Jardine

Jardine (Herakleion)
Jardine 3151.svg
Jardine (Herakleion) nearby systems
(Map Legend)
System Information
X:Y Coordinates-200.944 : -91.199[e]
Spectral classG2V[1]
Recharge time183 hours[1]
Recharge station(s)None[1]
Planet(s)5[1]

System Description[edit]

Jardine is located near the Ideyld and Zortman systems.

System History[edit]

The Jardine system consists of a G-class star with four rocky planets (one of them in the life zone, implicitly the world of Jardine/Herakleion), one gas giant, and two asteroid belts.

As part of ComStar's attempt to curtail the location and continued existence of Jardine, the system's name was at one point surreptitiously changed to Herakleion (other spellings include "Herakleione" and "Heraklieone"[2]). Apparently, first a faux twin system of Jardine named "Herakleion" was inserted into all star maps and other sources and tagged as a dead or dying world right from the onset, then it was conflated with Jardine, and finally Jardine was retroactively deleted from all star maps and other sources.

As a result, all that remained of Jardine by 3067 was a collective memory that such a world had once existed and had been lost during the Succession Wars; but nobody could find it on star maps, or recalled its location.[3]

There are some subtle differences between the stellar data on public record for Jardine and for "Herakleion", though it is unclear which data is accurate for the real star system: As of 3067, Jardine was supposedly a G3V star while Herakleion was supposedly a G2V star; the world of Jardine was moonless, while two moons were listed for Herakleion; and the system's sole gas giant was reportedly in the fourth position in the Herakleion system, but in another (unspecified) position for the Jardine system.[3]

Jardine was rediscovered around 3067, but in the chaos of the Jihad the information was lost again.

Political Affiliation[edit]


Jardine III[edit]

Jardine III
Jardine Orbital View.jpg
Astrophysical
System positionThird
Jump Point distance9.12 days[1]
Moons2 (Oahu, Tonga)
Geophysical
Surface gravity0.92[1]
Atmospheric pressureStandard (Breathable)[1]
Equatorial temperature25°C (Tropical, 2765–3067),[1] 19°C (Cold, 3150)[1]
Surface water53%[1]
Highest native lifeMammals[1]
Landmasses3 (Taveuni, Mussau, Rapa Nui)[1]
History and Culture
Demonym(s)Jardinian[19]
Population443,560,000 (2765), none? (3150)[1]
Government and Infrastructure
CapitalLuzon Hou (2765), Hope (3067)
HPG ClassB (2765),
None (3150)[1]

Planetary History[edit]

Jardine was originally settled during the Terran Alliance era[4] and by 2571 had been incorporated into the Free Worlds League as one of many autonomous worlds.[5] It is located between Ideyld and Rexburg and vanished from maps during the Second Succession War.[10][12]

At some point between the end of the Star League and the end of the First Succession War, it was renamed to Herakleion in a deliberate attempt to obfuscate Jardine's existence and location.

As of 2811, a world named "Heraklieone" was marked as a dying world within the Free Worlds League,[2] but it is unknown if or to what extent the name change of Jardine was already in progress. The world mentioned as "Heraklieone" may or may not have been Jardine, another system, or an entirely made-up name at that point.

Public records in 3067 claimed that "Herakleion" had been hit by an extremely virulent biowarfare agent around 2815, and had been quarantined and its population of some 40 to 50 million people written off by the Free Worlds League.[3] Within the Herakleion (Jardine) system, automated ComStar Safe Transit and Astrogation Project beacons within the systems warned of a "Class Ten Extreme Biological Hazard Site" on behalf of Captain-General Thaddeus Marik, and forbade all vessels from approaching the planet, threatening prosecution under interstellar quarantine law up to and including seizure or destruction of offending vessels.[20] Beyond serving as warning buoys, the centuries-old satellites around the planet had a secret secondary function, namely to watch for trespassing vessels, raise an intruder alert, and launch aerospace fighter drones.[20]

The jungle world with its ethnically Polynesian population was subsequently maintained by ComStar (or rather, a secret cabal within ComStar) and later the Word of Blake as one of their near-mythical Five Hidden Worlds. It was a dedicated center for cybertechnology and the world where the Manei Domini cyborg warriors were created and trained.

Thomas Marik was brought to Jardine for treatment following his injuries in the 3035 bomb blast.[citation needed]

Thomas Halas eventually learned of Jardine's location and sent an expedition; however, according to a report dated 13 October 3070 they found the world destroyed, rendered uninhabitable by a volcano. This supervolcano had swallowed the world's single large settlement, the city of Hope, and was irrevocably destroying the planet's biosphere, destroying all traces of the Manei Domini operations.[21]

Military Deployment[edit]

2765[edit]

2786[edit]

  • Twelfth Atrean Dragoons[23]

Geography[edit]

Jardine has three continents named Taveuni, Mussau, and Rapa Nui.[1]

Planetary Locations[edit]

  • Hope: planetary capital by 3067[1]
  • Luzon Hou: planetary capital in 2765[1]

Local Fauna[edit]

Image gallery[edit]

Notes[edit]

In an unofficial discussion thread on the BattleTech Forum, Herbert A. Beas II, who had been the BattleTech Line Developer while the Jihad era played out, explained the world and its demise thus:[24]

Because the world was supposed to be "dead", it couldn't have much of an active defense network, to avoid casual discovery. Thus, Jardine's defense consisted of warning buoys and drone launcher satellites that only activated when specifically beamed a warning. Even the population centers were tightly controlled (which is why the planet has "Waywards"--people who live outside the city, but at a decidedly low-tech level). As it happens, the primary city--Hope--stood atop a supervolcano-sized pocket of magma, where it likely fed itself on the geo-thermal energy as much as anything else. From orbit, you'd have mistaken them for ruins....if you hadn't done something to trigger a drone attack, like Stevens did.
The real fun begins, of course, when one drops a half-megaton asteroid at relativistic speeds on that supervolcano. Gets a deeper impact that even a nuke can pull off quickly, liquefies Hope AND the surrounding Wayward communities, buries and/or incinerates all the hidden warehouses and bunkers storing surplus gear, and spews enough ash and smoke into the atmosphere to potentially send the rest of the planet into a mini-ice age. Jardine's ecosystem or feline analog mammals and rainforests will likely perish completely over the next few decades, and all that would be left for anyone to find would be on the continents and islands deliberately left to decay since the planet was initially erased from the maps in the First War.

He confirmed later in the same thread that the asteroid strike was carried out by the Erinyes, the Word of Blake's secret planet-killer WarShip.[25]

(It should be noted that these explanations are not technically canonical, as they were not posted in an official function or in the forum section reserved for canonical rulings and explanations. As such, this background information, which is not known within the BattleTech universe at large and was not explicitly given in any canonical source, may be invalidated or altered in the future.)

Map Gallery[edit]

Nearby Systems[edit]

Closest 40 systems (40 within 60 light-years)
Distance in light years, closest systems first:
Ideyld 6.3 Zortman 18.2 Szombathely 20.0 Shasta 20.7
Midkiff 20.9 Flychenia 21.4 Rexburg 21.4 Coriscana 22.2
Sterling 22.4 Pingree 26.3 Preston 30.5 Autumn Wind 33.6
Spirit 34.2 Thermopolis 36.0 Esztergom 36.7 Laureles 38.0
Niihau 38.3 Campbelton 38.6 Escobas 38.7 Sheridan 40.8
Szepes 42.1 Togwotee 42.5 Gallatin 43.5 Gannett 46.9
Washburn 47.3 Cascade 48.9 Zempoatlepetl 49.2 McAffe 50.0
Mundrabilla 50.0 Rasalas 50.3 Megrez 50.3 Kirkenlaard 51.1
Hódmezovásárhely 51.9 Paradise 52.5 Colfax 52.8 Labouchere 55.0
Tongatapu 58.3 Dickinson 58.5 Loyalty 59.2 Bondurant 59.7

References[edit]

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 Touring the Stars: Jardine, p. 4
  2. 2.0 2.1 Cutting Losses, in: Interstellar Operations, p. 343
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Forgotten Worlds, Book 1: The Hunt for Jardine, ch. 5
  4. 4.0 4.1 Handbook: House Marik, p. 16
  5. 5.0 5.1 Handbook: House Marik, p. 24
  6. Historical: Reunification War, p. 158
  7. Era Report: 2750, p. 36
  8. Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1, p. 10
  9. First Succession War, pp. 24–25
  10. 10.0 10.1 Handbook: House Marik, p. 34
  11. First Succession War, pp. 112–113
  12. 12.0 12.1 Handbook: House Marik, p. 38
  13. Handbook: House Marik, p. 42
  14. Handbook: House Marik, p. 51
  15. Handbook: House Marik, p. 54
  16. Handbook: House Marik, p. 56
  17. Era Report: 3145, p. 10
  18. Era Report: 3145, p. 38
  19. Escape from Jardine, ch. 3
  20. 20.0 20.1 Forgotten Worlds, Book 2: Finding Jardine, ch. 1
  21. Jihad Hot Spots: 3070, p. 269: sidebar report
  22. Field Report 2765: FWLM, p. 9: "Atrean Dragoons"
  23. First Succession War, p. 138: "First Succession War Deployment Table - FWLM"
  24. In this thread, specifically here
  25. In his answer here to a question asked here

Bibliography[edit]