the Hecatan Commonwealth

During the FederationPeriod, Hecate was one of the first worlds colonized, despite its poor atmosphere and barren terrain.  Its general unsuitability for human habitation was only a minor concern to the planetary engineering of the Terran Federation.  Advanced atmosphere generators created a breathable environment from local resources within barely a decade, and massive orbital hydroponics facilities provided abundant food for a staggering population.  Hecate was a mineral and resource rich world, and was therefore worth the trouble to terraform.

Hecate as seen from orbit

With the collapse of the Federation, the capital and technical expertise required to maintain the engines of terraforming slowly eroded, they began to fail and were cannibalized for parts to keep the others running, parts that no one left on Hecate knew how to fabricate.  The corporate boards examined the situation and saw a time in the not-too-distant future when the last of the atmosphere generators stopped working.  They also saw that their trade revenues were plummeting due to the increase in piracy and the difficulty in maintaining the infrastructure needed for star travel, costs for long-distance trade were becoming unbearable and Hecate relied on trade to keep it's population alive.  The directors and executives saw that unless something drastic was done within twenty years, the population would begin to asphyxiate.  Even though star travel is considered commonplace, it was not possible to evacuate the planet, indeed, emigration was strongly encouraged and even partially subsidized but that along with stringent population control methods barely kept the population from increasing.

That was when the masters of Hecate made a fateful decision, if they could not generate wealth through trade, then they would convert their factories to producing weapons and warships and take what was needed by force.  So began a campaign of conquest that spanned a century.  Each world conquered would be looted by the occupation legions to feed the insatiable need of the Hecatan masses, only to become another mob of dependents, thereby requiring fresh infusions of wealth from new conquests.