Star Type: A4VI
Position in System: 2 (of 5)
Number of Moons: None
Days to Jump Point: 22
Surface Water: 61%
Atm. Pressure: Standard (Breathable)
Surface Gravity: 1.21
Equatorial Temp: 52� C
Highest Native Life: Plants
Population: 982,000,000
Governor: Timothy Erhadt
Planetary Legate: Stephen Bairns
When first discovered, native algae and a kind of wild brush had only begun to transform Ascella�s atmosphere into something breathable by humans, but a century of terraforming was still required to cleanse the remaining taint to the point where respirators became unnecessary. Freed from their domed settlements, the cities and mining townships established early in the planet�s colonization expanded across the northern continents of Askahr, Niejawa, and Quarenir, and the south polar continent of Saufell, leaving only the unbearably hot equatorial landmasses of Aytagrad and Ogleca untouched by man.
Though a major exporter of heavy metals and radioactive elements, as well as small fusion and electric engines for civilian and light military vehicles, Ascella was raided only a handful of times throughout the Succession Wars, and spent most of that time under the banner of the Draconis Combine. Its lack of strategic importance did not save this world from the Jihad, however, as the Word of Blake radicals used it as a staging ground for assaults against other worlds in the Combine�s Vega Prefecture. Heavy fighting to liberate Ascella damaged several major cities, including the planetary capital of Tarawa, located on the Saebeth River in the southern peninsula of Askahr. There, the desperate fanatics set the city ablaze as allied troops closed in, and fought to their last BattleMech amid the raging inferno. Rebuilt after the holocaust, Tarawa today is one part administrative and commercial heart of Ascella and one part shrine to those killed in the fighting.