Ardana System
The Ardana System, also known as Mu Leonis, is an inhabited star system in the United Federation of Planets. Located approximately 124 light years from Sol in the Beta Quadrant, it is the home of the Ardanans. Ardana is a binary system consisting of Mu Leonis A, an orange main sequence star, and Mu Leonis B, a red dwarf. The only inhabited world is Mu Leonis A III, Ardana, home to the humanoid Ardanans, who joined the Federation in 2263.
Overview
Ardana, Mu Leonis A III, is the only known source of zenite in the Federation, and one of only two in the Alpha and Beta quadrants, other than Raknal V in Klingon territory, following the destruction of the third source, Remus. Zenite is a mineral element that is an extremely effective antiviral agent and is used specifically to protect crops from botanical plagues. Zenite, when unprocessed, also releases a colorless, odorless gas that renders most humanoids with limited intellectual capabilities and increased violent tendencies. This fact was unknown to the Ardanans, who lived in cities suspended with anti-grav systems in the clouds, and it gradually turned the miners on the surface into seemingly mindless Troglodytes. The Ardanans did not reveal that they and the Troglodytes were even the same species on joining the Federation, revealing this only when the link between the mineral and their intellectual decline was discovered by the starship Enterprise in 2269.
Following this revelation, Ardanan society experienced decades of upheaval as society was radically reorganized and the caste distinction was eliminated to comply with the Federation Charter. With mining now automated, Ardana is a prosperous, cosmopolitan world where intellectual pursuits are emphasized above most other things. Ardana has a population of 9.2 billion living on the surface and a further 58.7 million in floating cities. The other worlds in this star system are rocky and barren, containing little in the way of valuable materials.
Starfleet maintains a starbase in this system, Ardana Station, one of the few remaining Spacedock I-class stations remaining in its original position. While one of the last facilities built to these specifications, it is still over eighty years old. This aging facility coordinates Ardana’s planetary defenses.
Ardana In-Play
- Ardana is an old world, and resembles Earth or Betazed in its cosmopolitan opulence. While they no longer have a caste system formally, many Ardanans are quite status-oriented. A study in contradictions, their culture is simultaneously formal in some ways, particularly in ritualized appreciation of art and literature, while more open in others, such as their very relaxed and even casual approach to romance and intimacy that resembles the attitude of the Risians and Betazoids.
- Though an important world, Ardana is not particularly well-defended. As the resource it produces is agricultural, it has often been overlooked by the Federation’s enemies who have historically focused on fuel and dilithium supplies.