Quor’kathar, located not too far from the borders of the Klingon Empire, drifted silently through the vastness of space. The rogue planet was one of those overlooked corners of the galaxy that seemed insignificant until one took the time to explore it more closely.

Unfortunately, it appeared that the diminutive celestial body was doing its best to make said exploration as uncomfortable as possible. Quor’kathar greeted potential visitors with an eerie atmosphere and a frigid landscape only the locals had the gall to call “enigmatic”. 

The planet was starkly different from the more vibrant and lively places scattered across the galaxy. It existed in a perpetual state of stillness that made it seem as if it had been suspended in an unending moment.The main reason for that, and perhaps the most striking feature was the absence of the day and night cycle, which shrouded the Quor’kathar in constant darkness. The inky blackness stretched across the planet’s surface with little interruption, and the few stars visible in the sky – the only celestial illumination – was further dimmed by a thick and oppressive atmosphere that posed a challenge to sensors and visiting shuttles alike. 

Not that there was a lot of outgoing and incoming traffic to begin with. The locals who had chosen to settle down here were staying for reasons only known to them, but they were staying. And visitors were practically non-existent – and for good reason. 

With very few natural sources of heat, the frigid cold was bone-chilling, unyielding, and could easily compete with an Andorian winter. It seeped into every crevice and corner, casting a relentless chill that cut to the core. The only exception were the areas around the few volcanic fissures, which released steam from the planet’s molten core and liquid water mantle. It was here that life had managed to eke out an existence. 

Natively, in the form of a fascinating array of fungi and symbiotic bacteria that had grown into thick forests. And alien, in the form of settlers who had been… volunteered to inhabit Quor’kathar.   To a large extent, those settlers were a mix of underprivileged individuals who had sought refuge within the then rapidly expanding Klingon empire. In return for pledging their allegiance to their new Klingon overlords, they had been given several challenging and almost inhospitable worlds to colonise.That the Klingons had sent several of their subjects to claim Quor’kathar in specific,  had a very simple reason – The planet, despite its harsh and unrelenting environment, held vast reserves of valuable resources beneath its frozen surface. In its prime, now several decades ago, the small planet was seen as a source of so much wealth that no potential conflict arising by claiming it deterred miners and resource extraction operations from toiling in the unforgiving darkness, hoping to tap into the planet’s hidden treasures.

However, the fate of Quor’kathar had taken a turn when Federation presence in the area had increased, and, connected to that, the extraction of its resources had become prohibitively expensive. Those unhappy circumstances had eventually  led to the collapse of its once-thriving economy. 

That said, there was something beyond darkness, cold, and inaccessible resources that Quor’kathar had to offer. 

The unique “flora” located in particular around the fissures generated a telepathic field that enveloped a substantial portion of the planet’s unfrozen surface. Within this telepathic field, whatever flora and fauna there was,  thrived interconnectedly – Which should, potentially, make it any researcher’s wet dream.

But despite its marvel, the telepathic field had failed to capture significant interest. Or perhaps researchers just didn’t like to freeze their toes off.  Which meant that research in the telepathic field on Quor’kathar was minimal to non-existent.

The combination of un- and fortunate factors had allowed the remaining population on Quor’kathar to make decisions without the scrutiny of anyone feeling entitled to have a say in it – that was until a minor news outlet had reported on plans to shrink the field in order to add additional settlement and once more attempt to extract the coveted resources. The news-outlet was “Star Crossed” – a tabloid that usually reported on the more or less interesting affairs of prominent celebrities across the galaxy – and the article written by … the intern. 

How said intern, Vivienne Claybrook, had managed to get the article past the editor was a so-far unsolved mystery no one was terribly interested in. 

The article hadn’t been bad, and while it hadn’t exactly sparked the majority’s interest, it had attracted a bunch of Federation scientists that had no interest in picking up the research or helping Quor’kathar people and economy, but were strictly against damaging the telepathic field. For a tabloid known for spreading controversy, that wasn’t a bad thing. What, however, did qualify as a bad thing was the quite obviously irate correspondence form Nayavi Dravak, the half-Klingon in charge of Quor’larith, their village-sized main settlement. Nayavi Dravak was not happy. She had, like her mother and her mother before that, been born on Quor’kathar, and was known for dealing confidently with the cold and the dark. What she, from the looks of it,  couldn’t deal with were outsiders and unforeseen complications. At least that was the impression Vivienne got as the woman’s amber eyes settled on her, and her upper lip curled with obvious disdain, revealing the filed teeth behind it.