Jardine

Jardine (Herakleion)
← 3135 3151
Jardine (Herakleion) nearby systems (Map Legend)
System Information
X:Y Coordinates	-200.944 : -91.199
Spectral class	G2V
Recharge time	183 hours
Recharge station(s)	None
Planet(s)	5

System Description

The Jardine system is situated close to Ideyld, in the direction of Rexburg. It vanished from maps during the Second Succession War, becoming one of the Hidden Five under the faux name "Herakleion".

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.

System History

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). Apparently, first a faux twin system of Jardine named Herakleion was inserted in its place on all star maps and other sources, tagged as a dead or dying world, then it was conflated with Jardine, and finally Jardine was retroactively removed from all star maps and other sources with the supposedly uninhabited and quarantined Herakleion system taking its place. Remaining stellar data on public record for Jardine had apparently also subtly been altered: As of 3067 the data that was correct for Jardine was associated with Herakleion instead while data available about Jardine falsely claimed its star was a G3V star and that the world of Jardine was moonless; the system's sole gas giant was reportedly in the fourth orbital position in the Herakleion system, but in another (unspecified) orbital position for the Jardine system.

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.

Jardine was rediscovered in 3067 by Dr. Brooklyn Stevens and her team but in the chaos of the Jihad the information was lost again and the sole population center on the sole habitable planet was eradicated (see below), leaving the system essentially uninhabited. As of 3130 it still remained unlisted on navigation charts, though both the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth and the Duchy of Tamarind-Abbey had declared it a secured protectorate and permitted only limited access for civil and scientific expeditions.

Political Affiliation

• 2271 - Inhabited world
• 2571 - Free Worlds League
• 2596 - Free Worlds League
• 2750 - Free Worlds League
• 2765 - Free Worlds League
• 2786 - Free Worlds League
• 2822 - Free Worlds League
• 2864 - No record
• 3025 - No record
• 3030 - No record
• 3058 - No record
• 3067 - No record
• 3130 - Not recorded on star maps; declared secured protectorate by Marik-Stewart Commonwealth and the Duchy of Tamarind-Abbey
• 3135 - No record
• 3145 - No record

---

Jardine III

Jardine III
Astrophysical
System position	Third
Jump Point distance	9.12 days
Moons	2 (Oahu, Tonga)
Geophysical
Surface gravity	0.92
Atmospheric pressure	Standard (Breathable)
Equatorial temperature	25°C (Tropical, 2765–3067), 19°C (Cold, 3150)
Surface water	53%
Highest native life	Mammals
Landmasses	3 (Taveuni, Mussau, Rapa Nui)
History and Culture
Demonym(s)	Jardinian
Population	443,560,000 (2765), none? (3150)
Government and Infrastructure
Capital	Luzon Hou (2765), Hope (3067)
HPG Class	B (2765), None (3150)

Planetary History

Jardine was originally settled during the Terran Alliance era and by 2571 had been incorporated into the Free Worlds League as one of many autonomous worlds. The tectonically active jungle world had a native fauna leaning strongly towards decidedly felid and avian morphology and was nicknamed the "Planet of Cats" or "Feline Aviary". The human settlers hailed from Terra's pacific region, and Jardinian culture was a mix of Hawaiian, Filipino, Polynesian and Maori ethnicities.

In 2811 raiders thought to come from the Lyran Commonwealth laid waste to the world over the course of a week, razing most major cities and devastating the entire continent of Taveuni with cobalt-salted nuclear weapons. Jardine's government and infrastructure was destroyed, effectively eradicating the world as a political entity. In this situation, and with the First Succession War raging, the only help forthcoming for the few survivors was sent by ComStar who began to rebuild the world for their own purposes. In the same year, a world named "Heraklieone" was marked as a dying world within the Free Worlds League, 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. Within the Herakleion (Jardine) system, automated ComStar Safe Transit and Astrogation Project beacons 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. 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.

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. "Wayward" tribes of non-ComStar aligned people were allowed to live in the jungles, but could have no off-world contacts.

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

In ca. 3062 the DropShip Clarke crashed on Shasta, implicitly after being shot down. It carried living Jardinian Firecats, strongly suggesting that the lost planet of Jardine had been found. This prompted Interstellar Expeditions - who had worked with the Clarke - to hire Dr. Brooklyn Stevens with finding Jardine. She succeeded, barely escaping the guarded world again with her life. In the aftermath, Apollyon ordered the Erinyes planetkiller WarShip to Jardine to erase all traces of the Manei Domini operations there.

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 traps volcano. This supervolcano had swallowed the world's single large settlement, the city of Hope, and was irrevocably destroying the planet's biosphere. (This had been caused by asteroids launched from the Erinyes.)

Military Deployment

2765

• Twelfth Atrean Dragoons

2786

• Twelfth Atrean Dragoons

Geography

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

Planetary Locations

• Hope: planetary capital by 3067
• Luzon Hou: planetary capital in 2765

Local Flora and Fauna

• Jardinian Fire Cat
• Menehune
• Minokawa
• Tabiranth

Image gallery

• 

  Planetary flag of Jardine

• 

  Jardine World Map

Notes

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:

“

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.

(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.)

Nearby Systems

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

Bibliography

• Cutting Losses (in: Interstellar Operations)
• Era Report: 2750
• Era Report: 3145
• Field Report 2765: FWLM
• First Succession War
• Handbook: House Marik
• Handbook: Major Periphery States
• Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1
• Historical: Reunification War
• Jihad Hot Spots: 3070
• The Quest for Jardine
• Touring the Stars: Jardine