The origins of Darklight Station go back nearly sixty years: fully forty years before the Exodus to Hiigara.  During this time, the Taidan Emperor realized that the threat of strife within the very ranks of the Imperial Government was becoming real, and impossible to ignore.  He took it upon himself to hand-pick the most loyal military commanders he had, and assigned them to build, in secret, a Starfleet that would be guaranteed to be loyal to the Emperor no matter what happened within the Government.  This Starfleet was based out of six deep space research and construction platforms, built in secret specifically for this purpose.

When the Hiigaran Exodus sparked the Revolution twenty-three years ago, the Rebellion quickly learned of these stations and made a concentrated effort to capture them intact.  The war, albeit short-lived, had caused a great deal of damage to the infrastructure of the Taidan core worlds, damage that could be quickly repaired if the full capacity of these stations could be brought to bear.  Three were found and successfully captured within six months of the war’s conclusion, and a fourth was discovered, but had already been destroyed from within, making it nearly useless.  Two others however, were still at large and, according to Republic of Taidan records, still are.

Six years ago (17A.H.L.) a Kiith Spunj commander—Admiral Ameshi Spunj—literally stumbled across one near the Hiigaran frontier.  It was heavily guarded, but he decided that rather than waste such potential, he’d risk attempting to capture, and against the odds actually managed it.  (The full account of this battle is available in the Archive).

Moving to quickly capitalize on this windfall, the Kiith Sa had the station towed deeper into unexplored space, well beyond the range of the drones and border sweeps that are common along the frontier.  Recognizing the potential for Kiith Spunj’s independence that this station represented, Kiith Sa bent most of the Kiith’s production strength on modifying the station into a self-sufficient colony-city.  The stations were, to all intents and purposes, self-sufficient anyway so this wasn’t a difficult task.

Once the damage from the battle had been repaired (including damage caused by an aborted attempt at self-destruction during the capture) four of Kiith Spunj’s Arnor-Class carriers were based at the station, and lent their massive construction arrays to building two great arcs, each more than thirty kilometers long, anchored in a hollow in the asteroid and reaching nearly twenty-five kilometers into space.  Upon the inner arc, the lines of a city were laid down that, when completed, will be able to house nearly half a million people.  The city—known as Raspun-Ra—is built up as necessary, a process that is rapidly accelerating.

The outer ring is dedicated to construction.  No longer limited to the construction platforms of the Arnor carriers, Kiith Spunj began building ships rivaling the Somtaaw Explorers in size and power.

Raspun-Ra’s rapid growth is attributable to a great deal of dissatisfaction on Hiigara, particularly among the smaller and politically impotent Kiith.  The rumors of Darklight’s existence became a more and more prominent fixture in the culture of these Kiithid: a place outside of the perceived totalitarian rule of the Nabaal and Sjet.  Once again, Kiith Sa was quick to capitalize on a great potential source of expertise, and encouraged subtle recruiting drives—Spunj agents posing as traders who would station themselves among these people and after evaluating their potential use to the Kiith, spirit them away on high speed, well cloaked transport craft.

Unfortunately, this drive has made the rumors of Darklight’s existence that much harder to deny, even among the larger, more powerful Kiithid.  It is a only a matter of time before Darklights existence and power become known to the powers of the New Daiamid, and although the Kiith Sa Spunj has repeatedly stated that he will not relinquish control of Raspun-Ra—our capital city—the political pressures that are sure to be brought to bear upon Darklights revelation are difficult to predict, and the repercussions may extend far in to the future.