Cestus III

Cestus III (or Colony Cestus III) was the inhabited third planet of the Cestus system. The planet was affiliated with the United Federation of Planets.

In the mid-23rd century, Cestus III was on the frontier of Federation space, in a region bordering the territory of the United Federation of Planets and Gorn Hegemony, and was near space claimed by the Metrons. A century later, this planet was considered to be "on the other side of the Federation" from Deep Space 9, approximately two weeks from the Bajoran system by subspace message and eight weeks at the Xhosa's maximum warp. 

Prior to stardate 3045, an Earth observation post was established on this planet. This post was commanded by Commodore Travers. The establishment of this colony alarmed the Gorn Hegemony; they regarded Cestus as part of their space and the colonists as invaders.

In 2267, a Gorn captain led his starship and ground forces in a counter-invasion strike, destroying the colony and slaughtering all but one of the colonists. Using faked communication and impersonating Travers, the Gorn lured the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) to Cestus III, where the landing party, led by Captain James T. Kirk, beamed down to the planet's surface. The surface forces were repelled, and the Enterprise pursued the Gorn vessel to a point near 2466 PM, where both ships were seized by the Metrons and their captains forced to do battle. 

Kirk's confrontation with the Gorn on the planet would later become one of the most famous incidents in his career. Benjamin Sisko once admitted he'd like to shake Kirk's hand and "ask him about fighting the Gorn on Cestus III". 

Prior to 2371, the Federation had re-colonized the planet. In 2371, the colonists formed a baseball league with six teams, including the Cestus Comets and the Pike City Pioneers. Kasidy Yates's youngest brother lived on Cestus III and invited Sisko and his sister to see a live baseball game at the colony. 

Background information
According to the script for "Family Business", the pronunciation for Cestus was "SES-tus". 

In the final draft script of "Arena", the Cestus III outpost that appears in that episode was initially described thus; "This is a military-scientific outpost of the Earth Federation... a limited number of facilities on the surface, most of it below ground. But what we see [...] is smoking ruin... desolation. Cestus Three, in terms of structures and settlement, no longer exists. It has been smashed. All that we see are ruins with here and there a silent body lying dead." The script also establishes that the destruction included all of the outpost's underground section and that the Human population of the outpost was listed as five hundred twelve at the time of the Gorn attack.

The remains of the Cestus III outpost was actually a fort constructed for a film about the Alamo in the 1930s. It was believed to be unsafe and was demolished in the late 1960s. (Star Trek Encyclopedia)

For the "remastered" version of "Arena", a new, computer-generated version of Cestus III, as seen from orbit, was created to replace the grainy, undetailed globe in the original edition. A new matte painting of the outpost was also created, showing more damage and more detail in the surrounding terrain. This version was displayed above.

The logo worn by the colonists was the same worn by personnel at Outpost 4. 

Star Trek: Star Charts

 * Cestus III: An Earth colony was first founded on this planet in 2265. Under the terms of a treaty ratified in the late-2260s, Cestus III would be resettled and shared by both Humans and Gorn. In 2271, the colony was resettled and, later that year, was admitted into the Federation. The capital of this planet was Pike City. The two dominant species of this planet were the Humans and the Gorn. In 2378, there were counted 28.6 million Humans and 7.2 million Gorn living on this planet. In 2378, Cestus III was a Federation member. (pg. 52, "United Federation of Planets I")


 * Cestus system: The system was located in or near Federation space. This was a single star system. Cestus was an A-class star with a magnitude of +3, which was ten times brighter than Sol. (pgs. 52, 64, "United Federation of Planets I")

Apocrypha
In James Blish's short novelization of Arena, it is stated that there were a total of 512 settlers killed in the Gorn attack.

The Pocket TNG novel Requiem, by Michael Jan Friedman, depicts a time travel scenario in which Captain Jean-Luc Picard was transported back in time to Cestus III, shortly before Commodore Travers' outpost was destroyed.

Nanietta Bacco, who was sworn in as Federation President in Articles of the Federation and served during the Destiny series, hails from Cestus III, and had been Cestus' governor before winning the Presidency in a special election just prior to the Shinzon incident.

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