"A Pillai flash that is not a Pillai flash, at 0412 ship's time. Source at the system's far edge. It is moving."Survey log of the UNS Grissom, Cirban, 21 September 2317
Cirban is a star system at the far edge of the Binami sector, on the human side of the Ciriban Gulf. It is the system where humanity met the Voor, on 21 September 2317, and the line system that the Cirban Protocol of 2318 set between the federation and the Voor Confederacy. Its second planet is Bounty, an ocean world of coral atolls settled from the Caribbean in 2324. For a century Cirban held the Gulf's trade: the Cirban Exchange at its Pillai radius and the port of Toussaint on Bounty. Three of War Plan Purple's starforts stood at its edge from 2324.
The Red Khanate took the system in 2429 and 2430. It was retaken in May 2450, when the Retribution Fleet destroyed the last four monoliths of the eight khans in Bounty's orbit.
The system
Cirban is a yellow star a little cooler than the Sun. It has six planets and a broad asteroid belt beyond the fourth.
| Body | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cirban I | Hot rock | Tidally locked; unvisited until 2340 |
| Cirban II, Bounty | Ocean world | Shallow warm ocean and ten thousand coral islands. Settled 24 April 2324 |
| Cirban III, Marigot | Cold desert | Thin air; Navy firing ranges from 2326 |
| Cirban IV | Ice dwarf | Water for Toussaint's orbital yards |
| The Cirban belts | Asteroid belt | Exxon Space's concession, claimed in 2317 |
| Cirban V, Grand Anse | Gas giant | Helium-3 skimming for the Binami Fleet |
| Cirban VI | Ice giant |
Installations
- The Cirban Exchange, at the system's Pillai radius, opened the federation's trade with the Voor from 2319. Its warehouses came down to Toussaint's lagoon in 2325, because Voor freighters could not land and human ones could.
- The starforts Delambre, Hellas Gate and Pauldron, Bastion-class platforms of War Plan Purple, stood at the Pillai radius from 2324. They were the only forts the Republic kept manned after the Naval Reduction Act of 2350.
- The Navy's Gulf station, from 2325, grew from a courier post into a fleet anchorage. The Binami Fleet was based at Toussaint's orbital from 2330.
- The Voor Aegis, the captured flagship of the Second Battle of Media, lay at Cirban's Pillai radius from 22 July 2334 as the federation's largest laboratory. Study of her ended in 2353, and her hull was left where she lay.
- Bijou Nan Syèl La, "the jewel of the sky" in Haitian Creole, was built in Bounty's orbit between 2352 and 2360 to replace the Exchange's old station. It had 400 docks and 3,000 kilometres of corridor.
History
Survey and contact
The survey ship Grissom under Mahesh Pillai surveyed Cirban in 2315, at the far end of its long arc south through Saolea. Exxon Space filed its claim to the Cirban belts the month the Grissom's chart reached Sol. On 21 September 2317 the Grissom's sensors recorded a flash that was not a Pillai flash. It was the Voor survey cruiser Lorni Indur. The two ships met at Cirban, and on 14 October the Voor ship invited the Grissom to Haedus.
The line and the trade
The Cirban Protocol of 11 June 2318 drew the line between the two powers at Cirban and provided for a trading station there. The Exchange opened in 2319, and Bounty was settled in 2324. Through the 2320s Cirban was the federation's richest frontier and the Gulf's commercial capital. The Voor trade ban of 1 January 2328 halved the Exchange's traffic within a month.
The Voor War
Cirban was the Binami Fleet's base and the federation's southern gate in the Voor War. In Operation Mirage the Home Fleet came secretly to Cirban on 25 November 2333 and joined the Binami Fleet behind the three forts, one jump from Haedus. From there the combined fleet struck the Legion's Haedus group in the Battle of the Mog in February 2334.
The Red Khanate
After the Battles of Haedius in 2428, Admiral Kvoravich's fleet lay at Cirban with 250 hulls through the autumn. It left on 8 January 2429. The Khan's fleet arrived at Cirban's edge on 20 January 2429 with 260 monoliths. It fought for Bijou Nan Syèl La's corridors until April and for Toussaint until 18 May 2430. Cirban was the seat of the eight khans who claimed the Khanate after the Khan's death, from 2449.
Liberation
The Retribution Fleet arrived at Cirban's edge on 10 May 2450 with 700 hulls. Twenty monoliths jumped for Haedius and the Veil on 12 May. The four whose khans stayed, among them the clans D'Vesh and D'Kasht, fought in Bounty's orbit on 14 and 15 May 2450 and were destroyed with their clans, 6 million Fevarians. The 20th Marine Division landed on Bounty on 16 May.
BOOK SOURCES
- Solar Eternal, Part VII, §7.2 "On the Solar Wind" and §7.6 "Alone No Longer"
- Solar Eternal, Part VIII, §8.2 "The Birth of Interstellar Trade" and §8.3 "The Binami and Saolea Sectors"
- Solar Eternal, Part XII, §12.2 "Paradise Lost: The Burning of Bounty"
- Solar Eternal, Part XIV, §14.1 "The Reclamation of the Binami and Saolea Sectors"