Balun

Balun is an artificial gas giant planet located in deep intergalactic space between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. The planet is distinguished by an energetic core, creating a glowing equatorial band on the surface of its thick atmosphere. Until the year 2199, Balun was the center of the Aquarius gate network and a major Garmillas military installation.

History
An alien race known as Aquarius built Balun at some point in the distant past to become the hub of a network of subspace gateways. The hub required massive amounts of power, so its builders designed the planet itself to serve that purpose, forcing Balun into an ovoid shape and intensifying its energy output. The modifications proved to be highly stable and provided seemingly limitless power to the hub and to the operating base inside the calm upper layers of Balun's atmosphere, even long after the alien builders disappeared ("The Wolf from Another Dimension", "Out of the Forest of Memory", "Over the Black Light").

Balun was eventually discovered by the Great Garmillas Empire, and turned into a key military facility for the empire's continuing expansion ("The Wolf from Another Dimension", "Out of the Forest of Memory"). In 2199, a surprise raid by an enemy vessel overloaded the core of the planet, causing a massive explosion that pushed Balun off its axial tilt, turned the planet into a more natural spherical shape, and diminished its energy output. Months after the attack, Balun was orbited by a substantial debris field comprised of the remains of the Aquarius gate hub and thousands of Garmillas ships ("Over the Black Light", "The Forever War").