Xalion



Xalion is the capital world, and one of the largest planets of the Federated Colonies. One of the first second rank colonies of Earth, having been colonized in the year 1989 after the Human Standard Calendar. Today, Xalion is one of the most famous human created worlds, rivaling with the Old Earth and Terra Nova in the stories told in the known universe, and is the center of the political and economical power of the Federated Colonies, and also the most populated planet, with an official population of over 800 billion. Well known for its rampant pollution and natural disasters however, Xalion has been continuously declining for the past century, looking onward towards a dark future..

Etymology
The origin of the word Xalion is unknown, having being lost during the Long Night. Most historians claim it to have an origin in the Colonial dialects of Alpha Centauri, influenced by contacts with various alien races, long before the official establishment of Colonial Standard as a language. Based on that theory, the meaning would be taken from the adaption of the word Xal , which most probably meant freedom, with the suffix "-ion", which was added to designate the name of the planet. So, the name of Xalion would mean "the planet of freedom", a reference to the autonomy the Council of Xalion enjoyed from the Administration of the authoritarian Human Colonial Alliance, around the time when the planet was firstly colonized.

A second theory however indicates a much closer alien origin, as in the mostly lost language of the alien race which used to inhabit the system of Kiala, only 20 light years from the system of Xalion, the name of the planet could be loosely translated as the Golden World, a reference to the large reserves of Opilium the planet has, which in its brute form, has a color that has most often been described as a "sickly yellow".

Ultimately, the exact origin of the name is still unknown, but the word has been adopted in most human and alien languages of the Milky Way and the Andromeda, in the exact form as it is used in Colonial Standard, or similar derivations.

History
All of its population disappeared mysteriously during the first century of the long night in what remains known as the Darkness of Xalion, but the planet was recolonized by settlers from surrounding systems a few decades after the assumed date in which the Darkness happened. The planet prospered, and when it was rediscovered by forces of the Human Colonial Alliance in 2644 HSC, it had become one of the largest and most populated Colonies. Xalion played a vital role in the First Secession War, and was one of the most important planets to ratify the Articles of Colonization, joining the young Federation in its fight against the tyranny of the Old Earth.