Aquila Solar-system

System Specs:

  • Stellar Mass:  1.00 Sol Masses
  • Stellar Class:  G
  • Luminosity:  N/A Sol
  • Planets:  5
  • Moons:  0
  • Asteroid Belts:  0
  • Asteroids:  0
  • Objects:  2

Aquila is a gateway system. Elcor interests have a stake in the system due to Volturno being a prospective colonization effort. Vecchio had evidence of civilization, but questions abound as to how people lived on that inhospitable world.

The system’s gas giants have poor mineral wealth while the terrestrial planets have above-average resources.

 

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Planets Directory:

  1. Lepini
  2. Vecchio
  3. Volturno
  4. fuel depot
  5. Metaponto
  6. Pollino
  7. Mass Relay

 

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Lepini:

  • Orbital Distance:  0.5 AU
  • Orbital Period:  0.4 Earth-years
  • Keplerian Ratio:  0.781
  • Radius:  56,666 km
  • Day Length:  9.2 Earth-hours
  • Atmospheric Pressure:  N/A atm
  • Surface Temp:  N/A °C
  • Surface Gravity:  N/A g
  • Mass:  N/A Earth-masses
  • Satellites:  >1

A hydrogen-methane gas giant, Lepini and its moons have been cursorily scanned by space probes and found to have little in the way of rare resources. The galaxy at large considers it unremarkable.

 

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Vecchio:

  • Orbital Distance:  1.1 AU
  • Orbital Period:  1.2 Earth-years
  • Keplerian Ratio:  0.924
  • Radius:  6,443 km
  • Day Length:  39.1 Earth-hours
  • Atmospheric Pressure:  0.79 atm
  • Surface Temp:  58 °C
  • Surface Gravity:  0.82 g
  • Mass:  0.831 Earth-masses

Vecchio is a moderately-sized terrestrial world with a thin, hot atmosphere of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Initial surveys found trace amounts of iridium, but little else of interest in the silicate desert sands that cover much of the surface of the planet.

On a recent tour, the Alliance surveyor ship Kupe discovered a group of partial graves hidden in the equatorial mountain ranges. The ancient skeletons in the burial sites were obviously humanoid but incomplete and poorly preserved, which has made them difficult to identify. Fragments of primitive ceramic grave goods were also found nearby. This raises further questions about who once traveled to this inhospitable planet since the closest garden world, Volturno, has no intelligent life. Human universities are planning further archeological investigations.

 

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Volturno:

  • Orbital Distance:  2.1 AU
  • Orbital Period:  3.0 Earth-years
  • Keplerian Ratio:  1.029
  • Radius:  11,177 km
  • Day Length:  26.8 Earth-hours
  • Atmospheric Pressure:  0.83 atm
  • Surface Temp:  −10 °C
  • Surface Gravity:  3.3 g
  • Mass:  10.059 Earth-masses

A so-called “super-Earth”, Volturno is home to organic life but is nevertheless uninhabitable for the near future. Currently in an ice age, most of the planet from the latitude of 30 degrees north or south is a frozen wasteland, and so most organic life, limited to algae and lichens, resides near the equator. The strong gravity prevents any sapient species but elcor from thriving on the planet, and the elcor cannot breathe the planet’s atmosphere, which contains lethal amounts of carbon dioxide in addition to its oxygen. Small packs of vorcha squatters are attempting to take the planet for themselves illegally, but most of them live miserable existences in the planet’s crushing gravity and die from falls and medical complications. Only terraforming on a massive scale would turn Volturno into a habitable world, and the elcor lack the political capital with the Citadel Council to begin such an effort.

 

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Metaponto:

  • Orbital Distance:  4.2 AU
  • Orbital Period:  8.6 Earth-years
  • Keplerian Ratio:  1.002
  • Radius:  70,520 km
  • Day Length:  12.1 Earth-hours
  • Atmospheric Pressure:  N/A atm
  • Surface Temp:  N/A °C
  • Surface Gravity:  N/A g
  • Mass:  N/A Earth-masses

A hydrogen-helium gas giant, Metaponto has developed a helium-3 fueling station funded by elcor business interests who hope to bring enough attention to the system to attract terraforming investors and thus eventually develop Volturno as a habitable world. Thus far, they have met with little success.

 

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Pollino:

  • Orbital Distance:  8.0 AU
  • Orbital Period:  22.7 Earth-years
  • Keplerian Ratio:  0.994
  • Radius:  37,052 km
  • Day Length:  16.5 Earth-hours
  • Atmospheric Pressure:  N/A atm
  • Surface Temp:  N/A °C
  • Surface Gravity:  N/A g
  • Mass:  N/A Earth-masses
  • Satellites:  > 1

A relatively small hydrogen-helium gas giant, Pollino remains undeveloped while its sister planet Metaponto garners all the attention. This was not always the case – in 2180, news stories seeded throughout the extranet claimed that element zero was being found on Pollino’s moons in record lodes. This turned out to be a scam spread by the Dunawurachum Consortium, an elcor corporation trying to scare up investors. After a small fleet of space probes scouted the area, the hype quickly deflated, and the myth only persists now in unwanted extranet e-mail messages.

 

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