United Colonial Systems
The United Colonial Systems or UCS are a group of planets that have merged into one nation and the Star and Crescent Moon banner. The alliance has expanded recently with the addition of the Ice System, Isthma and, most recently, Aumakua bringing the total number of planets to twenty-two across twelve distinct systems.
The UCS planets vary considerably in character from the northern libertarians to the western technocrats and the southern conservatives. The frigid wastes of Purgatory in the Ice System as well as the tropical climes of Isthma and Aumakua server to provide still more variation.
Although the UCS had already formed the basic character of the alliance was poorly defined and it took the self-described "Loyalist" system of Vortex to initiate the signing of the Vow of Freedom to push that ahead. Vortex hosts the inhabited planets Inspire, Drift and Imagination the latter now being home to the free-state and UCS Capital, Judgement. The Libertarian systems, Research and Sanctuary were the next to sign, each hosting two inhabited planets, Faculty and Erudite along with New Liberty and Freedom respectively. The "Progressive" Enterprise system, hosting the inhabited planets, Enterprise and Autonomy signed next. Finally, the "Machine" system of Lucille, hosting the inhabited planets of Pivot and Fulcrum, signed and it wasn't long before the remaining systems also signed.
Haven, in the Aumakua system, joined the UCS in 2610. The Aumakua system is based around a K class bright dwarf with a single gas giant called Hades, a planet so large and hot it is often considered a protosun, and the system effectively a binary. Hades has a ring system over a million kilometres in diameter and, between the Nimbus and Cardinal rings, is the relatively clear area known as the Haikili Division. The Haikili Division hosts the planetary resort moon of Haven and the airless moon, Anchorage, used by the Havani for ship building. The division also hosts four UCS asteroid facilities including Port McKinley as well as two current orbital defence platforms and one decommissioned, the latter now used as a research facility and ship's graveyard.
Completed in 2737, Port McKinley houses over one hundred and fifty thousand personnel and is the home base of the UCS forward naval presence in the Abyssal Void arena. The fifty-six-year-old base was constructed within a laser-cored asteroid, ten kilometres by five with a resultant cavity three by eight, over fifty cubic kilometres of space and more than seventy square kilometres of surface. Surrounded by a complex system of asteroids, with formidable defences, the base is generally considered impregnable. Access to the base is via a series of heavily defended tunnels: a two-hundred-metre-wide shaft surrounded by six fifty metre tunnels overlooked by twelve laser emplacements and a further twelve kinetics. The tunnels are internally protected asynchronous laser meshes, directable nuclear charges and retractable stanchions.
The central cylindrical cavity of the base is divided into three zones:

- A half kilometre outer buffer in which ships are not normally allowed.
- A cylindrical zone within that for ships under power or "stationed" as they wait for necessary supplies.
- A central "channel" in which ships can dock at a series of low gravity gantries.The base's facilities are built on, into and under the inner.