System: Kaus Australis

Located far from its jump point, with hardly any water to speak of, an atmosphere too thin for unassisted breathing, and blasted by all manner of solar radiation from the blue-white subgiant around which it orbits, Kaus Australis would have been completely overlooked as a potential colony site if not for trace amounts of germanium and other valuable metal deposits just beneath its rocky surface.

The first settlers erected domed colonies along the banks of the Sea of Epsilon Sagittarius, the planet's only large body of surface water, located in the southern hemisphere. Radiation concerns and the discovery of limited subsurface water supplies, however, encouraged these hardy miners to move underground within a few decades. Relying on interstellar trade to survive, particularly with nearby water-rich but metal-poor Kaus Media, Kaus Australis exported the yield of its mines in exchange for water purifiers, foodstuffs, medical supplies, and all manner of other basic needs. The strong trade bond between the neighboring worlds eventually grew into a two-world alliance that lasted well into the Succession Wars.

Decisions affecting trade, defense, and social welfare were made for both worlds during this time at the alliance's capital on Kaus Media, an arrangement that often helped or hindered the ability of the Draconis Combine to exert its influence over the two planets when both fell under the Dragon's banner. Matters came to a head during the First Succession War, when Lyran agents-provocateur encouraged the alliance to rise against its Combine masters. The Kuritan response was swift and brutal, razing the alliance capital, occupying Kaus Media and briefly blockading Kaus Australis until both worlds turned over the Lyran agents and all dissident leaders. A negotiated settlement allowed limited autonomy and favored trade between the Kaus worlds in exchange for a more pro-Combine political line and hefty reparations that paralyzed their mutual economy for a time.

Even today, Kaus Australis maintains Kaus Media as its primary customer and source of goods, their symbiosis undeterred by centuries of war or the changing of allegiance to The Republic. The capital of Kaus Australis, Kaverni Bay, an underground community, is located fifty kilometers inland from the Sea of Epsilon Sagittarius. While home to a third of the planetary population - the remainder scattered in small domes and subsurface mining homesteads - visitors seeking to conduct business with the Kaus Australians are best advised to seek a Kaus Median facilitator first.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.