The Arcturian Well as it came to be known. Though the artefact is only 20 kilometres across its size belies its true power and potential.

Would that the complex gravitational forces surrounding the artefact allowed it the probe had a drone equipped to plunge into the black hole on a once in a lifetime experience (and according to some theories arrive at an almost infinite number of universes.) But a freak gravity wave , possibly created with intent by the artefact destroyed the drone and the high spirits of the scientists back in Sol and Blee.

This xeno-artefact was even less talkative than those found in Altair or Epsilon Eridani and the Schwarzschild kept a respectful distance. Attention turned to the rest of the system. Studies were made of Arcturus itself, the convection currents within the photosphere and the helium processes of the star. The public’s interest waned in the star until a viable moon was discovered around Arcturus 2076 I. Such a discover was not predicted as Arcturus is an old star, born at a time when the heavy elements that make up the more exotic and terrestrial worlds of the Galaxy where not in abundance. Recent experience ,however should have prepared exo-planetologists for anything.

Not only did Arcturus have a viable world but also the right amount of asteroids, rocky moons and heavy elements floating around the system to make a economically viable colony and potential regional power. The only problem was the distance, at almost 37 light years Arcturus would be the furthest human colony yet and very close to Ti’Thal sphere of space whom though benign and co-operative could turn against the human race (at least according to the more xenophobic and paranoid members of humanity.)

Further fears of non-human influence in the region were fuelled by the Ti’Thal Exodus Consensus’s innocent announcement across the supra-net in AD 2189 that as soon as their resources allowed they would colonise the enigmatic red giant system. Earth and its allies ,being the most suspicious of anything alien, immediately announced their intention to settle Arcturus. On the surface their reasons for funding such a long range and expensive mission were purely the challenge of the “High Frontier” and investigating the black hole and its controlling xeno-artifact.

The truth however was not as altruistic. The Terrans feared that the artificial black hole of Arcturus would fall into Ti’Thal hands and they would discover how to create singularities of their own. Paranoid delusions of Ti’Thal relativistic war fleets slaying one sun after another in their quest to “provide security of the race” by firing black holes into the cores of stars stimulated many Terran and Orbital governments to cough up the money.

In AD 2203 a Ti’Thal recon probe arrived in the Arcturus system broadcasting messages of friendship to the Schwarzschild which by then had taking up permanent residence around the singularity vainly attempting to communicate with whatever intelligence was left within the array. Terran authorities feared that a Ti’Thal colony ship could only be a few years behind and increased construction of their colonial project. At the same time as the Terrans where working on their colonial ship (complete with top secret weapons and combat drones ,”just in case”) they were working on finalising an arrangement with the Ti’Thals on the ownership of the system and how it should be run. Most of the human diplomats involved were under no illusions that Humanity would get the lions share of the system and its goodies, conversing with the Ti’Thals revealed that the were very nervous about getting into any dangerous situation that could effect the continued survival of their civilisation and were happy to capitulate to Humanity’s reasonable demands.

In 2211 AD the Arcturus left the construction yards around Earth’s L4 point and sped off towards the distant red sun. Two years later the Ti’Thal mission left Katorage with its complement of 190,000 in stasis. Arcturus is equidistant between the two Homeworlds so the race for the star was going to be tight. The small crews of both starships knew what was at stake. For the Humans it was the fear that the Ti’Thals could overrun the whole region and then turn their eyes towards stars such as Beta Comae  and Asterion with a singularity weapon , for the Ti’Thals it was the possibility that the Humans would not keep to their word and despite cordial relations with the Blee were a danger to all intelligent life. Fear and paranoia were rife on both sides which can only lead to bad things.

Though the bulk of colonists heading towards the giant were on the Arcturus and the Ti’Thal vessel , the Moeboltz Hardi Gloave (named after a biologist who studied the effect of red light on the biosphere of Gehl`Huras or Ross 107) the first organics to set foot on Arcturus were a crew from Beta Comae in one of the system’s first interstellar ships in AD 2234. Under orders from their corporate paymasters to secure the viable moon of Arcturus 2076 I (by now more accurately named Arcturus III ) for the good of Earth and its colonies the 30 or so individuals of the Erinsborough were joined three metric months later by Ti’Thal visitors from the Exra Thaage (BD+39 2947) system 24 light years away and the closest Ti’Thal colony.

The two crews exchanged pleasantries and got on quite well, they were more worried about being in the middle of an interstellar dispute and having to be physically away from their friends and family for a number of decades. The Comaens were ordered to stay on the viable moon indefinitely (nicknamed “Dark View” by both crews) to secure the world for Human interests but the already cranky members of the Erinsborough crew wanted to go home and so disobeyed orders.

As a side note when the Erinsborough returned 12 years later the crew where placed under arrest, much to the displeasure of an increasing minority of New Australians who had grown tired of the Old Worlds’ influence over their lives and was a precursor to the conflict that followed a few decades later.

The visitors from Exra Thaage stayed on Dark View and made an attempt to communicate with the singularity array. One brave soul ,a lady by the name of Tyffer Hi’Logona, finally managed to have a brief but revealing conversation with the xeno-artifacts which explained that it was very old and originally used as a transmutation device , turning part of the hydrogen and helium of Arcturus IV’s massive atmosphere into heavy elements by using the accretion disk processes around the black hole. This was then used in the construction of the many asteroids and rocky worlds in the star system, as well as supplying the building materials  for the viable world of Dark View. As for why it was placed in Arcturus , who built it and what happened to them the artefact which preferred to be called the Arcturian Forge was not forthcoming except to say that the “makers” then either “went away” or voyaged into the same black hole to explore other universes.

The Ti’Thals broadcast this information as well as the impressive spool that the Forge used to explain itself across the supra-net. Upon discovering the Ti’Thals had made contact with the Forge the Arcturus was ordered to increase speed Communication between a stationary object and one travelling a near light-speed is horribly complicated and slow but the message got across.

The Arcturus arrived in the system in mid AD 2250 with the Moeboltz Hardi Gloave arriving a year later. Top begin with both groups co-operated with building a civilisation, there was even talk of creating some Human/Ti’Thal Creole (similar to the one developing with the Blee in Brashkellee/107 Piscium) to better integrate the two cultures. Sadly with the arrival of a second Terran colony ship in AD 2289 that was not to be the case.

The second wave of colonists were not the most tolerant of Humanity. Most had grown up in the crowded arcologies and Orbitals of Earth which had given them bitterness and resentment at the Galaxy, feelings that the Terran authorities who were keeping a close eye on Arcturus turned towards the Ti’Thals and outsiders in general. In a clever (though morally questionable) piece of memetic engineering the second wave of terran colonists where conditioned to turn their hatred and bitterness towards the “commie tree hugging alien scum” rather than back on Earth (as was the fashion at the time.) The Terrans hoped that this hate bomb launched across the stars would throw the balance of power in Arcturus back to the Humans by use of overwhelming number and intolerance.

The Terrans’ repugnant plans came to fruition in AD 2323 when Hector Le Jean and his “One World” party came to power in the third Dark View planetary elections under a pledge of “Common Sense” and putting an end to “all this integration nonsense.” Mirroring the conflict that was brewing in the Zeta Tucanae system between the Human and the Ese colonists there, laws were passed to divide the two cultures and keep the majority of Arcturus Human.

By AD 2330 tensions were rife, especially in the more equally mixed cities of Shix’Emmant and Korango Hill. All cities had areas which were no go to one race or the other, violence was commonplace specially amongst the young males and the government turned both a blind eye to the growing disorder and the accusations of the opposition parties in the planetary congress. Some of the old guard were amazed at how a once peaceful multiethnic colony had descended into too familiar scenes of racial intolerance and violence. Some of the other old guard though had sadly expected such a mess , Dark View was living up to its name!

On the 15^th of the 4^th AD 2331 after a particularly destructive night of violence in the city of Goldshanger in which three Ti’Thal youths and two Humans were killed in an gun battle over which species should have a children’s playground the One World government decreed that order must be maintained and decreed that all Ti’Thals must leave Human soil for the predominantly Ti’Thal southern continent of Hixxi. Outrage followed both from the Ti’Thals and sympathetic Humans and from outsystem but supporters of One World and its policies proclaimed that finally order and sense would be imposed on Arcturus.

Critics on Dark View of the proclamation argued that segregation never works in the long run and was a throwback to darker times of Apartheid and the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the subsequent biological nightmare. Plus they argued if One World hadn’t fuelled the racism and turned a blind eye to the violence for so long they wouldn’t be in this situation. President Le Jean dismissed the arguments as “subversive liberal crap” and decreed a state of emergency as the more liberal and tolerant members of Arcturian society protested at local council chambers and party headquarters which conveniently suspended the upcoming elections which One World was set to lose.

In early AD 2332 a Ti’Thal colony ship from Kesteer (10 Can. Venaticorum) arrived with 600,000 Ti’Thals who were quickly enraged by the situation. They took orbit around the second major moon of Arcturus III , Geh’Hebrix Jaan, which was 80% Ti’Thal in ethnicity. In AD 2335 a terrorist explosion in one of the habitat domes killed 198 people Ti’Thals and Humans and was traced back to the One World funded militias. As retaliation Geh’Hebrix Jaan’s colonial authority (most Ti’Thals) ordered all humans off the moon to avoid any further incidents.

By this time Le Jean had stood down due to health reasons to his deputy Ana Marie Quan (it was later discovered that he had been infected with a virus by an unknown group that gave him a unfortunate bowel disorder for many years!) Any hopes that Quan would be more reasonable than Le Jean were dashed when she ordered all Ti’Thals off Dark View. She stood down her threats when it was revealed that the 5 million or so Ti’Thals in Hixxi had no intention of leaving and had the weapons to defend themselves.

By the end of the 2330s the tension was too much for some. A group of both Human and Ti’Thals took the Ti’Thal colony ship that was still in orbit around Geh’Hebrix Jaan and left for Eta Boötis.Outsystem protests had become more vocal and threatening, supra-net disruptions were commonplace and large colony ships from both sides where on their way, only promising to raise the stakes even further.

For the One World government their greatest weapons was fear and intolerance and their closet ally was the unwillingness of the majority of Human colonists to do anything fearing exclusion from society and in more extreme cases harassment from the militias , as the Human saing goes “for evil to prevail all it takes is for good people to do nothing.”

Thankfully some good people were willing to do more, for example the Community successfully campaigned the interstellar nations to enforce economic sanctions against the wayward polity, though physical trade was rare (readily available warpships were still only in the prototype stages) the information economy was very important.

In AD 2342 things came to a head, with the next Ti’Thal colony vessel only a few light moths away. It was known that the ship from Katorage itself carried with it enough weapons and trained personnel to settle thing once and for all. Also the Human ship that was due to arrive a few weeks after was armed to the teeth. Though on the whole both species were on good terms the extremists on both sides were in enough numbers to finance a small scale interstellar war in the Arcturus region should diplomacy and sabre rattling not be sufficient.

The anti-apartheid movement in Arcturus with the help of Community e-warfare overthrew the Quan government and it militias ,though a swift gun battle did break out in Korango Hill and the capital, Simonsville. The partitions , both actual and mental came down and both Ti’Thal and Human colonist walked un-harassed in areas that were once prohibited. Within months free elections were held and the trials of retribution had begun.

It was the Creole Party that came into power led , ironically by the former daughter in-law of Hector Le Jean Daljit Thixx-Chankressar. She had been a key member of the underground resistance ever since she fell for a Ti’Thal physicist in a chat room. Both had used avatars that gave no clue as to their species and both had fallen for each other without ever seeing each other. Overcoming both their cultures distrust and fear the met for real in secret and set about putting an end to the chaos.

The Creole Party instituted a strong social democracy along the lines of many Ti’Thal worlds, furthering the integration of both species, whether some liked it or not. By then the Terran cabal that had plotted to take Arcturus away from the Ti’Thals had been betrayed by an anonymous individual who uploaded secret virtual meetings , files and documents onto the supranet. The One Worlders had been totally discredited as the puppets the were and most sympathizers turned their backs on the racist dirge and begrudgingly accepted the aliens into their lives.

As the decades turned to centuries racial tension between the many species within the Community became as irrelevant as national and racial conflicts had in the 22^nd century on Earth. Though there are still some that would rather live with their own kind such beliefs are unlikely to grow into the conflicts seen in Arcturus or Zeta Tucanae. Arcturus strives hard to dismiss its dark past , working to fight prejudice throughout space in a bid to cleanse its own shady history.

Arcturus today has grown more and more techno-communist in nature, sub-turing A .I.s and specifically designed Artelects run the state for everyone’s benefit. Arcturus is rich thanks to the technological and scientific spin-offs of the Forge. A swarm of habitats and research facilites surround the Forge (at a respectful distance) and use for everthing from astronomy and singularity physics to developing a way to reproduce the tiny black hole and then possibly the Forge itself. Some have noted the CDF’s base in the swarm and speculated that they are either developing a way to create black holes as a weapon or a viable defence against them ( the Zarquons are known to be developing something similar and both the Sagres and Velges have been known to have used such appalling weapons in the past.)

Arcturian influence is strong in the region, aside from Eta Boötis other systems have been colonised and many have been named after famous Ti’Thal and Human socialist thinkers such as Marx, Gramsci, Vol Rodaat and Ballinaan Noage (noted for combining post-Impact resource management and Gaianist thought into a workable political system as well as her fabulous gardens.) Its socialist nature has made it strong allies with the Sirian Unity and Velge demopolies such as Veld and the Xiv Sectors.

The Arcturian region of space. Note the number of Welcome System colonies around Psi Serpentis. The two demopolies have conflict views on the universe and often clash within the Concourse