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Galactic Guide: Kilian System. Spectrum Dispatch - Comm-Link
Greetings Citizens,
Today’s Galactic Guide features the military-oriented Kilian System, home base to several branches of the UEE armed forces. This article first appeared in Issue 8 of Jump Point, the Subscriber-only Star Citizen newsletter.
Kilian System
Kilian is where young soldiers go to learn the art of warfare and where old soldiers return to fade away. For them and most other Humans, it is the shining symbol of UEE military might. Located at the heart of the Empire, a single jump line away from Terra, and home to hundreds of military barracks, training facilities, shipyards and support facilities. Kilian’s economy is based entirely on the massive military presence, with weapons manufacturers and ship designers flocking to the system to offer their wares. Between the shipyards at Naval Station MacArthur to the Marine headquarters on Corin, Kilian may be the safest place in the galaxy . . . if you’re on the right side of the law.
Kilian itself is a white A-type main sequence star orbited by fourteen planets. The discovery of Kilian occurred early in man’s expansion into the galaxy. Terraforming of green-band planets began very early, as did the garrisoning of military forces here. While there was no specific plan to build out the system specifically as a military base, it naturally evolved from a forward base in the early days of exploration to the most important headquarters in the galaxy, as power shifted towards the region of space surrounding Terra. Only the UEE Army continues to maintain their formal headquarters on Earth; the Navy and Marine top commanders now direct troop and ship movements from armored city-bases on planets in the Kilian System. As a collateral development, Kilian has generated a large civilian population and is fully represented in the UEE Senate.
The Three Sisters
The first three planets in Kilian are dwarf worlds known informally as the Three Sisters. The sisters travel close to the star and are essentially uninhabitable rocks. Limited metallurgical resources are mined on the smallest of the sisters, Kilian III. For the most part, the worldlets are an outlet for UEE weapons testing exercises: their surfaces bear the scars of hundreds of years of antimatter blasts and railgun impacts.
Magma
Kilian IV is the system’s primary mining outpost. As the name — chosen by a particularly uninventive explorer — indicates, Kilian is covered in superheated metals and features heavy volcanic activity. No land area on Magma is stable, so miners operate flying carryalls capable of jetting entire massive refinery complexes from place to place.
MacArthur
Home of UEE Navy headquarters and birthplace of the Bengal-class strike carrier! MacArthur (named after a famed army general of the previous millenium, in what naval personnel choose to find amusing irony) is home to the largest Human naval base in the galaxy. It’s where tens of thousands of naval aviators train every year and where all major naval exercises are planned and coordinated. The planet is orbited by countless rings of spatial moorings and drydock facilities. The largest ships in the known universe, including the Bengal, are constructed in the space around MacArthur.As a result, MacArthur is a place where merchants can make a killing. On the legal side, merchants can bring in processed ores, weapons components, shield generators and a myriad of other elements needed for constructing large warships. Those affiliated with the black market can also get rich on MacArthur, as the planet’s population of lonely ship crews has a variety of appetites. The latter category should be warned, though, that there are more standing military patrols in the Kilian system than there are anywhere this side of the Vanduul line.
Osha
Osha is a small terraformed world, home to many of the families and support personnel for the system’s military population. It’s a temperate world that has been highly constructed: arcologies now dot the surface, providing homes for hundreds of thousands of husbands, wives and children of military personnel who are either assigned elsewhere in the system or deployed to distant stars. There is some profit to be made shipping to Osha, whose population generally seeks luxuries from the rest of Human-settled space.
Keene
Slightly larger than Osha, Keene is another civilian world. Unlike Osha, Keene is the domain of military-aligned corporations and businesses. If a manufacturer has a military contract, you can bet it has a home office located somewhere on Keene. Manufacturers compete for factory slots on the world because an in-system factory allows one to be a much more efficient supplier. This means that regardless of resources, everything from toilet paper to starship bulkheads is manufactured here. Roberts Space Industries and Anvil Aerospace both maintain formal showrooms on Keene which may be visited by civilians.
Kilian VIII
Kilian VIII is an ocean world with an open secret: it is highly toxic to the point of total inhospitability. What appears from orbit to be a tropical paradise is in fact an orb of high-density fluid consisting of water, ammonia and more volatile liquids. No current space suit technology is capable of protecting a Human on VIII’s surface and even most starship hulls will dissolve with minimal contact.
Corin
Home of the UEE Marines, Corin is a deadly ice world that is used for Marine command, housing and training. Dotted with icy tundras and craggy rock caves, Corin is technically outside the system’s green band. The Marines maintain a massive underground base, but also require that all trainees survive a six-month boot camp on the planet’s surface. Marine units not in the field are engaged in constant wargames here. Corin is one of the best-protected worlds in the galaxy, with a Marine carrier preventing unauthorized access at all times. The best advice: do not approach.
Outer Planets
Kilian X through Kilian XIV are uninhabitable. X has a thin atmosphere and a dense mineral-rich surface. Metal rights to the planet are currently locked in an ongoing court battle, so only claim hoppers need apply . . . and the massive military in the region makes that an unappealing prospect for all but the boldest miners. Kilian XI is a gas giant which is used primarily for in-system fuel supply. Automated harvester platforms surround the planet, gathering resources for UEE shipyards. Kilian XII, XIII and XIV are small, essentially dead worlds of little interest. Kilian XIII, sometimes called a “haunted planet,” does feature an impressive smoky-quartz surface that looks like nothing else in the galaxy.
