IS Atlas / System / Detail

Description:

As its star, a red giant over a hundred times the size of Sol, is well into its final years, Gacrux, too, is a world in a state of decline, cooling as the warmth of its primary fades more and more with each passing century. Despite its lack of water and nutrient-poor soil, colonists were drawn to Gacrux by its abundance of precious metals, industrial ores, and radioactive materials, establishing several mining and manufacturing operations here. Most of these settlements naturally arose on the shores of the planet's two large, landlocked, freshwater oceans, Praddis and Umberholdt.

Though lacking in sufficient resources to feed a booming population itself, Gacrux prospered as an industrial world, becoming a member of the Federation of Skye soon after the fall of the Terran Alliance. The nearness of the expanding Free Worlds League, however, exposed Gacrux to many raids over the years, enough so that the people of this world eagerly embraced the union of the Federation into the Lyran Commonwealth. Since that day, the people of Gacrux became known for their remarkable loyalty to the Commonwealth, and were among the few Skye worlds not opposed to Steiner rule during the region's rebellious years.

As time went on, and Gacrux survived repeated assaults from neighboring realms, however, the Gacruxians' sense of nationalism evolved into a kind of xenophobia. The locals protested the Commonwealth's alliance with the Federated Suns and the militia forces constantly lobbied for military action against the Free Worlds League. This attitude made Gacrux one of the strongholds of a Lyran supremacist movement - formerly a veterans association - called the Brotherhood of Cincinnatus, a group that achieved infamy during the mid-thirty-first century for a string of domestic terrorist attacks.

The capital city, Fort Habersburg, is located on the southern coast of Praddis.

[3062] Containing a large number of semi-retired veterans, the Gacrux FTM is a stronghold of the Brotherhood of Cincinnatus. They have long opposed the Federated Commonwealth, whose formation ironically led to the militia's creation. Though the secession of the Lyran Alliance from the Federated Commonwealth pleased the militia, the alliance with the Free Worlds League did not. The FTM has since argued for a resumption of hostilities against the Alliance's rimward neighbor. This aggressive stance has prompted the LAAF to keep the militia on a short leash, restricting their supplies and access to transport assets so as to prevent an "independent operation" against the League. The Free Skye movement has made numerous attempts to draw the militia into its tangled web but all to no avail.