“	A blazing-hot desert planet, its rocky mesas are the sole interruptions to the endless sea of dunes.	„
	~ Official Description

Keid is one of the five planets that reside within the Akira Sector.

Topography and Astrography

Similar to Heze Bay, Keid is a sandy, arid planet comprised almost entirely of deserts, wastelands and canyons perpetually permeated by the light of its star during the day and the frigid cold brought by its high winds during the night. The endless wastes and dune seas of the planet are only ever interrupted by the occasional odd spring or ridge scattered between the rocks, littered with small dry shrubs and dead bushes. The planet's low soil moisture and low air humidity makes the planet experience frequent sandstorms, which reduce mobility and greatly reduce visibility. Under these extreme conditions, long range engagements are almost impossible, as the storm makes it impossible to identify anything beyond a Helldiver's immediate vicinity. However, this visual obstruction also applies to the enemy, which may allow for stealth to flourish and allows for Helldivers to disengage more easily.

During the day, the blazing sun causes temperatures to rise, the Intense Heat increasing stamina drain and increases the heat buildup rate of weapons reliant on heat sinks, while also making them cool down slower. Conversely, the total absence of sunlight during the night causes temperatures to drop sharply, bringing an Extreme Cold that reduces the firerate of weapons but also makes weapons reliant on heat sinks build up less heat over time and cool down faster.

Keid is not home to any Mega Cities or facilities of importance to the ongoing Galactic war. Despite this, Keid's deserts are home to a number of scattered urban settlements, which house a significant portion of its population. Besides these settlements, Keid's wastes are dotted by sparse frontier camps, detached settler dwellings, broadcast stations, farms, research outposts and S.E.A.F. facilities.

The Keid System is comprised of the planet Keid itself, its orbiting white, volcanic moon and at least 2 other astronomical bodies, which are a gas giant with a planetary ring and a gray exoplanet.

Sitting at the farther end of the Akira Sector, Keid is the link connecting the Southern Galactic Fringe with the Southern Galactic Rim and the rest of the larger Federation. It's FTL line with Karlia makes it crucial for the Democracy Space Station to replenish its Gloom-shielding polymer blanket, while its FTL link to Shete makes it a direct link to the single most important planet of the Xi Tauri Sector. Keid is an important stepping stone that any Illuminate offensives will have to fight through if they aim to invade the larger Akira Sector, as Keid is one of the only two planets that lead directly into Asperoth Prime.

History

Second Galactic War

Return of the Illuminate

Keid was, much like all of its neighbors, a peaceful colony of Super Earth that had been settled after the First Galactic War. Like many others in the Southern Galactic Rim, Keid's history was relatively uneventful, with its economy being robust enough to allow for the construction of urbanized settlements in order to house the growing populace. However, a resurgent foe was staring in envy, waiting for the moment to strike.

On December 26th, 2184, the Illuminate would send a raid onto Keid. Since the Helldivers had been given complete operational freedom for the Festival of Reckoning, they would immediately dispatch a fleet towards the planet in hopes of repelling the raid and mitigating the damage.

Despite battling the invaders for 12 hours, the raid could not be repelled, leaving Keid in ruins, its resources plundered and hundreds of thousands of colonists missing.

Yet, the nefarious invaders weren't to even allow the innocent citizens of Keid even a moment of respite or redress as, 3 days later, they would return to Keid for a second time. And much like the first raid, the Helldivers would be unable to repel the raid in time, as they now had been issued new orders to fight the Automatons in the Marspira Sector, which consequently left Keid's defense to fall.

Operation Democracy Delivered

Keid was left in ruins. Keidish families lamented the loss of their loved ones and the deaths of their compatriots; both those who died during the invasions and those abducted, as it was pretty much guaranteed that they would never be seen again. The citizens of Keid would spend New Years eve in mourning as its aggressors continued to plunder the Southern Galactic Rim and inflicting horror. But soon, a chance for retribution would come for Keid. On January 16th, 2185, the Illuminate suffered a disastrous defeat at Emorath, as the Helldivers now had their best weapon, the Democracy Space Station, not only back in their hands but also upgraded and better than it was before.

Having been given orders to repel the Illuminate raids, the Helldivers would use the Democracy Space Station to inflict one devastating defeat after the other onto the invading aliens, razing hell and destroying warp ships by the hundreds all across the Southern Sectors. And it would be in the midst of this operation that the Keidish found their chance for justice to be dispensed.

The Illuminate began to see their success unfold, as their defeats after Emorath had inflicted massive losses while their victories since had come at too great of a cost to really help recover them. As such, the Illuminate would begin to undertake bold multi-planet attacks in hopes that the Helldivers wouldn't be able to defend all of them and, consequently, they could at least plunder one planet without as many losses. However, this approach also meant that they had to spread their forces thin and bide for time until the Helldivers couldn't feasibly turn the situation around.

On January 20th, 2185, Keid and Asperoth Prime were both attacked by separate invasion fleets shortly before their prior triple attack at Brink-2, Canopus and Genesis Prime came to an end. Having been barely successful at Canopus and largely obliterated in the other 2 battles, the Illuminate would focus on these 2 planets where they had previously won comfortably. However, the Helldivers would not allow Keid's defiling to continue any longer and immediately moved all of their available forces towards Keid. After some 5 hours of fighting, the Illuminate fleet at Keid was destroyed, allowing the Keidish to find peace and their dead to be properly avenged.

Operation Void Attack

After more than year of tenous calm, Keid would find itself assaulted by fleet of Appropriators on April 17th. Couple days earlier, Helldivers successfully repelled duel invasion on Heze Bay and Rirga Bay, and by the time attack came to Keid, were making good advances on occupied Hydrobius. What followed was a series on indecisiveness - Many Helldivers remained on Hydrobius for the crucial first hours, following the location of Democracy Space Station, which was not yet permitted to jump yet. This resulted in first 4 hours of invasion being met with only small amounts (10-15%) of Helldivers both on Keid and co-attacked Hort.

By time DSS finally performed FTL jump into Keid's orbit, Illuminate have arleady gained an advantage, which was never fully addressed - only 30% of all available Helldivers were present on the planet. Helldivers found themselves racing against the clock, but eventually, control of Keid was considered lost at 23:20 SEST time on April 18th.

Operation Beach Bash

STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY: APPROPRIATOR EXCAVATION

Super Earth High Command, noticing that the Helldivers had so far stiffled a massive Terminid onslaught on Zygos pretty handily, spied an opportunity for a portion of the Helldiver fleet to divert towards Keid, where the nefarious Appropriators had begun conducting excavations of Un-Democratic Architectural Remains (UARs) on May 6th, 2186. Wishing to interdict the alien terrorists and collect research material to study The Void, the Helldivers would be order to destroy a number of Illuminate Veracitor mechs piloted by the alien combatants on the planet.

With the defense of Zygos concluding and the defense of Heeth going awry, a small contingent of Helldivers would divert towards Keid and, having been provided with EXO-49 Emancipator Exosuits, would wreak havoc on the extraterrestrial plunderers. The operation would go smoothly and, just as the required number of Illuminate appliances were destroyed, a second Terminid attack would strike Fronteria. All in all, the Strategic Opportunity would be capitalized on successfully and the Helldivers returned to their defense in the Terminid Front without much incident.

FTL Lines

• Asperoth Prime (Re-established on October 27th, 2185)
• Karlia - Omega Sector (Established on October 27th, 2185)
• Shete - Xi Tauri Sector (Established on October 27th, 2185)

FTL Timeline

• February 8th, 2184: Keid is connected by FTL to Asperoth Prime.
• June 13th, 2184: FTL line to Asperoth Prime are destroyed.
• October 27th, 2185: FTL Line to Asperoth Prime is re-established. Lines to Karlia and Shete are created.