Garen

Significant Sentient Population

450 million

Allegiance

None, prison run by Galactic Council

Hazards

Looking at the planet is enough to make just about anyone want to puke. The radiation in the sector doesn't help either. Nauseous pilots tend to be less effective.

History

Credit for the original discovery of this sector goes to the Krilgorian fighter pilot Abbev Chez who, looking to get as far away from her annoying peers as she could, first jumped in, after discovering a gate from the Asteroids, in the year 2014 (towards the end of the initial Krilgorian push into space). Upon arrival the first thing she noticed was a distinct nauseous feeling she mistakenly put down to an expired serving of dehydrated Mud Worms she had eaten earlier. A quick shot from the autodoc to alleviate the symptoms made a small difference until her scanners placed an image of the main planet (pictured) on her viewscreen.

The feeling that the sight of this planet evoked reminded her instantly of her mating partner Neo Garen, thus completely overriding any small effect of the autodoc and rapidly leading to her stomach contents floating about where they weren't wanted. Totally disgusted the moment her hyperdrives recharged, she hypered out naming the sector Garen in her partners 'honour'. She didn't bother to make a detailed survey, because she was feeling too sick, and besides, she wanted to get home and check out the new 'holovision' technology that everyone was raving about.

In 2062, Tibrans 'rediscovered' the sector after scientists in Canopus West performing tests on the giant alien armada of ghost ships detected a new gate and sent a probe through to investigate. It reported back a fairly high, but manageable level of radiation, and sent an image of the planet Garen. Upon seeing the image, the scientists all began to feel ill, and mistakenly assumed that the alien flotilla was responding in some new way to their latest experiment. The ships were indeed responding, but not by making the scientists feel sick. Luckily the probe's information was forwarded to the homeworld before the station was vapourised.

Back at the homeworld, the Queen, although feeling quite ill all of a sudden casually approved the order for a colony ship to head to the sector before calling up surgical history of Captain W.F. Kaarp.....just to check on something.

The colonists arrived and although feeling absolutely terrible, did not dare disobey Royal Orders and dutifully set up their colony. After living miserably for a while they just couldn't stand it anymore and too sick, and tired to be bothered packing everything up, simply left the infrastructure in place and headed home.

All legions eventually discovered the strange sickening effects of the sector and no one wanted to have anything to do with it until finally the Galactic Council decided it would be a good place to put the galaxy's most hardened criminals and with a few additions, modifications and repairs converted the old Tibran colony structures into a penal colony. Not enough to lose their freedom, the worst of the worst criminals can look forward to a lifetime of nausea, an effect which helps to keep them manageable.

The system is a very small one consisting of a brown dwarf sun and a few small planets the most notable of which being Garen. It's perhaps more accurate to refer to Garen as just a large green rock rather than a planet. It's surface is covered with a slimy green goo with an acrid odour and foul taste. However being quite nutritious it is the primary food source of the prisoners there. No one really knows exactly just what it is about Garen that leads to the attacks of nausea that everyone seems to feel but scientists believe it has something to do with the strange radiation in the sector. The source of the radiation is unknown, but it's definitely coming in from somewhere.

Pilots affected by sickness naturally have difficulty finding the energy to wipe the puke off their enemy scanners and attack or repair with any real gusto.