System: Sirius

A rarity in the galaxy, made more so by its ultrahot blue sun, the Sirius system actually features two inhabited worlds for the price of one, though this was not the case when the twin worlds of Sirius VI and its moon, Sirius VI-a, were discovered in the late twenty-second century. Colonization of the moon's surface began before any such efforts on the planet itself, as Sirius VI a featured a breathable, if thin-atmosphere, and water covered almost half its surface.

Meanwhile, the seismically unstable, oxygen-poor planet below, identified only as a resource for raw metals, minerals, and gemstones, waited almost fifty years before serious efforts to terraform it began. Oxygen factories and sulfur-hungry algae helped to transform Sirius VI into a more human-friendly environment in the space of a century, though it remained water-poor and cursed by chronic earthquakes and volcanic activity. In the course of this time, the mining colonists of the planet and the farmers who came to inhabit the moon developed a symbiotic relationship, and travel between the two worlds was many times more frequent than any contact with the rest of the galaxy. In addition, two orbital colonies, placed around Sirius VI by the mining corporations - colloquially dubbed "The Projects" - made an interesting waystation between the moon-dwellers and the planet-dwellers.

Sirius became an important part of the Hegemony's industrial and economic base during the age of the Star League, but suffered badly during the Amaris coup. The orbital colonies were destroyed by Amaris aerofighters, and the planet was cut off from its moon by a blockade that led to widespread starvation. After the Capellans took the system in the wake of the League's fall, the situation on the planet only grew worse, as oxygen generators began to fail over time and the seismic activity tore open many of the planetary settlements.

Fought over by the Capellans, the Free Worlds League, and the Federated Commonwealth, little was done to cure the planet's worsening condition, and by the time of the Commonwealth's demise, Sirius VI had become an almost totally deserted wasteland of broken, shifting land masses and rivers of volcanic lava. Today, Sirius VI's only remaining settlement is the domed city of Calgary, on the south bank of the Sulfur Sea, the planet's only large body of water. By contrast, the moon is broken into two main continents, Bounty and Hinterlands, covered with a patchwork of forests and grasslands, that support the bulk of the population, which lives in sparse farming communities. The capital city, Lost Hope, is located on Bounty's eastern peninsula.