$W{ ROSS 128
From the Encyclopedia Galactica (Ising University of Antares ed., January 2399) $}

STELLAR CLASS: M4V
MASS: 0.176 Solar masses
PLANETS: 5 
INHABITED: 1 (Melanchthon)
MAJOR PORTS: Rio Grande Station (class 6)
NODE CONNECTIONS: Delta Serpentis, Laramis

GOVERNMENT TYPE: Parliamentary
HEAD OF GOVERNMENT (2399): First Minister Gerda-Maria Fernandez-Steiner
CAPITAL: Neu Stettin (Melanchthon)
POPULATION: 109,022 (2392 Census)
LANGUAGES: English, German (official), Guarani

SETTLED: 2319-6-4
ABANDONED: 2335-1-7
RESETTLED: 2340-12-2

Ross 128, the 'Cursed System', has stayed almost synonymous in the public mind with the First Shivan Incursion.  Eleven light-years from Sol in realspace, the system was originally settled as a mining colony in the early 2300s.  Its first planet, Melanchthon, is marginally habitable, and served as a source of raw materials during the Vasudan War (2321-2335).  Offers of free land and exemptions from taxation were more than sufficient incentives to draw colonists, who hailed primarily from the overcrowded arcologies of Kinshasa, Earth.  Then, on January 7, 2335, the Shivans swarmed the system, eradicating everything in their path.  By the end of February, the Shivans had wiped out every trace of civilization in the system.

The Melanchthon mines were reopened during Reconstruction, but Ross 128 never regained its former prominence.  Much of the capital's surface had been rendered uninhabitable by Shivan orbital bombardment. The verdant jungle world of Laramis II, one jump further out, proved far more attractive to immigrants than the windswept semi-deserts of Melanchthon.

The few colonists attracted to Ross 128 in the interwar period were primarily German-speaking Anabaptists united by their desire to live apart from secular society.  They were joined by Guarani-speaking Capellan refugees in the late 2360s.  While Terran Standard English remains the language of law and education, Ross 128's lingua franca is a unique German-Guarani creole.

Today, Ross 128 serves primarily as a waystation.  While a few agriculture and mining concerns still operate on Melanchthon, and the GTVA Explorer Corps continues its search for the Shivan entry point into known space, most travelers simply pass through, using the Avery Astronautics-owned complex at Rio Grande Station to refuel and resupply, grateful to leave the 'Cursed System' behind.