with temperatures in the hundreds of degrees, an atmosphere if toxic and caustic chemicals, and rainstorms of potent acid make any attempt to colonize the planet a laughable exorcise in madness. Despite this, the ruins of a number of failed colonial pre-fab structures can be detected beneath the atmosphere, half melted and reduced to puddles of slag, but still offering testament to the stubbornness of humanity.
•	Earth: The ancestral home of mankind, earth is locked away within a dense shell of debris from both the remains of its moon and countless ship and satellite fragments making approaching or landing on the planet safely all but impossible. Its surface, a lush and diverse landscape, is regularly bombarded by deadly debris, radioactive fragments of military ships, and ancient munitions on a semi-regular basis, making any long term surface habitation impossible. While human survivors are alive and well, living in near pre-historic conditions scavenging in the ruins of civilization, there is little anyone either on earth or in orbit can do between the deadly debris and the possibility of remaining automated or unstable defense systems left behind as the Confederation retreated and quickly crumbled, and the planet itself has been locked away behind the Earth Quarantine Zone, which makes the outermost edge of the debris field. Programs to clean the field have been proposed, but the funding required and the dangers involved has prevented it from ever being considered by the Union with any contemplation.
•	Mars: Population 1.8 Billion. With the largest single population in Sol and a long, if dwindling, reputation as a major industrial power, Mars is one of the few remaining things keeping the system relevant in interstellar society. Initially populated by independent ventures in earth's distant past as humanity's first permanent and self sufficient colony, its ownership has changed hands again and again, through numerous wars and rebellions until the last battle of the Colony Wars left its surface devastated from relativistic bombardment that obliterated any past attempts at terraforming and left the planet in dire straights. After the destruction of earth's moon Mars was the primary location for resettling those evacuated from Earth, leading to many of its citizens having strong ties to both earth and the Confederation. While most pro-confederate citizens fled further into commonwealth space, leaving a majority of anti-confederate dissidents, Mars remains a simmering hotbed of political tensions where the threat of Commonwealth attack remains a real concern in the minds of many, and anti-Union sentiment continues to fuel a criminal underground in spite of all efforts in the past century. To circumvent the issue of political unrest, Mars entered the Union as a corporate world, with the entire planet registered as the private property of the Mars Corporate Authority, a conglomerate of industrial and economic entities formed from the ashes of the planet's local puppet government put in place by the Confederation, the largest and most influential of which is Olympus Shipyards, owner of Olympus Point, the only remaining space elevator on the planet, and one of the largest cities and industrial centers on Mars. The company, and the MCA in general hold a dwindling but still formidable influence over the solar system at large, forming the system's largest functional economy since the fall of the Confederation. While Olympus Shipyards has, ironically, gained most of its economic success from investments outside of Sol, it still brings in a considerable profit serving the military both stationed in the system and via contracts to service stations and patrol fleets beyond.
•	Asteroid belt: A large and uneventful belt of stellar debris and various precious metals that have largely been exploited over mankind's long history. Even still, mining projects continue to extract resources from ever smaller and less rich asteroids, shipping the vast majority to Mars. While most operations are organized from Mars or are largely automated, there is a considerable number of largely undocumented settlers spread out in small, independently run mining operations living within the belt itself.
Jupiter: Population 15 million. With the ever growing military activity and an entire space yard to fuel, the gas mining stations of Jupiter have been a critical linchpin within Sol since the dawn of spaceflight, and has only grown since. A number of old pre-war mining platforms now serve largely as colonies, holding numerous settlements and cities attached to gas extractors tethered further into the planet's atmosphere, and to stations and docking platforms further above in orbit. While sending a regular supply of gas to Mars to fuel its infrastructure, the belt for mining operations, and passing ships in need of fuel, Jupiter has suffered from a gradually decreasing population in spite of its economic stability, with most of the blame being rested on ever increasing fears of military action from the Commonwealth, and increasing automation in the gas mining process. With most modern gas mining stations being automated or run by a skeleton crew of at most a dozen, the future for citizens of Jupiter seem bleak to most economists. The planet holds many moons, and was once considered its own independent system in the days before FTL, but with nearly all of those colonies being reliant on resources from earth and dedicated to mining and resource extraction, they are nearly all abandoned, replaced by automated facilities or rendered ghost towns, and in a number of unfortunate cases, kinetic impactor craters.
Saturn: A gas giant with vibrant rings of ice and debris. Its many moons hold the ruins of small outposts, both military and research, none of them seem functional, after being either obliterated or captured by the Union a century ago. Few have any reason to go further out of the system than this, and the system becomes largely devoid of activity, save for the occasional patrol or service vessel tending to an automated probe or mining station.
•	Uranus: An ice giant, largely devoid of easily usable resources and with an unusual axial tilt. The planet's moons hold little activity. A small number of abandoned outposts scattered among its moons and within the planet's orbit.
Neptune: Another ice giant, Neptune holds little in the way of exploitable resources, and is inconveniently located, both in its system and in the Union at large, making any nearby ice or other resources hardly worth the effort to gather, although the remnants of old automated military refueling bases are still present, gradually decaying in their orbits.
•	Oort Cloud: While many systems have some shell of debris of some form or another created from its star's birth blasting away the leftover debris that failed to form into planets, Sol's cloud is unusual in that it has been so well charted and even settled in the past, with at least one object among them being the focus of confusion in the distant past regarding the scientific definition of “planet”, as well as being the target in a number of scientific endeavors. Even today, a number of small automated research station continue to function, gathering largely mundane data of some form or another along the far edges of the system, largely funded simply because they already were in place, as few other systems have felt the need to establish their own. While FTL offers a much better alternative in locations, the Oort cloud of Sol was once home to some of humanity's most important laboratories, offering a deep space location for dangerous and volatile experimentation. While it is long defunct, little more than a withered, decompressed shack, Pluto still holds the installation which launched humanity's first functional warp capable ship. Somewhere on the surface is a plague proudly displaying this honor to an empty room that has not seen life in well over a century.

Proxima – Red Dwarf: Technically a part of the Toliman system, Proxima orbits the neighbor star at a distance of nearly one lightyear. It holds no planetary formations, and passes through the dust cloud of Toliman on a regular basis, creating a faint but potent dust cloud effect.
•	Nebulous cloud: The system of Proxima Centauri is under a light year’s distance from its neighbor Toliman, or Alpha Centauri, and the two systems share portions of their outer gas could, causing slight disruptions in radiation and solar wind. Long range sensors are hampered by this, shrouding the fleet within and hiding their numbers to ships along the edge of the system. G-field sensors are unhindered by this.
•	Ticonderoga Fleet Depot: A deep space listening post and logistic station, Ticonderoga is a large docking platform that services an extensive fleet, which patrols the border between Union and Commonwealth space and monitors activity in the neutral zone. The station itself is quite large and heavily armed, with sensor and weapon platforms dispersed around the area, allowing it to monitor the surrounding space without being hampered by the dust cloud. A large radio telescope appears to be permanently fixed on Toliman.

Neutral Zone Space
Toliman – Binary main sequence/white dwarf
•	Gehenna: Gas giant holding a pair of moons that each show signs of past habitation.
o	Megiddo: A rocky moon with a faint atmosphere and ruins of atmospheric generators and terraforming operations, as well as the telltale signs of heavy bombardment.
o	Rhodes: A moderately sized rocky planet holding the ruins of an old military complex, and the scattered remains of destroyed stations and dock yards along the surface.
o	Via Maris Station: Typically left empty due to the Union and Commonwealth being unable to agree on who would take care of it, the station is only inhabited by a small group of negotiators and envoys who arrive once each year for mutual talks between the cold war nations of the Union and Commonwealth. The station is little more than a small office building placed in space, and provisions such as water, air, and food must be brought by each party.

Commonwealth space
Aquila – Trinary yellow star (Space pod located here)
•	Constantinople: Population 15 billion. Nearly perfectly centered in the so called ‘goldilocks zone’ Constantinople is a mild, temperate world with a wide range of biodiversity, from harsh deserts, lush rain forests, great plains, forests, and frosty tundra. Much of the local life is reportedly transplanted from Earth, raising its claim as a second Earth. Constantinople is the capital of the Commonwealth, and is covered in several sprawling metropolises. Local laws and statutes place a very strict standard of quality for all buildings, keeping much of the planet in pristine condition. White enameled towers covered in overgrown gardens cover much of the planets temperate areas, while vast swaths of land is marked off as park land or nature reserves with the goal of preserving Earth’s various biomes. The planet receives most of its economic strength from trade tariffs and taxes, with most of the planet dedicated to administration of the Commonwealth and the management of its colonies.
•	New Sparta: Population 18 billion. A sprawling network of mega-cities and urban sprawl, New Sparta is a major industrial powerhouse, offering city sized factories dedicated to the mass manufacture of all manner of goods, especially weapons and ship components. Much of the industrial sector is fully or semi-automated, with most of the population making up military personnel, engineering and maintenance, or administration positions.
•	Gas giant Helios
•	Renly station: Population 7,087. A major hub for civilian traffic, Renly station offers a range of services from trade and customs, to refuel and repair for both commercial and military ships. It serves as the command station for the hydrogen extraction operations on Helios, and maintains a relatively low orbit.
•	Odin High Command, orbiting Helios and is covered by near constant patrols of small strike craft and light corvettes. It serves as the headquarters of the Interstellar Fleet and is home to many high ranking officials. Details on population is classified, and travel to and from the station is restricted.
•	Jotun: Population classified. Jotun is a largely uninhabitable frozen wasteland marked by the single, massive superstructure of the same name. The fortress itself contains numerous services, including commercial enterprises and trade ports meant to serve the military population. The primary purpose of Jotun according to public record is to serve as the primary source of military training in the Commonwealth, acting as a massive boarding school for young recruits who are trained rigorously to serve as future officers, as well as future leaders. All political figures within the Commonwealth have graduated from the academy, and it is impossible to hold a commissioned rank without such a diploma. Screening for eligibility of enrolment in the war college is compulsory on many worlds.

Picon – Red Giant
•	New Dorchester: Population 4 Billion estimated. With several major cities spread across the planet, as well as a rural population of farmers and herders, New Dorchester is a cold, but hospitable planet, with most of the native biosphere consisting of lichen and a moss-like grass that covers the humid and mildly temperate steppe lands along the equator, with imported pine and evergreen trees originated from Earth planted into widespread forests along the frigid areas of greater longitudes. Near the poles, volcanic activity increases, creating a large number of mountain ranges and alpine tundra regions dominated by major cities, which use the geothermal heat for industry and warmth. The planet is under the rule of a constitutional monarchy, with the leaders of each city electing a planetary governor from among themselves.
•	Ephesus: Population 137 Million. A major trade port and economic powerhouse, Ephesus holds few people for its level of importance, using advanced industrial technology to provide for a greater degree of freedom for its people. It holds only one city of the same name, which is ruled as a republic. Those living beyond its walls are not counted, taxed, or regulated by local law. The planet itself is a hot world of coastal archipelagos and steaming deserts where thermal vents are common, sending boiling water shooting into the air. The industry and technology of the planet is extensive, utilizing automated technology that is often banned on other worlds, with multiple as yet unfounded accusations of the use of basic artificial intelligence. Most industry is operated by machines, with extensive automated networks operating most of the planet’s infrastructure, as well as most menial and physically laborious duties. A space elevator connects the city bellow to an orbital trade port, where an extensive military fleet is almost always present, recruiting the wild men from outside the city, and gathering refined materials and manufactured goods.

Sagittarius – Red giant
•	Gorgona: With a population of 87 million, this sparsely populated world is governed by a local mining corporation, and sends a steady stream of resources out across the rest of the system via automated solar sailor, providing cheap water, fuel, and air to the other worlds in the system. It holds no atmosphere, but is covered in water ice and frozen layers of usable gas, as well as sizable metal ore concentrations.
•	New Athens: At first sight, it is a lush world of archipelagos and shining, shallow oceans supporting a bustling population of nearly six million humans. On close inspection, the illusion wears off. The oceans hold little water, and are instead composed of salt and mixtures of corrosive volcanic chemicals held at bay by layers of high density plastic polymers that line the borders of most cities and floating arcologies that dot the surface. The soil is similarly toxic, and is composed of high concentrations of sulfur and naturally formed isotopes that kill any attempt at natural farming and force the use of protection suits when outside the cities. The air is mostly clean, but harsh acid rain and radioactive winds force many cities beneath protective domes. Small pockets of terraformed ‘green zones’ hold open air parks and farm land, using water and resources imported from Gorgona. Beyond the green zones the most complex, and for the most part the only native life to have been found is a variety of carbon based xenophyophores that feed on and are mostly composed of the toxic and corrosive chemicals, making them both useless and dangerous to the local humans.
•	Thebes: A large world with a high gravity and dense, heavy atmosphere, the surface is very sparsely populated with only temporary residence who work at various ground stations and research facilities, where mechanical move-assists are needed for simple daily life. Most of the population of seven hundred million resides within orbital structures and stations that form a loose ring around the equator, connected to the ground stations by space elevator. The mix of high and low gravity environments seems to have attracted a number of research installations and military interest, with both using the planet to perform controlled tests on new construction methods and high performance thruster designs, among other things, making the planet a moderate hot spot of corporate activity.
o	Tempest: With shallow seas and storm-battered rocky coasts, this planet is true to its name. While the gravity is agreeable to the human population of nearly five hundred million, the planet is churned into a frenzy of meteorological activity from the electromagnetic field of its parent planet of Thebes, causing tidal waves capable of reaching a kilometer in height caused by a mixture of gravitational forces and frequent quakes, as well as vicious hyper canes and volcanic eruptions. The planet is rich with water and with the fortress-like design of the cities built deep into the planet’s rocky coastlines it makes for a suitable place to live. Trade shuttles are timed to depart and arrive between the worst of the storms, but the settlements are mostly self-sufficient between each other, often sending only what is needed to pay the planetary tax.

Helion – Yellow main sequence star
•	Ice cloud: A thin but large cloud of ice and gas which creates a wispy fog over most of the system’s planets.
•	Arcadia: Population ~300 million. An oceanic anarchy world, Arcadia holds no central government, but is ruled primarily through a loose coalition between the many populated ocean seeding stations and weather control structures which double as cities due to their size and labor needs. Unregulated ports build from ocean rigs and drifting nomadic towns made from fleets of ships and assembled flotsam pocket the endless ocean. The navies of the city-states built around the terraforming stations offer trade while collecting taxes for export. As often as not, tax collection and piracy are indistinguishable as city-states attempt to squeeze the planet’s levy out of rival or neutral sentiments. The planet has a thick atmosphere rich in greenhouse gasses that help to keep the planet warm.
•	Gendrick: Population ~1-5 million. A frigid feudal world of poor farmers and warring lords living in the shadows of the vast pyramidal weather acclimatiors, which offer islands of warmth throughout the inhospitable and mountainous planet and houses the planet’s ruling class of administrators. The planet holds an agrarian economy despite its poor technology and environment, offering a levy composed mostly of food and recruits.
•	New Jerusalem: Population 3 billion. On the surface the planet is an arid wasteland, but water is plentiful in the form of underground lakes filtered by bedrock and sand. While surface domes dot the landscape, most of the population resides in subterranean cities built within and around the underground lakes. The planet supports three space elevators, each connecting to a massive ring of docks and trade ports connected by a loose network of tethers, umbilicals, and pipes.

Winsor – Red dwarf star
•	Iserlohn: A fortress planet dedicated to the research and production of experimental military technology, and one of the most heavily fortified locations in the Commonwealth. The planet is host to innumerable military bases for testing and manufacturing all manner of weapons, equipment, ships, and various technological systems, as well as training solders in their use. The surface is pockmarked with craters and blast marks from warhead impacts and mock battles in addition to the more recent and more devastating battle scars from the Commonwealth’s war with the Scavengers.
•	Debris cloud: A large and frighteningly dense cloud of hull fragments from both Commonwealth and Scavenger ships and stations. While it is difficult to tell now, much of the scrap floating through the system once was three military stations and a number of orbital dock yards.

Hive Space
Reprieve – Yellow main sequence star
•	Throne: Sheltered from the harsh radiation of the Cradle by the nebulous alcove, but bathed in enough of its harsh light to make it difficult to detect at long range, this was the fortress world of the White Queen, and the location of her last stand. It’s crust has been upended by some force, causing what was once a radioactive desert world to become a desert of smoldering volcanic rock. It holds a thin atmosphere of methane and other noxious chemicals and volcanic gases, although it was once breathable. It has a thick ring of decimated ships and docking pylons in its orbit.
•	Storm eye: A gas giant with the ruined remains of tritium mining platforms, as well as the rubble of docking pylons in orbit.

Refuge – Yellow main sequence star: Unusually dense and reflective ort cloud made from metal fragments, debris, and ice creates an insulating wall of static, hampering attempts to blink directly into the system and rendering sensors useless until the ship passes through at sub-light speed.
•	Frozen metallic world: An icy planet that skims the inner edge of the debris field that is covered in deep trenches and craters of exposed metal deposits. The planet is devoid of life, but is rich in metals and water ice.
•	Rocky temperate world: A moderate planet in most respects, it holds a thin atmosphere that offers enough shelter from space to allow liquid water and clouds to form, and supports a small collection of simple life forms that live in the shadows of the devastated hive spires that remain. The selection of life seems to be a narrow evolutionary bottleneck containing the select few creatures that were able to survive the destruction of the local hive forces.
o	Binary moons: These two satellites orbit in a close elliptical orbit so tight, they exchange atmosphere as they pass at their closest, causing geological activity from the event. They both are promising primordial worlds with the potential for life, although beyond simple bacterium which may not even be native, they seem to hold nothing at the moment.
o	Forest moon: A low gravity world with a thick and humid atmosphere which is host to a vast spread of thick and tangled jungle.

Waystation - No star, dense nebula obscures the area and hampers sensors
•	This small, sunless world is cast adrift though deep space near the center of the nebula from which you arrived into the sector. Its surface shows signs of heavy and extended combat.  In its orbit is the remains of a small refueling depot and the scraps of destroyed warships.

First Landing – A small white dwarf that marks the first hive settled when the queens arrived in the region.
•	Debris and gas field: This field holds sparse resources, with mostly vapors of common gas and rock.
•	Rocky world: This planet is covered in dead hive remains showing the results of past conflicts over territory and resources. The crust is a frozen layer of volcanic rock, with deep crevasses revealing a wealth of metals, mined by the expansive industrial presence of the Obsidian Queen. The surface is covered in docking pylons and is orbited by more still, and large numbers of picket ships orbit the world closely.
•	Frozen Ice world: This planet is encased in ice, but shows obvious signs of water beneath. It is covered in nutrient farms and water extractors, and is patrolled by an expansive picket force.
•	Primordial world: The thin atmosphere holds all the needed gases for life, but holds little to no water. It appears to a great deal of infrastructure, and a large number of surface drones.

Drift – A rocky, metal rich rogue planet set adrift in deep space. It is covered in kilometer wide trenches and fissures in its crust that run the length of continents, which are filled with exposed metal deposits and ruined hive structures.

Cluster – A construction of many pieces of debris brought together and built into a habitable structure by the Nomad. It is now swarming with the Obsidian Queen’s fleets.

Jewel – A yellow main sequence star holding a number of valuable worlds in its orbit.
•	Gas Giant: This planet holds a small cloud of dozens of planetoids, none of them habitable. Corvettes mine the planet for fuel and pylons build ships from the rings and lunar rocks.
•	Primordial world: A planet with a dense atmosphere that makes it difficult to scan. There are obvious signs of life, as well as extensive hostile hive activity.
o	Moons: Two unusually large moons orbit the planet. They both orbit along the same orbital path, and are both rich in metals.
•	Desert world: A dry but habitable planet that supports steppes and open plains of bright orange plant life, which is being consumed by the Obsidian Hive.

Wonder – A yellow main sequence star once held by the Builder.
•	Scattered debris: What looks like the remains of a system are scattered about in random and unstable orbits, making the area difficult to navigate during combat, but easy to defend from within the clear area near the star.
•	Ancient Dockyard: A massive superstructure of hive design. It is covered in half-built and long dead hive ships, and the pockmarks of collisions with the surrounding debris over the years. It holds the laboratories and primary shipyards of the Builder, serving as a massive skunkworks designed to allow for thinkers to create new ideas by sheer overwhelming number. Most of the experimental designs and concepts found within are useless, but the humans have a saying regarding monkeys and typewriters that seems applicable in this situation.

Farcast – A Red giant star which once served as a listening post for the White Queen.
•	Derelict sensor arrays: A pair of destroyed long range sensor arrays that appear to have been designed to use their position and hive connection to serve as an early warning device, although they also seem to have signs of what appears to be a kind of long range radio telescope built along the surface. The arrays are both greatly damaged, with signs of self-destruction of internal components, and extensive damage to the exterior hulls, making them little more than piles of floating slag.
•	Barren planet: A single, heavily bombarded and radiation-blasted planet covered in obliterated ruins. It holds rather basic metal deposits but little else. It is likely the system was inhabited for strategic reasons, as the planet itself is rather lackluster in its resources. Fortunately, hive industrial technology could extract far more metals from the planet than any previous hive could ever hope for.

Valen Space
Librae – A binary system with a Red giant at the center, and a blue dwarf orbiting near the edge of the system
•	Asteroid ring: A ring of ice, gas, and rock is smeared across the system. A thick ring marks the outermost region of the system, while a thin and wispy trail makes a faint figure eight between the dwarf star and its partner as the dwarf flings star dust from the ring inward as it passes along the ring’s outer edge.
•	Sonata: A gas giant locked in the blue dwarf’s first lagrange point with a powerful magnetic field and a vibrant collection of rings composed mostly of water ice and inert gases.
o	Freedom Prospect: A flourishing temperate world covered in forests and jungles. Patches of green mix with the native blue plant life, indicating where human settlements have focused their terraforming efforts. The planet has a number of moderately sized cities spread across the surface connected by rails and highways, with ports and trading posts set alone island chains within the planet’s shallow seas. It is protected and supported by moderate Union fleet traffic, despite not being an actual Union colony.
•	Asteroid belt: A moderately metal rich ring orbiting closely to the interior red giant. Mining ships can be seen tugging chunks away, or anchoring themselves to extract the valuable minerals, but the operation seems small and composed of freelance vessels.

Lanway – A white dwarf star, Lanway serves primarily as a trade hub for less than reputable commerce, and trade between those who wish to avoid more regulated channels. While there is no official trade between Commonwealth space and any other system, Lanway would be considered the de facto trade corridor for the Commonwealth's systems, being among the first and primary stops for smugglers and traders alike, with even the personal trade ships of high ranking officials making the occasional visit. It is often considered one of the worst kept secrets in known space, although any local will almost universally refuse to speak about such matters, even among the human population, deeming such conversation to be rude rumor mongering that could only drive away business.
•	Deep Song: Population 3 Billion. A rather uncomfortable metropolis by valen standards, the planet of Deep Song is held in nearly perpetual twilight due to the local star's dim light, and is kept at a habitable temperature only due to its thick atmosphere of greenhouse gasses and artificial ocean temperature regulation. Even still, the majority of life is concentrated along or near the equator where a number of floating residential and commercial platforms drift freely, less due to necessity and more due to valen physiology being overly sensitive to even the slightest cold, preferring year long tropical climates. The capital and main center of commerce is the anchor of the Deep Song trade station. The entire planet is in human terms a mixture of a commune and a publicly traded company, where all citizens serve as both employee and share holder in a delicate balance of debt and responsibility, regulated by a carefully balanced and highly complex network of regulations and corporate laws held together by whatever wealthy investors hold the greatest number of claims on assets and labor at any given time. Its spaceport built within the planet's anchor station at the end of its space elevator serves as a major trade and logistical point where the criminal underground and the shady edges of governments collide in a mixture of veiled threats and exchange of credits and resources, all owned by the Deep Song Bank and Trust, a loosely organized guild of valen bankers and debt handlers who rule the system through a delicate balance of favors. The name itself is a bout of irony, with the term holding multiple meanings in the native language resulting from the variations in which valen script can be read. The most common and literal meaning, when read clockwise in the native script refers to a risky but worthwhile investment. When read counter-clockwise, the meaning becomes a colloquial slang term meaning an agreement or deal done away from the view of others and under less than reputable conditions. The planet's name could be translated as either “A worthwhile gamble” or “A criminal's bargain” with equal accuracy.
•	Asteroid belt: Largely abandoned and exploited of all resources, the only installations that remain in this sparse and dust filled belt is small impoverished colonists living off of water ice mining on a small scale and pirates or outlaws seeking to hide from the authorities by living among the belt dwellers. This has resulted in many small asteroid colonies becoming almost a kind of pirate retirement home, creating a cottage industry providing lodging to wanted criminals whose hosts function on a policy of never asking, and whose guests stay on a policy of never telling.
•	Hypergate: A hypergate station orbits the star near the edge of the belt. A large station built around the gate serves as a customs office and local logistical center for gate traffic, offering gate-casting options for Landstrom, Lionon, and Picon, as well as access to the full valen gate network.

Nowhere – Nebulous remains of a super nova. The ancient event has blasted a bubble within the local nebula, creating a cluster of heavy metals and fragments of ancient half-formed planets that have been scattered across the region connected by a network of radio lasers and quantum communications systems which track the various settlements and colonies relative to each other. Originally inhabited by human settlers near the end of the human-valen first contact war, it has since been expanded, with mining colonies, deep space research facilities, and pirate bases all coexisting in a strange form of peace. Seen by valen as a kind of interstellar shanty town, it is primarily inhabited by humans, taidarens, and ceph. It is one of the few places a valen trader will think twice about before doing business, as it holds a strong stigma as a gathering place for debt defaulters both due to the nature of its origins and due to its reputation attracting all the wrong kinds of people.
•	Tenebris: Population unknown. A large dwarf planetoid almost a quarter the side of Earth, Tenebris is the largest naturally formed celestial body within the region of empty space affectionately known as Nowhere. Without a star, and only the ambient glow of the surrounding nebula, Tenebris is a world bathed in perpetual darkness. In spite of this, against all odds, it is not without life. The small, dark world is home to a number of silicon based lithivores which feed off the metalic compounds found within the dwarf's outer crust, and on one another. The sightless behemoths are largely the focus of rumors and hearsay, reportedly growing to absurd sized in the insignificant gravity. The local inhabitants utilize a series of sonic fences to drive them away from colonies, which mostly consist of mining stations and research labs, as well as rumored pirate hideouts and logistical stations for criminal organizations and secretive government projects. The dwarf planet has a rotational period of nearly six months, although with no local star such measurements are largely meaningless, and is on a drifting trajectory that will take it out of Nowhere space and into the nebula beyond in little over two thousand years.
•	Kansas: Population ~1 million. Reportedly named as a joke, Kansas was first colonized as a makeshift military base during the last months of the so called debtor's war, during which the human settlers within valen space were slowly beginning to come into possession of Union built warp capable ships, using them to relocate much of their forces in the newly discovered bubble in the local nebula and settling the asteroid with the intention of using it to mount a counter offensive against the valen forces. The strike never came, as Union negotiations lead to an end to the war, but many of the refugees and militia members remained on the small asteroid. In the time since, it has been carved out and set into a fast enough spin to simulate earth gravity, and is a largely self sufficient facility. Kansas is stubbornly still technically under the authority of the New Horizon's Initiative, the long defunct privately funded program that initially launched the colony ship that drifted into valen space in the first place, although in reality the NHI is little more than a local gang that happens to run the colony's critical systems, although ironically, their administration tends to be even handed and rather generous to the locals through some sense of familiar companionship, with anyone with a linage that can be traced to the generation ship that entered valen space being considered family. A mix of heightened xenophobia and a deeply ingrained distaste for valen culture and society makes the small colony highly hostile to outsiders, although small ceph and taidaren populations do exist.
The scrapyard: Population unknown. At first it was a matter of necessity. As the settler fleet first got a hold of Union warp technology a crash project was started to attempt to retrofit all available ships to warp capable craft. Larger ships were towed with warp tugs, smaller ships held in storage or docked with larger warp freighters, but over time, a collection of outdated ships was gathered together and a makeshift dock was built to repair and refit the ships, breaking apart the civilian warp capable craft to be refitted into battle ready ships. In the end, the truce bartered by the Union resulted in the half-built warships being left behind, their valuable warp drives stripped for use elsewhere. Since then, outlaws, squatters, and wanted criminals have flocked to the place, even expanding it with the additions of new ships and segments, expanding the haphazard collection of hab rings and interconnected starship hulls.
•	Cloud Nine: Population unknown. Another settlement named as an ironic joke, Cloud Nine is not one colony, but a collection of them spread out in a wide collection of small asteroids, interconnected stations, and derelict spacecraft all drifting within radio laser range of each other to form an odd frontier community of outlaws, retired criminals, and others banished, both forcibly and self inflicted, from their would-be homes, all mixed in with those who know no other life. Ice mining is the most common activity in the cloud, situated near the edge of the ancient super nova's blast range that has hollowed out this region of the nebula, with many using the location to wander through the nearby nebula, creating a niche but still present demand for scientific research.

Deep space
Matron Star – A Blue Giant star on the edges of charted space, it is the center of Scavenger activity, and the base of operations of the Migrant Armada. The Scavengers seem to have placed a great amount of cultural importance upon this star and the surrounding constellation, even before their arrival.
•	Thin ice fields: These ice fields hold little resources, but you have detected scavenger activity across them regardless, both mining and patrols.
•	Harvest: A low mass "Puffy" gas giant that, due to its unusual mass, lacks the density of other giants, causing it to puff out and take up many times the size of an average gas giant. This makes it easy to mine without specialized equipment, as ships are capable of entering the thin outer layers of gas with ease. Scavenger ships are crowding the orbit with their hulls interlocked into a large makeshift dock structure which makes it difficult to count their number, but it is considerable.

Eye of Sorrow – A Red Giant star of the M spectral type near the border of Commonwealth space, it's name is used by the Scavengers for navigation, but it's origin is that of the star charts of the civilization whose homeworld the Migrant Armada previously departed from. The constellation seemed to have held some level of significance to their astronomers, and the astrographic data seems to have been pilfered along with everything else.
•	Fool's Glamour: This world was likely once a gas giant, but has since had its atmosphere blown away as the star exited its main sequence and expanded to engulf the inner system. It is composed of compressed materials that have formed into diamond and other such structures, with layers of ice overtop. It would be incredibly valuable were it not so easy to synthetically reproduce carbon structures. As it is now it is worthless, but pleasant to look at.
•	Mire: A primordial world that has taken too long to bloom and missed its chance. It lacks the much critical water to hold life, and highly toxic chemicals in the atmosphere would burn away any that could form.
•	Forlorn Remembrance: Once a lush world with plenty of water, it is now a highly radioactive wasteland, toxic even to the hive’s robust nature.

Eye of Wrath – An M class red dwarf star near the edge of charted space. One of two significant stars within a major constellation as seen from an alien sky, it was seen as some manner of portent in their now long extinct superstition. The Scavengers have taken the name, but have not logged any of the cultural significance. Despite this, they seem to place some level of cultural significance upon it of their own accord.
Forsaken Son: A small, rocky planet on an elliptical orbit that passes slightly through the orbit of its neighbor before returning to skim the star. It shows signs of once having geological activity, with ancient rock formations covering its surface. Currently, Scavenger mining facilities cover its surface where such geological formations offer easy access to resources, indicating some quantity of metals.
Sanctorium: A rather sizable rocky world with a thick atmosphere of perpetual storm clouds containing an unusual quantity of hydrogen sulfide indicating possible volcanic activity. Despite the high acidity of the atmosphere scans of the surface show rock formations that lack the weathering that would be expected with the acidic air and average wind speeds as high as they are, with a number of tetrahedral indentations and formations on the surface, as well as unusually well defined mesas. The atmosphere itself is equally unusual, with a constant planet wide storm rotating about the planet more similar in nature to the weather patterns of gas giants, with both the planetary poles holding a hexagonal standing wave cloud pattern holding a manner of storm eye in the centers. What appears to be a moderately sized Scavenger survey team holds position in orbit, with light shuttle traffic activity along both poles and near several clusters of rock formations on the surface.
The Sentinel Brothers: An astronomic coincidence of astronomical rarity, these four small dwarf planets occupy the Lagrange points L2, L3, L4, and L5 of Sanctorium, each planet following the larger world in a lockstep orbit around the star. Each planet seems almost identical, too small to hold an atmosphere, but with a weak magnetic field indicating some manner of molten or partially molten core and geological activity, and each with a small ring of debris in its orbit and irregular rock formations on its surface.

Old One's Promise – A yellow main sequence G type star near the edge of charted space. This system holds some great significance to the Scavengers as a whole, who seem to hold it in some level of reverence as a kind of astrographic way-point marking a stop for the Migrant Armada to gather supplies. It is unclear how they would have known the region around the system to hold usable resources, but they seem to have anticipated inhabited systems to be nearby.
Sundered: A ring of stellar debris surrounds the local star. The debris is unusually high in metal concentrations, and detailed scans indicate a possibility of a small planet having once existed in the orbit before being torn apart by gravitational forces. Large, highly metallic asteroids rich in silicon and carbon alloys are scattered throughout the ring itself, which is mostly composed of small asteroids, minerals and metallic granules, and trace amounts of frozen gas.
Waypath: A lush paradise by all visual accounts, this moderately sized terrestrial world contains a thick, oxygen rich atmosphere and a vast landscape of green photosynthesizing plant life. A magnetic field indicates it is geologically active, and liquid water oceans cover at least half the planet, with large swaths of the surface covered in various algae blooms of some sort. High levels of carbon dioxide and water vapor have resulted in the surface temperature rising above what the local star would otherwise provide, resulting in a widespread zone of prime habitation for life, and very little ice coverage along the poles.
o The Mother Moon: An unusually large natural satellite relative the size of the planet it orbits, this moon was named with appropriate reverence for its rarity and size. The surface is largely barren, with no atmosphere or magnetic field, however it's mass and proximity is such that it seems to cause highly noticeable tidal effects on its parent planet, and seems to have helped stabilize its rotation, resulting in an unusually low axial tilt, and thus more stable seasons.
o The Twins: These two moons are hardly more than especially large asteroids, each only a few dozen kilometers in diameter. They are oddly shaped, their small mass being unable to properly press their surfaces into a spherical shape, and as such both more resemble tumbling potatoes. Both are pockmarked with deep craters and strange scars possibly caused by gravitational stress, but what is most unusual is that they inhabit the L4 and L5 Lagrange points of the Waypath-Mother Moon planetary system.
o The Observance: A Broodmother class world-ship, the Observance has deployed itself at the L1 point of Waypath. While the massive vessel is surrounded by swarms of picket fleets and other patrolling ships, surprisingly little in the way of actual scavenging seems to be happening. A moderate amount of shuttle traffic moves between the surface and the Observance, but not nearly enough to account for the typical strip-mining behavior associated with the Scavengers, and the surface has none of the typical ecological scaring typical of their presence.