Foxglove

System Overview

Foxglove is a K-type main-sequence star two parsecs spinward of Whistler.  Like many systems in the Reach, it has its own unique peculiarities, specifically, a vast amount of resources in the form of four sprawling asteroid belts.  Astrophysicists and geologists theorize that Foxglove was once home to dozens of rocky and icy worlds, but some combination of cataclysms caused their destruction.  The gas giant of the same name is all that remains, along with its three large moons.

After initial scouting, Foxglove was colonized en masse via four sleeper ships commissioned by Zijin Mining Group in Wy260.  Their massive investment in material and commissions for the initial colonists rapidly turned Foxglove into a powerhouse of industry for the entire Reach.  In the following centuries, the absence of any gravity over .2Gs in the system caused a great deal of physiological divergence in the populace.  Very few people born in Foxglove are able to survive in terrestrial gravities for long.

This divergence, combined with the ten-year travel distance from Whistler has created a fiercely independent populace.  Foxglove was the first to join Grove in a bid for independence from the Council in Wy549.  While the Foxglove Liberation Party never formally surrendered to the Council – and indeed remains a force of influence in the system – they lost control of Foxglove in Wy588.

Planets & Notable Objects

• Inner Belt & Shithole
• Riker’s Belt & Nevada City
• Sanders’ Belt & Sonora
• Foxglove
• Outer Belt & Klondike

Foxglove‘s Inner Belt is extremely rich in Tritium-infused ores.  Zijin Mining spun up ZMG Refinery F04A in Wy301, a large asteroid with sufficient sheltered craters to protect numerous cargo transfer docks and fuel refineries.  The cramped and volatile nature of the refinery rapidly earned it the nickname “Shithole”, which stuck.  

Named after the head geologist of the original Zijin colony, Riker’s belt is a dense belt of unremarkable but useful ores in the Goldilocks zone of Foxglove. The presence of organic compounds and fossils further confirms the system once harbored rocky planets supporting life.

Nevada City is a massive spun-up colony with nearly five million inhabitants.  It is widely known for its large domes providing Foxglove’s sunlight to stunning tracts of agriculture, hanging from their hydroponic berths in the spin gravity.  Ready access to industrial metals has allowed numerous manufacturing concerns to thrive in Nevada City, including quite a few small arms and munitions companies.

Sanders’ Belt was named for Rebekah Sanders, the astrophysicist who originally convinced Zijin to make the necessary investments to make Foxglove a self-sufficient colony. Like Riker’s Belt further down the well, Sanders’ Belt is rich in industrial ores but it is too far out from the star to have ever supported life.  Sonora serves as a common transfer point between the inner system outposts and Sunrise Bay, but has traditionally been rife with corruption and crime.  Even the FLP acknowledges the authority of the various local powers.

The only planet worth the title in Foxglove is the blue gas giant of the same name.  Foxglove is objectively beautiful, with roiling blue and purple clouds and a system of shimmering rings.  Orbiting with the rings is Sunrise Bay, a massive ring station and yards acting as a hub for the entire system.  Boasting a permanent populace in the hundreds of thousands, the station remains the traditional seat of government for Foxglove, hosting the Council governor’s offices as well as unofficial offices of the FLP.

Foxglove has three major satellites:

Snowball is a very large moon primarily composed of a crust of ice over massive sub-surface seas.  The city of Skinner’s Point acts as the population center of the system, with over a hundred million inhabitants across numerous massive domes.  It is said that Skinner’s Point is the only place in Foxglove one can walk a hundred meters in a straight line before hitting a wall.

The tiny moon of Echo spins in an irregular and extremely fast orbit of Foxglove.  Uninhabitable because of its naturally-disorienting coriolis force and a hazard to navigation in the highly-industrial planetary system, Echo is an astrophysical curiosity that has defied study.

The small moon of Sanders is a rocky body with active volcanic activity.  The city of Cut Bait was named after Rebekah Sanders’ historic presentation to the Council advocating for developing Foxglove into a self-sustaining colony instead of simply a resource mine for Whistler.  Cut Bait is host to Foxglove’s only research university, The Sanders School of Human Sustainability, which studies multi-disciplinary technologies to enhance long-term survivability in hostile environments, as well as long-term epigenetic changes to humanity across the centuries of colonial living. 

Foxglove’s Outer Belt is an ocean of water and nitrogen ice in space, enough to supply the system indefinitely as well as provide exports.  Klondike acts as a depot and transfer station for the massive ice haulers that transport ice down the well.  The permanent inhabitants are more fiercely independent, even compared to the other inhabitants of Foxglove.  It is said the Unification War began in the back room of The Twisted Sari – a bar and brothel in the Klondike transient district.