Starbase 234 (SFM-234)

Starbase 234, also called Atlas Station, is Starfleet Mining Facility 234, marked SFM-234 on its upper hull. It is the USS Rubicon’s home port and the anchor of Federation presence on this stretch of the Neutral Zone. The station holds orbit over Kei-Enn, a gas giant, and mines various gases from its upper atmosphere.

The Station

The station is built as a single vertical stack. At the top sits a saucer section with six docking arms, where starships and small craft berth. Below it, a broad main disc carries the station’s domed sections along its upper surface, with a second, smaller disc beneath. From there the structure narrows into the mining tower, the station’s refinery, an industrial spire that reaches down into Kei-Enn’s clouds and vents as it works.

Kei-Enn

Kei-Enn is a gas giant wrapped in gold and amber cloud. Starbase 234 stays in orbit above it and draws various gases from the upper atmosphere through the refinery’s atmospheric scoops, which makes the station a working industrial site as well as a fleet base.

Command

Rear Admiral Teyla Vance holds the sector command at Starbase 234. From her office aboard the station she oversees the Neutral Zone patrol region and the ships assigned to hold it, among them the USS Rubicon, which operates out of the station under Task Force 23.

The Rubicon and Starbase 234

• Home port: the Rubicon runs her patrols along the Zone out of the station
• Reporting in: new crew report to the Rubicon at Starbase 234, as the whole crew did in January 2393 when she came out of her six-month refit
• Getting there: the trip out from Earth runs about two weeks by starship
• Leaving the ship: crew who leave the Rubicon report to the station, where its personnel staff arrange their reassignment

For the border the station watches over, see Starbase 234 and the Patrol Region.