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Description

A frozen and highly volcanic world located in Eta Cassiopeia, Xûejìn is one of the earliest and most successful extrasolar colonies of the Chinese Congressional Republic. First surveyed in 2048 by the CCIR Zhai Zhigang and quickly investigated thanks to a combination of tolerable atmospheric pressure, temperatures, and gravity along with proximity to Earth and presence of vital chemicals such as ammonia, nitrate, and phosphates, the world is not shirt-sleeves habitable by humans on account of the toxic atmosphere necessitating the use of a rebreather mask outdoors, but nonetheless supports a native silica-based chlorine-fixing ecology that thrives along the volcanic calderas, geothermal vents, and magma outflows. Thanks to unique biomes produced by these hardy lava-living microbes drawing a high scientific and economic interest from Earth-based concerns, multiple scientific and military outposts were established to thoroughly evaluate any potential settlement sites, natural hazards, and valuable resources, until the first colonization program began in 2063 by the expansion of Changxi Outpost into Changxi City and the arrival of the first colony ship with a quarter million engineers and specialists to be awoken from hibernation as the local supply chains demanded and could support them.
With a ready supply of industrial and agricultural chemical compounds and vast deposits of biovolatiles, Xuêjìn rapidly developed a significant consumer fabrications economy and became one of the largest extrasolar suppliers of agri-soil and hydroponics mineral solutions to other developing colonies and terraformation experiments, with their local administration even making a quick response to the 2085 depletion of Indian and Russian agricultural stocks that, while unauthorized by Beijing and the wider politburo, averted the feared famines and healed the diplomatic ties between the three superpowers previously broken in the Vega Blitz just a few years earlier.
Striving to make life on the world appealing and encourage further development in face of the comparatively harsh climate, the CCR made significant concessions and enacted uncharacteristically liberal local policies and welfare systems, which together with extensive background checks and ideological filtering of colonial enlistees quickly made it one of their most loyal and stable colonies. While the extrasolar settlements of the Chinese Congressional Republic were just as affected by the rise of new political and social ideologies during The Insurgencies of 2098 as all other interstellar human powers, the protests and civil disobedience on Xuêjìn, Yǒnghéng, Xìnbiāo, and Tiānshàngdewù carried a distinct theme of humanitarian values rather than the demands of autonomy and social mutualism common to other colonies, and although riots did occur they never escalated into revolts or terrorism. At the outbreak of the First Colonial Wars in 2142, the planet was preemptively placed under martial law and quartered a large military contingent to prevent any rebellious rhetoric from spreading or the separatist elements of worlds further out from capturing industrial assets and population centers. During the ten years of the conflict a large fraction of the civilian spaceflight and FTL infrastructure was commandeered and pressed into the supply chains of the Chinese Congressional Navy and Air Force, with vast financial investment into the colony to construct additional shipyards, driveyards, and FTL fuel processing plants in anticipation of an offensive campaign to reestablish control over the nearby rogue colonies of Xanadu and Xìnbiao, further growing the local industry and economy. While the planned reannexation would be delayed until 2178 and the Second Colonial Wars, the increasing prosperity of Xuêjìn caused increased resentment from other Chinese provinces, both mainland and extrasolar, as the disparity in treatment between them became all the more clear as their gleaming archologies, pristine nature, and freedoms contrasted starkly against the crumbling infrastructure, industrial sprawl, and poverty found elsewhere, leading to accusations of corruption and favoritism that last to this day; in no small part contributing to the internal instability and domestic terrorism problems that plagued the CCR, and by extension the entire Inner Cassiopeia, for much of the 23rd century.
While it has taken a step back in terms of public attention and political focus since First Contact and the brief inter-colonial skirmishes of the Contact Proxies in favor of more distant colonies located at the inter-species transit routes, Xuêjìn remains one of the primary economic, cultural, and military centers at the core of human civilization.

Orbits: Eta Cassiopeia, 0.96 AU.
Atmosphere: 1.6 Earth atmospheres, 22% oxygen, 5% carbon dioxide, 5% sulfide.
Day-night cycle: Tidally locked.
Mean temperature: -12 celsius.
Average elevation: 743 metres ASL (counted from magma line).
Population: 753 million.
Natural satellites:
- Wǎngguān; 2.4 million population, major mining and materials refining center.
- Bǎoshí; 2340 population, center of the Eta Cassiopeia FTL communication relays.
Military: local Chinese Congressional Interstellar Army garrison of 1.1 million troops, defense grid of 53 battlestations.

Description

A frozen and highly volcanic world located in Eta Cassiopeia, Xûejìn is one of the earliest and most successful extrasolar colonies of the Chinese Congressional Republic. First surveyed in 2048 by the CCIR Zhai Zhigang and quickly investigated thanks to a combination of tolerable atmospheric pressure, temperatures, and gravity along with proximity to Earth and presence of vital chemicals such as ammonia, nitrate, and phosphates, the world is not shirt-sleeves habitable by humans on account of the toxic atmosphere necessitating the use of a rebreather mask outdoors, but nonetheless supports a native silica-based chlorine-fixing ecology that thrives along the volcanic calderas, geothermal vents, and magma outflows. Thanks to unique biomes produced by these hardy lava-living microbes drawing a high scientific and economic interest from Earth-based concerns, multiple scientific and military outposts were established to thoroughly evaluate any potential settlement sites, natural hazards, and valuable resources, until the first colonization program began in 2063 by the expansion of Changxi Outpost into Changxi City and the arrival of the first colony ship with a quarter million engineers and specialists to be awoken from hibernation as the local supply chains demanded and could support them.
With a ready supply of industrial and agricultural chemical compounds and vast deposits of biovolatiles, Xuêjìn rapidly developed a significant consumer fabrications economy and became one of the largest extrasolar suppliers of agri-soil and hydroponics mineral solutions to other developing colonies and terraformation experiments, with their local administration even making a quick response to the 2085 depletion of Indian and Russian agricultural stocks that, while unauthorized by Beijing and the wider politburo, averted the feared famines and healed the diplomatic ties between the three superpowers previously broken in the Vega Blitz just a few years earlier.
Striving to make life on the world appealing and encourage further development in face of the comparatively harsh climate, the CCR made significant concessions and enacted uncharacteristically liberal local policies and welfare systems, which together with extensive background checks and ideological filtering of colonial enlistees quickly made it one of their most loyal and stable colonies. While the extrasolar settlements of the Chinese Congressional Republic were just as affected by the rise of new political and social ideologies during The Insurgencies of 2098 as all other interstellar human powers, the protests and civil disobedience on Xuêjìn, Yǒnghéng, Xìnbiāo, and Tiānshàngdewù carried a distinct theme of humanitarian values rather than the demands of autonomy and social mutualism common to other colonies, and although riots did occur they never escalated into revolts or terrorism. At the outbreak of the First Colonial Wars in 2142, the planet was preemptively placed under martial law and quartered a large military contingent to prevent any rebellious rhetoric from spreading or the separatist elements of worlds further out from capturing industrial assets and population centers. During the ten years of the conflict a large fraction of the civilian spaceflight and FTL infrastructure was commandeered and pressed into the supply chains of the Chinese Congressional Navy and Air Force, with vast financial investment into the colony to construct additional shipyards, driveyards, and FTL fuel processing plants in anticipation of an offensive campaign to reestablish control over the nearby rogue colonies of Xanadu and Xìnbiao, further growing the local industry and economy. While the planned reannexation would be delayed until 2178 and the Second Colonial Wars, the increasing prosperity of Xuêjìn caused increased resentment from other Chinese provinces, both mainland and extrasolar, as the disparity in treatment between them became all the more clear as their gleaming archologies, pristine nature, and freedoms contrasted starkly against the crumbling infrastructure, industrial sprawl, and poverty found elsewhere, leading to accusations of corruption and favoritism that last to this day; in no small part contributing to the internal instability and domestic terrorism problems that plagued the CCR, and by extension the entire Inner Cassiopeia, for much of the 23rd century.
While it has taken a step back in terms of public attention and political focus since First Contact and the brief inter-colonial skirmishes of the Contact Proxies in favor of more distant colonies located at the inter-species transit routes, Xuêjìn remains one of the primary economic, cultural, and military centers at the core of human civilization.

Orbits: Eta Cassiopeia, 0.96 AU.
Atmosphere: 1.6 Earth atmospheres, 22% oxygen, 5% carbon dioxide, 5% sulfide.
Day-night cycle: Tidally locked.
Mean temperature: -12 celsius.
Average elevation: 743 metres ASL (counted from magma line).
Population: 753 million.
Natural satellites:
- Wǎngguān; 2.4 million population, major mining and materials refining center.
- Bǎoshí; 2340 population, center of the Eta Cassiopeia FTL communication relays.
Military: local Chinese Congressional Interstellar Army garrison of 1.1 million troops, defense grid of 53 battlestations.