Hera

[Roger]

Hera

S/2041(P/2020(34Tauri(2020)B)01)03

Orbital Distance: 0.36 AU
Rotational Period: 3.24 Years
Surface Area: 371,952,510 km2 (72.9% that of Earth-That-Was)
Population: 620,000,000
Terraformed: 2407
Affiliation: Huang Long Union

If Persephone is one end of the Gateway, then Hera is the other half connecting the Core with the Rim.  It lies on the edge of the Georgia system directly on the important route into that system and Kalidasa beyond.  Thus Hera has historically played an important role in trade and intercourse with other more distant Rim worlds.  Hera itself is a primarily agrarian world, its main exports being foodstuffs.  In the past eighty years since the Unification War, Hera's natural prominence (based purely upon location) has been challenged first by Athens and then by Boros as a political leader and hub of commerce.

During the Unification War, Hera was a leader of the Independence Faction and the planet itself played a critical role not only as a great source of supplies and manpower but also for its proximity to the Core, the logical path of invasion.  Numerous campaigns were launched both offensive and defensive from Hera over the course of the war.  The final critical ground battle of the war, the Battle of Serenity Valley, was fought on Hera.  Not only was a major Browncoat Army annihilated, but the defeat also effectively knocked the important Independent planet out of the war and opened the floodgate to unhindered Alliance invasion of the system.  Serenity Valley and the nearby town of Serenity View are now home to a massive military cemetery for the half million soldiers of both sides who lost their lives on that ground.

It is believed that both the physical damage of the war on the planet mixed with the lack of confidence in Hera by other worlds following the war combined to see Hera's slow decline under Alliance control.  After their eventual liberation in the '40s, Hera only asserted itself to form the Huang Long Union in response to the expansion of Athens and their attempts to form an empire of their own.  They squared off against Athens and the Alliance in the Six Years War (2567-73) and the scars of that more recent devastating war can still be seen on Hera today.  Hera very much still embodies the old spirit of the Browncoats.