Fiction:Valian Empire/Zhiagekim

The Zhiagekim Enclave is a remote globular cluster linked to northern Rohse by the Tharysian Trade Route. It is one of the Valian Empire’s two enclave divisions and one of the nine imperial Provinces. The cluster was first explored thousands of years ago during the Illeosan dynasty, who thought it might contain mineral riches. After these proved scarce, the cluster became known as the notorious destination for the most problematic political enemies of the crown; Harrel Hannelor, hundreds of the failed rebel sciritans who fought in the Schism and the defeated alien leaders of the Cyric Wars were all imprisoned here. Today, the cluster’s inhabited systems are relatively few: so far removed from galactic civilization, the Heuron’s presence is minimal, and most colonies are owned and managed by mining and waste-management corporations.

Trade Routes and Planets
The boundaries of the Zhiagekim Enclave make up the northern imperial border and mark the northern edge of the galaxy itself. The cluster was discovered quite by accident during the late Beil’Eche Period, when imperial general Tih’mon Vesi made a warped northwestern jump from planet Allienne in the Maze while following a band of Nadian pirates in 22,341 AF. The crown subsequently ordered the further exploration of the region, but its lack of any intelligent life or valuable resources meant that it soon faded from most Valian minds.

Emperor Geilon I did find a purpose for it, taking advantage of its isolated location to convert it into a prison for those exiled or imprisoned during the reign of his father, Garon the Brutal, as well as anyone who displeased the crown in the future. He established a fortified prison-fort at Ach’ture, then the Empire’s outermost outpost: after the failed uprising known as Harrel’s conquest and the collapse of the Hannelorian Empire, the usurper-emperor himself was imprisoned there. It would not be until after House Illeosa’s deposition and House Arabasti’s rise that the cluster would be really developed, when acclaimed explorer and princeling Ysen Pearlemos blazed the current Pearlemosi Star Trail and went much farther north, settling a string of planets along it and finally settling down on planet Zhiagekim, named after his son Zhiagos, where he died a century later.

Today, a single major route dominates the Enclave, a relatively small region when compared to the Empire’s other holdings: the aforementioned Star Trail, an extension of the much larger Thayrisan Route. Ach’ture has become the cluster’s de facto capital, and still houses a number of inmates; however, it has been replaced as the Empire’s chief prison by planet Fovad and its ten moons, which have gained a notorious reputation throughout the galaxy as a brutal and hopeless place. Despite initial perception, the cluster has yielded considerable mineral production, with large mining facilities on Liburu, Erm’Mar and Sylt and spice refineries on Asque and Hythoro VI. The rotting worlds of the Begh’zemer system, once the capital of an ancient people, all have toxic, waste-covered surfaces, as do the rotting, debris-filled orbs of Hirzata and Zyote. Industrial, mining and refining interests are what keep the cluster beating, located along the middle of the Star Trail in a clump of planets known as the End Line.