Helghan

**Helghan** is a planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri A of the Alpha Centauri system and is home to the Helghast.

## ***History***

### **Helghan Corporation**

The Helghan Corporation's colonization fleet first reached Helghan when they entered Alpha Centauri in 2128 and named it after their company. The planet was deemed uninhabitable due to hazardous dust and lightning storms, so the Helghan Corporation chose to deploy a prefabricated space station in its orbit to manage automated facilities on the surface.

Orbital facilities began to grow around Helghan in the following years, and the Helghan Corporation made good profits from the production of energy on Helghan, which was sold to ships which passed through the system. Shipbuilding also becomes an industry of Helghan, and becomes the largest of its kind outside of Earth.

Helghans population pre-war was an estimated two billion people but post-war Helghan only has about 400 million people left, whilst the rest of the Helghasts fled to Vekta as refugees.

### **First Extrasolar War**

In 2200, the First Extrasolar War breaks out in Alpha Centauri between the Helghan Administration and the United Colonial Nations. The Helghan fleet meets the UCA Navy over Helghan, but are no match for the superior UCA Navy ships. During the battle many of the orbital facilities surrounding Helghan were destroyed, including the main hub which was home to the shipbuilding and management of the Helghan industries.

Following the war, the Helghan Administration is dissolved and the system is put under direct ISA administration. The planet of Helghan becomes the destination of many Helghan loyalists who leave Vekta to escape ISA occupation beginning in 2204 and ending by 2210.

### **Second Extrasolar War**

Settlements are set up on Helghan's surface during 2215-2220, and by 2305 the settlers manage to eke out a brutal living on the planet. Due to the environment of the planet, the bodies of the inhabitants eventually adapt to the harsh conditions, becoming the now-mutated Helghast.

However, due to ongoing sanctions placed on the planet by the UCN and enforced by the ISA, Helghan went through an economic depression, causing mass starvation and industrial collapse. This made its inhabitants more bitter towards the ISA and their collaborators, and allowed for Scolar Visari's rise to power in 2347.

Visari attempted to spread Helghan's power and began the Second Extrasolar War in 2357 by invading nearby Vekta, which had succeeded beginning the course of a new Era for Helghan, when Operation Vengeance was initiated a month later on September 1st, 2357, about 9 days after the Helghast Third Army occupied Vekta.

## ***Cities and Settlements***

* Pyrrhus Deep, also called Pyrrhus City, is the largest populated area and capital city of Helghan. Notable locations included Visari Square, Visari Palace, Visari Corporation, Stahl Arms, Corinthmetall, and the Vektan Embassy. The City was the primary target for the Retalitory ISA Invasion, durng the Second Extrasolar Wars, while the bulk of the Helghast Military was engaged at the Border plenets, the ISA were never able to capture the City during the Invasion due to the efforts of Redec, Lente and the Commander.

* Konstantine City

* Suljeva Village is a settlement located in the Maelstra Barrens. It is populated by miners, and noted for its large collection of abandoned factories and refineries.

## ***Geography & Economy***

Helghan is a hellish world, only recently made remotely habitable. Much of the planet is covered by rocky terrain and dominating canyons with some arctic-like areas; there are even oases of sorts, in the form of hostile jungles teeming with dangerous predators.

Helghan is rich in natural resources and minerals, mainly petrusite. During Visari's reign, most of the planet's economy and resources were centered into building and maintaining Helghan's large armies and a fleet for interstellar conquest, leaving little funds for the improvement of the general population's well-being, hence the slums, dismal civilian infrastructure, and a visible lack of luxuries on Helghan, although this changed by Scolar Visari himself, by 2362, after the ISA had been ejected from Helghan after their failed Invasion.

### **Fauna and Flora**

Although a harsh planet, Helghan does have several basic forms of wildlife as befits a natural ecosystem. Insects seem to be the primary form of indigenous life, though most seem to be somewhat larger than their average Terran counterparts.

Included are many harmless electric beetles that seem to fill the lower half of a natural food chain, serving as common scavengers that help to keep the planet free of organic refuse, many of these insects feasted on the bodies of Adams and his SD workers after they had been executed following the Helghast Occupation of Vekta, in the months that followed after rotting away in the wastelands.

Likewise, there are also aggressive predators in the form of the common petrusite spider, which can grow to be as large or larger than any large Terran rodents (i.e. rats, beavers, capybaras, etc.). It is normally found in the subterranean areas & wastelands of Helghan; based on observations, it seems to hunt prey by stunning them with an electric shock/bite, upon which it hunts as any standard spider would, via the dissolving of prey into a liquid and immediate ingestion of said liquid.

Helghan's plant life is also larger than standard Terran flora, as several plants are seen bearing resemblance to standard weeds, but are much larger. In its more tropical regions, Helghan is host to plants that can only be classified as bizarre.

Some are almost animal-like in appearance, such as large fungi that appear to have hyphae structured like crab legs, and carnivorous plants resembling spider legs that attempt to skewer prey as it passes.

Some plants share some similarity to Earth plants, to a small degree venus fly traps specifically. The Burster, which slightly resembles a cacti, but glows orange and whose needles burst out of it when shot. Also seen in the tropical regions are strange avian creatures flying above the jungle canopy.

It was stated during the Invasion of Helghan in 2362, that both ISA forces and Helghan's First and Third Armies suffered from these sort of predators, which would eventually lead to the Helghast at the time following the failed invasion to decimate most of these forests, which led to the extinction of about 40 percent of the plant life on Helghan, it was never fully revealed if all the predator plants became extinct, as Helghan at the time of the late years of the Second Extrasolar War, following the Invasion of Helghan was hardly mentioned by Visari, although this could have been mostly because of the sudden arrival of the Coralition Republic in 2364, on why Visari and most of the Helghast Council did not mention Helghan's Ecosystem as they were concentrating on reaching Earth before the Coralition Republic at the Time.

## ***Government***

Before Scolar Visari's rise to power, Helghan was ruled by the remains of the corporate Helghan Administration, which had once ruled over Alpha Centauri before the First Extrasolar War. Visari seized total power in the government after a popular coup in 2347, and was elected Autarch. With total control over all of Helghan, he reshaped the Helghan Administration into the Helghan Empire, a militaristic totalitarian regime along fascist lines.

The Autarch was the supreme leader of the Empire with the power to create any law or pass any choice with no opposition to their will. The Autarch was advised by the Helghast Senate, a council of supposedly ten individuals with ties to the Helghast military and other powerful organizations in the Empire's society. Admiral Orlock, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and second Autarch of the Empire served as a member of the Senate and was a close friend of Autarch Visari. Other forms of management beyond the Senate are currently unknown, and unlikely to be seen.

As pf 2364, Scolar Visari still controls the Helghan Empire, and the Planet of Helghan.