YELA (STANTON 2C)
Yela is the outermost natural satellite of Crusader (Stanton II), and is orbited by a ring of asteroids. A thin crust of water-ice on the moon's surface is said to represent the cool demeanor of Yela, the oldest sibling in the Human children's story A Gift for Baba, after whom the moon was named. Crusader Industries security came under fire during a Senate hearing in SEY 2949 for failing to curtail criminal activity in the outpost colloquially known as Jumptown, located inside one of Yela's craters.
ENVIRONMENT
Due to its thin oxygen atmosphere and distance from the system's sun, the surface of Yela is very cold, with average temperatures ranging between -55 °C and -10 °C. The large water ice sheets that sprawl across the plains and mountains feed the water cycle via sublimation. There are no bodies of liquid water on Yela's surface, nor is there any rainfall, but snow showers, fog, and windstorms can arise when the weather conditions are correct.
HISTORY
Discovered by navjumper Toshi Aaron alongside the rest of the Stanton system in 2851, Yela was briefly the sole property of the United Empire of Earth (UEE). During this time, the UEE Navy began to construct a base in the skies of Stanton II. It lightly mined the moons for resources, but largely left them alone.
In 2865, driven by a financial crisis, the UEE sold all the planets and moons in the system to various corporations, including Crusader Industries, who purchased the parent planet along with Yela and its sister moons. After refitting the Navy's platforms on the newly-renamed planet Crusader for its own use, the company established multiple mining facilities and security outposts across Yela, Cellin (Stanton 2a), and Daymar (Stanton 2b), and offered some of the land for lease.
In spite of the inhospitable environment, some Humans have made Yela their home. Wilma Ivery built the first permanent homestead in 2907, where she lived until her death in 2935 from natural causes. In 2909, the first Human was born on Yela when Albert and Nora Triolo were forced to make an emergency landing to give birth to their daughter, Erma Triolo. Outlaw group Nine Tails began using abandoned Navy facilities as bases in 2946, leading to an increase in patrols from Crusader Security.
CULTURE
Unregulated ground-vehicle racing is a popular pastime among residents of and visitors to Yela. Lakedra Walsh organized and won the first recorded ground-vehicle race on the moon in 2912. The site of this race was made into a permanent racetrack, and was named Lakedra's Lap in her honor. Many of the racing sites take advantage of Yela's terrain, and include large boulders and rocks. In 2917, amateur racer Ethan Halton died in Nakamura Valley from injuries sustained during a crash while making a tight turn on one such track.