System: Alkaid

A dry world, dominated by sun-cracked desert wastes between low plateaus and hills of eternally shifting sands, it is only near the shorelines of Khalek, and the nearby Hekker island chain just south of the large polar continent, that life even approaches comfortable on Alkaid. This medium-sized world, far removed from its local jump point — though local guides can provide experienced navigators with fool-proof maps of nonstandard points for a faster trip — was discovered during mankind's first steps into space.

Early colonial efforts, however, were slow to develop, thanks to the planet's climate, and the four-month in-system journey to and from its surface. The extremely long revolution cycle, one planetary year passing for every fifty-one Terran years, and the resulting extreme periods between "dry" and "wet" seasons, further discouraged agricultural potential, another mark against colonization.

In fact, were it not for the twenty-fourth-century discovery of a host of commercially valuable chemicals and ores, just below its rocky, sandy surface, the Alkaid system would likely have become little more than a place to park a recharge station. Under the auspices of the Federation of Skye, however, the development of its chemical industry and a series of in-system buoys to guide traffic to and from the planet helped bring about the first real, permanent settlements.

The first of these settlements (and the largest to date), Moravska Ostrava, was established on the banks of Khalek’s Novaya Minsk River delta, and is home today of Toloy-Daelun Chemicals, which controls over twenty-three chemical extraction, processing, and distribution plants on Alkaid alone. However, while most business on Alkaid passes through Moravska Ostrava, the planetary capital, Verstigrad, is located almost 500 kilometers inland, on the banks of Lake Tatyanna.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.