Jade

THE GREAT GREEN GEM

"Ah Jade, the capital's front door. Wanna visit any of the planet's in the Emperor's domain, usually you gotta go through here first, and i'm tellin' you now, the security's tough. Sec overseers'll disassemble yer ship nut from bolt if they get the slightest whiff of something fishy.
Livin's good though, havin' residence in what's essentially a pan-imperial trade drop-off has its benefits."
-Nathan Oduls, Foreman, station J-281 'Pitstop 64'

Summary

The body colloquially known as Jade is a huge gas giant whose orbit sits between Ventria and Vulkania Prime. The planet gains its name from its distinct green tint caused by its gaseous composition, which includes fluorine along with other valuable gasses which are, of course, exploited to a reasonable degree.
Jade holds a strong reputation among imperial citizens from across the entire territory as a 'shining beacon' or 'precious gateway' due to not only its vibrant green colours which stand out against the bleakness of many other worlds, but also due to its primary purpose of being the capital system's primary extra-solar transportation hub, catering to many of the largest ships and convoys from impressive distances.

Properties

Jade, being the only true gas giant in the system, is still rather actually unremarkable at a base level, despite what legends and reputation might make you believe.
Its atmosphere is composed of an unusually high amount of Fluorine and Chlorine, being the main reason for its stark coloration and is generally where the oddities stop. At its centre is a semi-solid ball of mercury and nickel a few hundred kilometres in diameter but of course the majority of its mass is still gaseous.
Alongside everything else, Jade naturally has a high concentration of hydrogen gas as well as trace amounts of deuterium bound to its atmosphere, this has, since the dawn of the Empire's expansion, made it a prime location for extraction and is one of the few reasons it's orbited by so many stations.
Jade's large mass is also responsible for its field of approximately 34 major orbiting bodies as well as countless minor asteroids and such, many being caught from entering the inner system and possibly causing trouble for the celestial safety bureau.

Purpose

This is not a matter of 'should', dictator, it shouldn't even be a matter to discuss in the first place, just do it. Jade isn't just some resource we can harvest in propensity anymore, and yes, i understand how valuable 'authentic Jade gasses' are on every damn galactic market, but after evaluating the risks, that novelty is not worth reducing the entire body down to its core for.
-The Emperor, Vulkan ordering application of laws to limit gas extraction from Jade (3670).

Jade in general is quite an important body within the system, at least 3rd or 4th, that is, and serves a variety of purposes which cater not only to the system of Vulkania but also a large area of the central empire in general.
It is designated as an L/A world, meaning Logistics/Aperture

Resources

You could probably guess by now that the most useful and well extracted of this planet's resources is it's gasses. Jade's atmosphere is a soup of different elements and chemicals that are used in countless processes both within and without the empire.
Though none of these gasses are actually special, with many of its resources, such as Hydrogen, Methane and Fluorine being plentiful from other gas giants in the territory, Jade is special in that it's a 'Prodigy planet' Meaning simply that it's within the system of Vulkania. As such, rumour and legend raises up about the planet such as the purity of the gas being much higher, that it's far more dense or more ridiculously, that it just releases more energy in general.
As such, the value of gasses harvested and shipped from Jade tend to be at least triple the value of that harvested from other systems, for no other reason than heritage and novelty. In fact, there are documented cases of collectors, who harvest imperial artefacts, displaying many tonnes of Jadish gas as an item in their menagerie, even sometimes deuterium, which is far more expensive.
The pure value of this 'green gold' as it was once called, was enough to cause wealthy harvesting contractors and businesses to construct huge numbers of oversized harvesting rigs in low orbit of the gas giant around the period of 1390-1602PL, the new availability of Jade's gasses actually made its value increase as demand began to shoot up and the rumours and advertising schemes heavily overstated how special the product coming from the planet really was. Eventually, Laws were quite forcefully enacted by the Emperor in order to prevent the degradation of Jade's gravitational field which is vital for its actual primary purpose.

SpARC hub

Gravity is a basic factor toward the operation of The SpARC drive, it affects many aspects of their function and efficiency, and this is what makes Jade important. The planet's large and strong gravitational influence stretches space-time thin within the grasp of its orbits, thus, in the terms of SpARC drives, making it much more 'malleable'. Malleable space-time means much higher SpARC efficiency when creating apertures and therefore the most common modern use for the giant is as a class-AA+ SpARC hub.
The title of SpARC hub is made appropriate due to the amount of 'projector stations' which orbit the planet and are special in that they can not only create SpARC apertures many kilometres across relative to their position in orbit, but can also sustain them indefinitely thanks to the efficiency granted by Jade's gravitational field, which also allows them to, in some cases, have extreme range that can, with for example Station Dromidia, reach up to 1/4 of the galaxy's diameter (though doing so is very much against safety regulation (for good reason)). They can also be re-routed to any viable aperture beacon within range or shut off at a moments notice if needed. Additionally, the extra range practically means the planet can be linked to distances far further from Vulkania than any ship-mounted drive would be able to safely travel, and the large number of stations means more 'Aperture super-highways' for ships and trade routes to access.
As well as this, with so many orbiting bodies allowing for construction of additional facilities, such a large orbital volume which gives way for more high-scale orbital structures and a naturally high slingshot capability for getting through the system itself quicker, Jade continues to be the perfect candidate for corralling any ships entering or exiting the system.

Habitation

Of course, with such an important purpose and so much activity, there's a need for a large sustained workforce. This workforce is habituated in the hundreds of stations both large and small in orbit and nestled right above the atmosphere. Quality of life varies from station to station but, being within the capital, tends to be above decent if not better.
This is contributed to by the fact many of these stations double or specialise as trade and logistics facilities which makes supplies plentiful for anyone living within them. Overall, 18 billion souls live above and within the atmosphere of Jade, a well sized proportion of those living within the 5 largest SpARC stations, 2.8 billion alone within the station 'Dromidia'.

GOVERNMENT

Like all planets in the system, the political and financial affairs of Jade, its moons and stations are all managed by the Office of Vulkanian Political Management and is thus operated like so.
This means there is no dictator or noble to manage the system, and it falls directly under supervision of the Emperor, government owned stations, though, have a foreman for general management and a respective board of officers. Privately owned stations on Jade are closely monitored due to security risks and it's very hard to own or construct any orbiting facility without it being micromanaged by government interference.
Laws around the gas giant including orbital lanes, cargo scanning and docking permits are also very strict and are upkept with high vigilance to prevent a security breach into the capital system. This can often cause abrasive reactions with civilian traders and especially foreign ones, but it's assured such measures are necessary for the capital system's security and that they're not trying to 'intrude or oppress'.

MILITARY

Jade isn't particularly perceived as an important military planet, however this couldn't be further from the truth, for generally important reasons.
Like all planets in the Vulkanian system, Jade's military falls under management of the Office of Vulkanian Defence.

Fleets

5th Vulkanian Defence Fleet

Jade is, being the 5th planet, assigned the 5th Vulkanian defence fleet, which is relatively public and is actually seen as more of a police force by the populous in and around the system, which is really fairly accurate.
Overall the 5th fleet is mainly consistent of hundreds of smaller patrol ships with a small number of command and control cruisers for co-ordination and larger threats, while this may seem counter-intuitive for what some would think is the primary entry point into the system, the many apertures around the planet can be shut off at a moments notice if ordered to by military command. Therefore the fleet manages smaller threats that might be brought up by trade or corporate disputes, even those who might pose a threat as evaluated by local law enforcement.
Overall the public isn't too happy about their presence, with opinions pointing towards them being unnecessary and overbearing, likely due to the amount of station inspections.

CONTENTS

NAME:

Jade

TYPE:

Gas giant

CLASSIFICATION:

1E-G121-L/A

ORBITING:

Vulkania

ORBITALS:

Tens of thousands of asteroids

Tarrock

Iota

Wellington

Felstice

David

SYSTEM:

Vulkania

SECTOR:

Sector 0

POPULATION:

18 Billion

MEAN TEMPERATURE:

110K

DIAMETER:

121,270 km

MASS:

1.12x10²⁷ kg

GRAVITY:

20.31m/s² (2.07x earth)

ORBITAL RADIUS:

2.1AU

ORBITAL PERIOD:

22.18 yrs (Terran)

Other info

STATUS:

At peace, Prospering

GOVERNMENT:

Vulkanian political management

JURISDICTION:

Office of Vulkanian defence

DICTATOR:

N/A (Technically the Emperor)

NOBILITY:

N/A

TAX:

None

IMPORTANT PEOPLE:

-Nania Lukes(Foreman, Station 'Dromidia')

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The Rigello Band

This particular band of gas, directly south to the equator, is known to be especially richer in deuterium and as such is where most civilian stations are located, as deuterium makes good profit and allows for practically free reactor fuel (ignoring the maintenance costs). Military stations avoid this area due to orbital lane density issues.

The White Storms

Named so due to their extreme electric potential and resulting high density of lightning. White storms cannot be built over due to massive electro-magnetic interference. Sometimes these storms can simply form at spots within the atmosphere. A number of smaller stations have been lost due to this, however more well prepared stations will change orbital lanes in anticipation of Jadish forecasts, after retracting their gas extraction stacks of course.

The Silver Pearl

A more extravagant but obscure legend is that the semi-solid centre of Jade is actually a huge pearl formed by some cosmic leviathan and that just a few grams can be worth thousands of Golden Crowns.
This is extremely unlikely to be true, but didn't stop the Pirate Lord Grangax the Kingsteerer from convincing himself and his entire fleet command it was real, and in the year 2178PL (4246AD) Raiding an aperture super-highway entrance and, using experience from previous pirate incursions, 'Jacking' open the closing aperture using his own, modified SpARK drive.
Upon entering Jade's Orbit, they were met with a decent imperial response, enough to break many of the ships in his fleet, instead of fighting however, he dove his flagship and the rest of his fleet directly down into the thick clouds of Jade, never to be seen again.

"YOU'S IMPERIALS THINK YA 'AVE OL' GRANGAX, BUT I'M TELLIN' YOU ALL, THE PEARL'S REAL, AND SHE'S MINE! ALL MIIINEEEE! WE'RE GONNA BE ROLLIN' IN IT SOON BOYS! ARRHARHARHARHAA--!!"
-Last transmission received from Grangax the Kingsteerer before himself and his ship were presumably immolated within Jade's inner atmosphere

Rumours persist that the ghost of the crazed pirate's fleet can sometimes be glinted from between the greenish cloud pillars in the atmosphere below. These rumours are particularly popular on the assault fleet stations, which are permanently positioned under Jade's first major cloud layer.