Vulcan System

The Vulcan System, also referred to as 40 Eridani A, is the home system of the Vulcan race, key founders of the United Federation of Planets. The 40 Eridani system is a trinary star system, consisting of the primary, A, and a binary pair, B & C, orbiting at an average of 400 AU from the primary component. The planet Vulcan has served as an anchor for the system’s infrastructure and population since the advent of Vulcan spaceflight, making 40 Eridani A effectively the entirety of the Vulcan System.

Overview

Governed by the Confederacy of Vulcan, the planet Vulcan is well known as the homeworld of the Vulcan species, one of the founders of the United Federation of Planets. The world is also renowned for its educational and research facilities, helping to keep Vulcan at the leading edge of galactic research.

Vulcan is one of the harsher M-class planets on record, with a thinner and warmer atmosphere when compared to Earth. Large mountain ranges and windswept deserts dominate significant portions of the planet's surface, broken only by small seas that serve as anchors for the limited hydrosphere. The deserts, prompted by their dry nature and constant winds, give rise to impressive electrical sandfire storms.

Vulcan plays host to the 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards, which makes it a vital strategic asset, outside of being a founding member world. During the Dominion War and even more so after the destruction of the Utopia Planitia, this shipyard has become critical to maintaining Starfleet’s readiness levels, by providing a highly capable, well-maintained and well-staffed shipbuilding complex in the heart of the Federation. So important is Vulcan that the entirety of the Fifth Fleet was assigned to the defence of Vulcan early in the Dominion War.

In Play

Vulcan is one of the founders of the Federation and was an important regional power in the Alpha Quadrant prior to the formation of the Federation. It is an important cultural and strategic world for the Federation.
As a core world, the system has a bustling infrastructure base supported by a robust defence system, held over from the Dominion War and modernised after recent threats to the Sol system.
The B/C components of the 40 Eridani system are significantly removed from 40 Eridani A as to essentially be another star system, but any attacks there would merit a response as they threaten Vulcan directly. The B/C pair are roughly 10 times further away from Vulcan than Pluto is from the Sun.
Vulcan’s cultural, technological, intellectual, diplomatic and political contributions to the Federation, and the course of Alpha and Beta Quadrant history, especially over the last 500 years, can not be ignored. Vulcan’s impact on the region has swung wildly from gross to subtle, but Vulcan’s fingerprints can be found on most major events over the last couple hundred years.

External Information

Ni'Var at Memory Alpha
40 Eridani A at Memory Alpha
40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards at Memory Alpha