Skaldi 342

Skaldi 342 is a star system located in the Skaldi sector, some 187 light years spinward from Sol. Originally a minor star with little of note, the system surrounding it did not receive much more than cursory observations by automated telescopes and probes in the mass-conducted Earth Survey Catalog. Given the system's distance from the greater Human Sphere, the system was unexplored for centuries.

History
In 2547, automated telescopes picked up on data coming in from Skaldi 342 of unusual activity. A series of frames captured from sky survey telescopes across the Tangaroa and Trautmann sectors depicted what appeared to be a spectacularly violent meteor collision with one of the system's planets at relativistic velocities.

Given the extremely unusual and threatening nature of such an impact, the Office of Naval Intelligence sent the Prowler to investigate the site and report back on the potential threat of relativistic kill vehicles (RKVs) being employed in the ongoing Human-Covenant War. The Prowler arrived three months following the first detections of the impact to discover the system's second planet completely shattered. Due to light-lag, the impact event had occurred in 2503 and thus much of the impact's immediate effects had long since subsided, with debris from the impact settling into orbit around the planet or being ejected from the solar system entirely.

Recon missions undertaken by the Mortal Umbra were quick to ascertain the nature of the event, finding a large geode embedded in one of the larger debris chunks in the field, too big to store aboard the Prowler for transport back to human-controlled space. The Umbra returned to port by mid-2549 and recommended a research site be set up around the artefact. By 2551, a small research outpost was established around Skaldi 342 II, now-nicknamed Ferdiad. The site focused on the large chunk of rock found with the artifact (now-nicknamed Gáe Bulg after the spear of Irish myth), and was staffed by a crew of thirty researchers, military and civilian. Initial findings of the Gáe Bulg artefact indicated that the rock was of antecedent origin - though predated even the earliest known Forerunner artifacts by up to twenty five million years. If the artefact had travelled at a consistently relativistic velocity for such a long time, the possibility remained that the artifact was not only interstellar and alien in origin, but may have originated from another galaxy altogether.

Research continued on the Gáe Bulg artefact site for another eight years, though was soon halted when the geode was removed from its position by the station's crew and attached to the drive section of a supply ship located in the system - intending to burn the drive for as long as possible on a trajectory leading away from human space and out of the galaxy. When later questioned by Naval Intelligence staff, the contractors responded with "Hell no we're not doing this. I've seen enough horror movies to know exactly how this will end."

Current speculation on the origins of the Skaldi impacting agent suggest that the geode was not an RKV, as initially suspected, but some sort of advanced transportation mechanism designed to cross the intergalactic void - though the inside contents of the geode were never determined.

The existence of the research base infrastructure in Skaldi 342 has led to the system being considered for expansion as a base in the coming decades, as humanity begins to explore and colonise the spinward reaches of the Orion arm.

Planetary system
Skaldi 342 is fairly unremarkable outside of the 2547 impact event, and hosts no worlds of particular strategic interest.
 * Skaldi 342 I - A small rocky Mercury-like world located in the innermost regions of the system. Skaldi 342 I is tidally locked to its parent star and has a surface temperature in excess of 500 degrees.
 * Skaldi 342 II - Nicknamed Ferdiad after the warrior of Irish legend, who was impaled on the spear Gáe Bulg. Prior to the 2547 impact, Ferdiad was a small rocky planet around the size of Luna. The impact sent debris from the planet into orbit around the remains of the planet, with much of the debris ejected from the system entirely, or settled into orbit around the star.
 * Skaldi 342 II a - A large chunk of the debris of Ferdiad, and the site of the Gáe Bulg artifact, which impacted Ferdiad at relativistic velocity. This small debris chunk was the site of the research station constructed by ONI.
 * Skaldi 342 III - a relatively small gas giant situated in the outer system. Skaldi 342 III remains the only site in the system of any real strategic interest, with the low mass-weight ratio required for fuel extraction earmarking the gas giant for potential refinery construction, as human exploration of the spinward side of the Orion arm progresses. The gas giant has at least 43 catalogued moons, though none have been explored.