System: Ascella

A rare habitable planet found orbiting a white subdwarf star that older star charts still refer to as Zeta Sagittarius, Ascella is a very young, hot, and geologically unstable world. The presence of abundant raw materials close to the surface and scattered across the floors of its shallow oceans drew settlers here in the early colonial era, despite the presence of an atmosphere still laced with ammonia and carbon dioxide. Particularly dense metals, including some highly radioactive ores, were among Ascella's most common natural treasures, and also help to explain the above-average gravitational field of this medium-sized world.

When first discovered, native algae and a kind of wild brush had only begun to transform Ascella's atmosphere into something breathable by humans, but a century of terraforming was still required to cleanse the remaining taint to the point where respirators became unnecessary. Freed from their domed settlements, the cities and mining townships established early in the planet's colonization expanded across the northern continents of Askahr, Niejawa, and Quarenir, and the south polar continent of Saufell, leaving only the unbearably hot equatorial landmasses of Aytagrad and Ogleca untouched by man.

Though a major exporter of heavy metals and radioactive elements, as well as small fusion and electric engines for civilian and light military vehicles, Ascella was raided only a handful of times throughout the Succession Wars, and spent most of that time under the banner of the Draconis Combine. The planetary capital of Tarawa is located on the Saebeth River, in the southern peninsula of Askahr.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.