The Galton System was a star system of the Mesan Alignment.
Astrography[]
The system primary was a K5V star with six planets, two asteroid belts, and a 15.4 light-minute hyperlimit. The innermost three planets were of no particular interest, but the Galton IV, known as Tschermak to its inhabitants, was an Earth like planet.
The inner asteroid belt of the system lay between Galton IV and Galton V and within the hyperlimit of the star, but wasn't particular rich in resources.
In the past, the system had boasted nine planets, but the outer four planets of the system were destroyed when the current sixth planet of the system, Galton VI, arrived from outside the system. The arrival of the nomad planet caused either a collision or a near miss between the former Galton IX and Galton VIII that subsequently caused a chain of events leading to the destruction of the four outermost planets of the system and the creation of a valuable resource rich outer asteroid belt.
Star density in the region Galton occupied was sparse with the majority of the stars being typical, useless red dwarfs.
Galton lay nine hundred light years from the Mesa System[1] and approximately three hundred fifty light years from the Darius System. (CS4)
History[]
Galton was discovered in the 1660s PD by the Anoosheh Kashani, a survey ship owned and operated by the Qaisrani Consortium, a barely profitable exploration group based on Larkana in the Istvan System.
Listed as ACR-1773-16 at the time, long range observation indicated the possible presence of both significant asteroids and a planet in the liquid water zone. The odds were marginal at best, though, and there was insignificant pressure to expand into the area at the time. The Consortium decided to have the Anoosheh Kashani survey the system anyway as it was already on route to a more promising star half a dozen light-years away. Unfortunately for the Consortium however, Captain Zardari[2], the Anoosheh Kashani's commanding officer, convinced her nine person crew to sell the system survey data to the Jessyk Combine agent in Istvan instead of reporting it to Qaisrani. The agent in question was interested and Zardari and her crew filed a falsified survey report.
Once the report was filed, the Jessyk agent sent a report of his own to Jessky headquarters, where it came to a senior manager that was a member of the Alignment. He concealed the report from Jessyk, handed it to the Alignment, and convenient accidents were arranged for the Jessyk agent and the Anoosheh Kashani[3].
The system's initial population was rather larger than most newly colonized systems because it was possible to import a starting workforce of Manpower Incorporated's slaves[4]. Between 1681 and 1707 PD, seventy-seven loads of slaves[5] were delivered to Galton by Jessyk slave ships. Galton subsequently became the Alignment's central industrial complex, shipyard, and primary point of contact through which its leadership on Mesa communicated with its out-system infrastructure.
In March 1924, a survey mission led by Commodore Prescott Tremaine, Royal Manticoran Navy, discovered the location of Galton, leading to the invasion of the system two months later by the Grand Alliance.
In May 1924 PD, a multinational fleet led by Admiral Honor Alexander-Harrington, Royal Manticoran Navy, launched a successful invasion of Galton. (CS4)
References[]
- ↑ A ten month direct voyage for a freighter in hyperspace, but slightly more than a hundred days by the Mesa-Visigoth and Warner-Mannerheim hyper bridges. With the bridges, it was a thirty-eight day voyage for a warship or courier boat.
- ↑ Zardari suspected that the Jessyk Combine would be willing to pay much more than finder's commission payable to them under their contract with Qaisrani. Indeed, the Jessky agent in Istvan eventually paid them ten times their contracted finder's commission.
- ↑ The Jessyk agent was killed in an aircar accident. The Anoosheh Kashani never returned from her next survey mission and was reported as lost to "hazards of astrogation", a blanket term that meant "we don't have a clue what happened to them."
- ↑ The need to ship in new workers only lasted for slightly more than two decades until on-site production of new workers began.
- ↑ An estimated three hundred sixty thousand slaves if the seventy-seven slave ships were carrying at ninety percent capacity.