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Eldorado Station orbits UV Ceti, also known as Luyten 726-8 or Gliese 65, a binary red dwarf system 8.7 light years from Sol. It was the ninth star station founded during the sublight era, and the last before Pell.

The M5 and M6 class stars are in a highly elliptical orbit about each other, ranging from 2 AU to 9 AU, with a period of 26 years. They are both flare stars, and name "UV Ceti" actually defines this class of flare stars.

Founded in 2089, Eldorado was specifically intended to be a staging point for Pell, and is only 2.9 light years from Tau Ceti. Eldorado and Pell were part of the same project, with ECS9 Beagle and ECS10 Challenger departing Sol together in 2080.

Eldorado is 11.1 light years from Olympus Station (Groombridge 34/HIP 1475) and 10.6 light years from Thule Station (Ross 248).

The author's original timeline suggested Beagle and Challenger set out to found Olympus, but the remainder of the timeline makes this impossible, since the sublight ships could not reach Olympus and then continue to either Eldorado or Pell by the dates specified.

After the founding of Pell, Eldorado became critical along two paths. It was a sublight waypoint 3 years short of Pell, important as a stopping-off point. That also made Eldorado a buffer between Sol-based ships and those more thoroughly from the Beyond. Via Olympus, Eldorado also connected the Bryant's Star trading group (Bryant's, Venture, Thule, Galileo, and Olympus) with Pell and the stations beyond.

The discovery of FTL did not initially make Eldorado obsolete, because early FTL starships could not reach Sol directly from Pell. Eldorado's future began to fade in 2284, when emigration from Earth was banned, making the Sol-Pell route less important. In 2285, Eldorado suffered a second blow, when Pell became administrative head of the Beyond. In retrospect, this decision is inarguable, but at the time, it led to great bitterness.

The flow of colonists through Eldorado, from the Bryant's Star group to the Pell group, inevitably made it a focus of the Earth Company's visa policy. In 2292, "unpopular" led to "violent," as shooting broke out over the issue.

Two situations combined to eventually doom Eldorado. Once the other Hinder Stars stations had been completely evacuated by sublight and FTL ships, there was no longer a forcing function bringing traffic through Eldorado. Then, the reduced trade from Earth during the Company Wars made Eldorado even less important. Although most merchanters were unable to reach Earth directly from Pell with any significant cargo, during the war, there was no cargo to haul on that route.

Following the Company Wars, Eldorado was claimed by the newly-founded Alliance and reactivated, primarily as a place to put the excess population that had been evacuated to Pell from stations Beyond by the Earth Company fleet. In an effort to rebuild those farther stations, Union instituted a deliberate policy to entice skilled personnel back to stations such as Viking and Russell's. These policies both reduced the immediate stress on stations such as Pell and ultimately doomed Eldorado a second time.

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