Ellis is most famously home of the Murray Cup, the jewel in in-system star racing’s triple crown. The Ellis route runs through the densely packed inner worlds, through the twin asteroid belts and stops at one of Ellis VIII’s Lagrange points. A series of thousands of orbital monitoring buoys has been deployed throughout the system to monitor and broadcast race progress. During the off-season, aspiring racers and engine customization fans are allowed to run the track themselves for a small fee.
Ellis IV (Seahorse) is an entirely ordinary green-band planet save for an unusually high gravity for a settled world: over twice Earth standard. As such, Ellisians tend to be stocky and muscular and the planet’s fauna takes on a variety of interesting shapes (the best example being the aptly named flatcats.) Seahorse boasts a shining A+3 colonization rating from UEE Colonization Command.
Ellis IX (Walleye) is a gas giant which has been patterned for use as a refueling world. Large freighters and warships form visually impressive queues to take on much needed fuel, and a service industry has formed for long-haul transport crews making layovers in the system during the lengthy Earth-Pinecone run. Nearby refineries dot the planet’s skyline and cheaply convert the raw fuel for mass export.
