Star's End

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Star's End
Star's End 3151.svg
System Information
X:Y Coordinates−83.244 : 432.154[e]
Spectral classM5V[1]
Recharge time206 hours[1][2]
Recharge station(s)None[1]

System Overview

A former mining system, Star's End has only one planetary body, Novo Cressidas, and a large asteroid belt (sometimes referred to as an asteroid ring[1][3] or asteroid field(s)[4][5]) that makes navigation extremely hazardous without intimate knowledge of the system. One of these large asteroids, New Silesia, is particularly well-known for being the place where First Lord Simon Cameron died in a mysterious accident in 2751. Starting from of the Succession Wars, the system was also known for being a pirate haven with a JumpShip yard. It resisted the Clans in the mid-thirty-first century longer than any other world in the invasion corridor before eventually being conquered.

Political Affiliation


Asteroid Belt

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Star's End II (Novo Cressidas)

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Planetary History

Mining Outpost

The inhospitable asteroid system of Star's End was originally settled by miners looking to exploit rich sources of germanium and other precious metals. It was one of the systems targeted by Maxwell Rowe during his efforts to build up the Rim Worlds Republic, beginning in 2330; Rowe began by negotiating a series of trade and barter pacts with worlds like Star's End, carefully avoiding any suggestions of a military alliance, defensive or otherwise. He added offers of social and technological favors including access to new Rim Worlds Republic university facilities over time, and through guile and slow but steady progress persuaded the natives of Star's End to join the Republic.[6]

Rim Worlds Republic

The asteroid belt surrounding Novo Cressidas had been recently colonized by the Republic in the late twenty-sixth century and the population numbered less than five thousand, but between the planet and its mineral-rich asteroids, the system was considered strategically significant; as a result, it merited a strong garrison, and during the early years of the civil war within the Rim Worlds Republic that garrison was a battalion from the Fifth Amaris Fusiliers. The Fifth were considered to be loyal to First Consul Gregory Amaris but with no idea of how these loyalist forces would react, when the Star League finally attempted to intervene in the civil war in mid-2581 the Star League Defense Force troops were forced to treat the Fusiliers with suspicion.[43]

The Second Marik Auxiliary Corps was responsible for providing the forces for controlling the Star's End system, with the Second and Sixth Marik Militias and the Second Brigade of the Fusiliers of Oriente deploying into the system in May 2581. Unsure of what resistance to expect, if any, the Free Worlds League forces were surprised to find no visible military presence when they entered the system. The colonies were all established on various asteroids along with the military garrison, all of which had gone dark to evade detection; with no charts of the system to draw on, the SLDF forces were forced to survey the system for themselves, a long, laborious fourteen-month task. Despite the difficulties in surveying the system, the Star's End system was declared to be secure in June or July, and the SLDF began to establish a fleet base in the system that ironically became the single biggest customer for the local mining colonies. The SLDF also established a supply depot on Novo Cressidas, the one habitable world in the system.[43]

After the Reunification War, Star's End was settled by armed refugees from the Rim Worlds Republic. They took to a predatory lifestyle, executing a steady stream of scavenger raids against the Lyran Commonwealth and Draconis Combine alike and reforming into a pirate society.[44]

Star League Era

During the middle of the twenty-eighth century the Star's End system was a mining system contested by the Rim Worlds Republic and the Lyran Commonwealth. Star's End would become famous in 2751, although not for reasons the local population would probably have wanted; First Lord Simon Cameron was touring the various states of the League as a part of a five-year tour when he stopped to visit the Star's End system in February 2751. The First Lord made an unscheduled visit to the New Silesia asteroid, where he socialized with the local miners and toured the facility before asking if he might try piloting one of the large remote-controlled robots used for mining operations.[45]

The result was a tragedy - the robot Cameron attempted to control acted in an unexpected fashion, turning towards the control booth and charging; the robot shattered the booth, resulting in the deaths of the First Lord and nine other people as their bodies were blown out into the vacuum.[45] The First Lord's death was declared to be an accident and would fuel many conspiracy theories, but internal communications from within the personal archives of Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky released by Laurie Tseng, Loremaster to Clan Ghost Bear in the 3080s, revealed an internal communication confirming that forensic evidence of sabotage had been turned up during the investigation into Cameron's death. The report was limited to the SLIC and HCIB communities and detailed that the command circuits on the mining robot had been tampered with, and that a Trojan routine had been installed; the investigators believed a nation state was involved, but due to the generic nature of the components used and a lack of further evidence it was impossible to confirm the party or parties behind the sabotage.[46]

Pirate Haven

At the fall of the Star League, the mineral veins played out. With nothing to keep them there, most of the residents left, leaving only the Belt Pirates. These pirates rapidly discovered that their livelihood depended on their ability to maintain their fleets. As a result, Star's End became one of the few places that could actually repair and even assemble DropShips and JumpShips. This was helped by the discovery of significant Germanium deposits in the mid-2800s under Novo Cressidas' southern ice cap, leading to rumors about the capability to construct Kearny-Fuchida Drive cores.[44]

Both the Lyran Commonwealth and Draconis Combine used the Belt Pirates' facilities during the Succession Wars to service their own ships.[1][44] Efforts to capture the system or drive out the pirates failed, mostly because the vast asteroid belt in the system was converted into a primitive Space Defense System by the pirates who lived there.

Apocryphal Content Starts

The information after this notice comes from apocryphal sources; the canonicity of such information is uncertain.
Please view the reference page for information regarding their canonicity.

Hendrick Grimm III tasked Tyler Erickson with eliminating Jake Kalmar and his band of pirates, whom were involved in a conflict with the Oberon Confederation. In 3026, Erickson tracked the new recruits of one of Kalmar's officers, Yaros Regas, to their main storage facility Port Aliveri, a moon base in Star's End. Erickson offered to spare their lives and transport them off-world if they abandoned the base, which Regas and everyone knew was a lie. Ultimately, Erickson and his company were defeated in no small part from the help of the recruits. Kalmar's forces were then relocated with the help of Interstellar Expeditions before the Confederation could send a larger force.[47]

Apocryphal Content Ends

Clan Invasion

During the Clan Invasion the Wolves initially bypassed Star's End to hit richer Inner Sphere targets, judging them neither honorable nor dangerous enough to fight (and also put off by the difficulties of navigating the defended asteroid fields).

Apocryphal Content Starts

The information after this notice comes from apocryphal sources; the canonicity of such information is uncertain.
Please view the reference page for information regarding their canonicity.

Head Merchant Raul of Clan Jade Falcon negotiated a "surrender" of the Belt Pirates to his merchants. Warrior caste elements were stationed on Novo Cressidas under one Star Colonel Darius, but Raul apparently kept him uninformed about the true extent of the merchants' cooperation with the pirates. In order to secure a local monopoly on spaceship maintenance, Raul had Morgan Fletcher's pirate forces (augmented by fugitive mercenaries from other worlds hit by the Clan Invasion) sent to destroy at least one Clan Wolf installation. However, before long frictions between the pirates and Star Colonel Darius came to a head and Darius declared a proper Trial for the system. The Jade Falcons 'Mechs were defeated through the destruction of the asteroid on which the battle was taking place through demolition charges. Darius was duped into believing the entire pirate infrastructure, which was actually spread over many individual asteroid facilities, had been destroyed. Disgusted by their dishonor, he could not be bothered to hunt the Belt Pirates down and the Jade Falcon forces left the system.[48]

Apocryphal Content Ends

Shortly after the Battle of Tukayyid, Susie Morgraine-Ryan arrived at Star's End with the remnant of her troops and proposed to join forces with the Belt Pirates under joint command with Morgan Fletcher. Thus, the New Belt Pirates were formed. The Refusal War between Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon created a power vacuum in which the New Belt Pirates flourished.

The Wolves responded to the attacks by sending several Clusters of solahma troops to purge the system. These troops were able to deter the pirates briefly, but the pirates eventually became bolder. Vlad Ward later sent a Galaxy of troops to eradicate the pirates, but this unit only managed to destroy around two thirds of the pirate force, suffering heavy losses in return including an entire DropShip (the Loping Wolf).[49] They did, however, break the alliance between the pirate leadership.[1]

Jihad

During the Jihad, Clan Hell's Horses launched an invasion of Clan Wolf holdings in the Inner Sphere, acquiring holdings for their own relocation to Spheroid space. Star's End was one of the first systems targeted, and was attacked in the opening wave of attacks that fell between the 21st and 28th of February 3071.[35]

The pirates later took advantage of the fighting between Clan Ice Hellion and Clan Hell's Horses during the early part of the Jihad. After dealing with the Hellions, the Horses sent their Beta Galaxy to end the pirate presence once and for all. The quasi-SDS created by the pirates worked very well against DropShips and aerospace fighters, but it was very vulnerable to attacks by battle armor and ProtoMechs. The previous alliance between the pirate leadership had been destroyed by the Wolf attack, and when Susie Morgraine-Ryan chose to abandon the system and her pirate comrades, the Horses quickly overpowered the defenders, killing most of them.[1]

The repair facilities the Horses found were primitive and had only limited capacity. Despite these limitations, these facilities were the only ones available to the Horses in the Inner Sphere, and were therefore considered critical to their ongoing colonization efforts.[1] However, no information about the development or improvement of the facilities was available after 3072.[50]

The shipyards were subsequently attacked and destroyed by the Word of Blake during the Bloody Tricentennial attacks, although intelligence indicated that the Hell's Horses had already begun to abandon the dilapidated facilities at the time of the attack.[51] By 3079 the Star's End shipyards were completely destroyed.[52]

Dark Age

After the Word of Blake detonated a nuclear weapon in the system in 3080 the largest germanium processing facility was abandoned for a year. Clan Hell's Horses withdrew from the system shortly thereafter, and they took everything they could from the shipyards. After 3081 the system welcomed many refugees from other Periphery powers and other outcasts. The multiple small communities of refugees formed a rudimentary government called the Council of Representatives. In 3090 the first raiders arrived, looking to exploit the germanium mines despite the danger of lingering radioactivity. All of these raiders were killed by radiation poisoning.[53]

In 3092, Interstellar Expeditions was sponsoring several archeological digs in the Star's End system.[54]

Military Deployment

Geography

Apocryphal Content Starts

The information after this notice comes from apocryphal sources; the canonicity of such information is uncertain.
Please view the reference page for information regarding their canonicity.

In the MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries High Reward Quest "X Marks the Spot," Star's End is depicted as an extrasolar moon biome with unlimited visibility.[47]

Apocryphal Content Ends

Notes

As it has been stated that The Periphery and Objective Raids are considered canon only when it doesn't conflict with other canon, the following information from those sources has been replaced by more current information from Masters and Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers:

  • Novo Cressidas: system position (second, not third), jump point distance (2.45 days, not 2.44 days), and highest native life (none, not 30% mammal)[3]
  • Military Deployment in 3054 (New Belt Pirates, not First Wolf Regulars (Clan Wolf))[60]

Map Gallery

Nearby Systems

Closest 28 systems (26 within 60 light-years)
Distance in light years, closest systems first:
Iron Land 14.3 Icar 18.4 Steelton 24.6 Toland 32.5
New Ålborg 32.8 Persistence 34.6 Butte Hold 35.0 New Caledonia 35.9
Chateau 37.5 Crellacor 37.7 Gustrell 38.3 Treeline 39.2
Csesztreg 43.2 Maxie's Planet 44.6 Norn 46.0 Apollo 46.4
Bensinger 47.2 Paulus Prime 49.1 Oberon 49.8 Sigurd 51.8
Romulus 53.1 Trell 54.7 The Edge 55.6 Drask's Den 57.1
Blackstone 58.0 Zertarum 59.3 Derf 60.6 Harvest 60.7

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Masters and Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers, p. 144
  2. 2.0 2.1 Tamar Rising, poster map
  3. 3.0 3.1 The Periphery, p. 144
  4. Field Manual: Periphery, p. 115
  5. First Succession War, p. 101
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Periphery, p. 18
  7. Handbook: Major Periphery States, p. 18
  8. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 25
  9. Historical: Reunification War, p. 158
  10. Handbook: Major Periphery States, p. 25
  11. Field Manual: SLDF, p. xi: "Inner Sphere - [2764] Map"
  12. Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1, p. 10
  13. Field Report 2765: Periphery, p. 38
  14. Field Report 2765: LCAF, p. 25
  15. Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1, p. 104
  16. First Succession War, pp. 24–25
  17. Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 2, pp. 122–123
  18. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 36
  19. First Succession War, pp. 112–113
  20. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 40
  21. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 47
  22. The Periphery, pp. 156–157
  23. House Kurita (The Draconis Combine), p. 132
  24. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 56
  25. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 59
  26. Historical: War of 3039, p. 132
  27. Fallout, p. ??[citation needed]
  28. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 61
  29. Era Report: 3052, p. 22
  30. Era Report: 3062, p. 10
  31. The Periphery, 2nd Edition, p. 115
  32. Era Report: 3062, p. 28
  33. Handbook: House Steiner, p. 70
  34. Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 42
  35. 35.0 35.1 Jihad Hot Spots: 3076, p. 12
  36. Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents, p. 64
  37. Field Report: LAAF, p. 19
  38. Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 62
  39. Field Manual: 3085, p. vii: "Inner Sphere - [3085] Map"
  40. Era Report: 3145, p. 11
  41. Era Report: 3145, p. 39
  42. Field Manual: 3145, p. VI: "Inner Sphere - [3145] Map"
  43. 43.0 43.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named H:RWp132
  44. 44.0 44.1 44.2 44.3 The Periphery, pp. 143–144
  45. 45.0 45.1 Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1, p. 20
  46. Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1, p. 21: "SLIC Comms"
  47. 47.0 47.1 MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, "X Marks the Spot"
  48. 48.0 48.1 Fallout
  49. The Price of Conviction, p. ??[citation needed]
  50. Objectives: Clans, p. 10
  51. Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 113: "Clan Industry"
  52. Objectives: Clans, p. 7
  53. Interstellar Expeditions: Interstellar Players 3, p. 43
  54. Interstellar Expeditions: Interstellar Players 3, p. 15
  55. Historical: Reunification War, p. 128: "Reunification War: Rim Worlds Republic Front Deployments (2581)"
  56. 56.0 56.1 56.2 Historical: Reunification War, p. 152: "Rim Worlds Republic Front (Jump-off - 2587)
  57. Field Manual: Periphery, p. 129
  58. Field Manual: Updates, p. 204
  59. Field Report: Clans, p. 13: "Clan Hell's Horses Deployment Status"
  60. Objective Raids, p. 32

Bibliography