abstract
| - Venture Station is a small starstation orbiting Kruger 60 AB, a binary M3/M4V red dwarf system 13.15 light years from Sol. Kruger 60B is a flare star. In the author's original timeline, Venture was founded in 2047 by ECS2 Valiant from Bryant's Star (61 Cygni), 5.2 light years away. ECS2 Valiant departed Bryant's Star Station in 2042 with a station crew of 60 and a small station module provided by Bryant's. This made it the fifth star station founded by the Earth Company, and the smallest. Despite its size, its position made Venture ideally located in the sublight era prior to the discovery of Pell's World at Tau Ceti. Venture, in turn, founded Thule Station (Ross 248, 4.5 light years away), and is only 4.9 light years from Galileo Station (EV Lacertae) and 4.9 light years from Olympus Station (Groombridge 34). Venture's future became uncertain with the discovery of Pell; it became obsolete with the discovery of FTL. Having witnessed firsthand the flow of colonists from Alpha Station through Bryant's and onward, it then participated directly in the slow evacuation of Bryant's. The Bryant's evacuation, undertaken by ECS8 Gloriana and ECS6 Polaris, is decades underway when the first FTL ship calls at Venture. FTLECS2 Valiant visits in 2264 on a lightning tour of the stations; when Gloriana arrives the next year with Bryant's emigrants, panicked Venture sends a message to Sol requesting instructions. They will be long irrelevant by the time any signal returns. After Valiant, every ship visiting Venture takes more inhabitants up the line to Olympus, Eldorado, and Pell. The arrival in 2273 of ECS6 Polaris, with the last of the Bryant's Station colonists, only leads to more confusion. Venture Station is virtually mothballed long before being completely evacuated. A variety of errors in the author's original and updated timeline makes it impossible to determine exactly when Venture is finally evacuated, and which ships were the last to call. However, it is clear Venture's demise coincides roughly with the start of the Company Wars. Venture was claimed by the newly founded Alliance and reactivated following the Company Wars. Venture has a direct FTL route to Thule (Ross 248, 4.5 light years distant), with no intermediate jump points. It has a three-jump FTL route to Pell, 16.7 light years distant, via a brown dwarf system and a point mass called James' Point. Venture appears in the novel Merchanter's Luck as a single star with a gas giant companion, and is referred to as the last stop on Sol's outbound expansion. The system description suggests it and Thule Station's star systems may be reversed.
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