Kadara: Haven of Exiles and Pirates

Kadara was a mountainous world in the Heleus Cluster, first settled by the angara and later notorious as a refuge for exiles cast out of the Nexus and for the pirates who flocked to them. Beyond its lawlessness, the planet was plagued by toxic water laced with an unusual abundance of sulphide minerals. Only when its dormant Remnant vault was reactivated did the water turn drinkable and the world become open to lasting settlement.

A poisoned world#

Kadara was a world of mountains and valleys, originally settled by the angara before the upheavals that swept the cluster. By the era of the Andromeda Initiative it had fallen into the hands of a criminal element, becoming a haven for those exiled from the Nexus and for the pirates who gathered in their wake. Layered over its lawlessness was a second, environmental danger: the planet's surface water carried an atypically high concentration of sulphide minerals, leaving its pools corrosive and poisonous to anyone who entered them. The toxicity was bound up with the planet's dormant Remnant vault, and only the reactivation of that machinery drove the contamination back and made the water safe to drink.

Kadara Port and the Outcasts#

The heart of habitation on Kadara was Kadara Port, an angaran settlement that had been seized and occupied by the hostile kett. The exiles took the port by force, slaughtering the kett who held it, and afterward the settlement and the slums clinging to the mountainside below it passed under the rule of Sloane Kelly and her gang, the Outcasts. The port stood as the world's center of trade and intrigue, drawn power in part from a wind farm at a site known as Varren's Scalp. The smuggler Reyes Vidal was among the figures who maneuvered for influence over the port and its dealings.

Geography and the Initiative outpost#

Beyond the port the planet was divided into a string of rugged regions, among them the sulfur pools of Sulfur Springs, the southern valley of Draullir, the highland reaches of Kurinth's Valley, and the northern valley of Haarfel. Aluminum, beryllium, copper, and titanium could be drawn from its deposits. Once the world was made viable the Initiative established an outpost on Kadara, Ditaeon, the seat of an elected mayor, marking a foothold for ordered settlement on a planet otherwise given over to outlaws. A Remnant Architect remained in a standby orbit above the world, its armor scarred by repeated self-repair against the sulphuric acid below, monitoring Kadara's groundwater long after its purpose had been interrupted.