Stubbornness. This is the one word that seems to best describe humanity, and nothing exemplifies it greater than what is now known as the Siege of the Black Citadel.

For nearly five decades, since Hadean Year 2529, Humanity and Hadeankind had been engaging in moderate trade, fueling the mutual expansion of our societies. As our cultures intermingle, common threads are established and treaties drawn up, pulling the two of us closer together. However, our differences also become more and more apparent. In stark contrast to far more pragmatic Hadean culture, Human history and folklore is replete with exaggerated boasts of strength and seemingly impossible accomplishments; a notable example are some of their classic 'alien invasion' movies wherein mankind defeats a superior military force against all odds. The phenomenon is commonly described quite colorfully as "Humanity, Fuck Yeah". At first we thought them arrogant fools, but gradually we were proven wrong.

Lacking the technological capability of traveling the vast distance on their own, Humans often book passage on our tradeships traveling to and from Hadean space, eagerly feeding a fledgling but rapidly growing tourism industry. The most popular destinations are worlds within the Eastern Expanse sector -- especially Eloras, already famous within the Federation for its unsurpassed beauty and generally pleasant climates; for decades it was /the/ vacation hot-spot. Curiously, however, another popular destination has emerged: Seven Kingdoms, a tumultuous frontier world on the western edge of Hadean space. Nearly 200 years ago Seven Kingdoms had been struck by an asteroid, devastating its biosphere and transforming its surface into a nearly globe-spanning desert. Outside of mining towns and geological research outposts, few lived here, and the world was widely regarded as a backwater dump.

Seven Kingdoms is famous for three things: the general lawlessness and anarchy that ensued during the Extinction War when government attention was shifted elsewhere to combat the Val'Turri menace; the inescapable Broken Skull Penitentiary deep within The Scar, established after order was restored; and The Black Citadel, the largest mountain in all of Hadean space. The peak reaches a staggering 27km above sea level, taller even than the famous volcano Olympus Mons on Mars and in fact breaching the planet's stratosphere. Its peak was frequently spoken of as being the last unexplored frontier -- no Hadean had ever set foot on it, no land drone had ever mapped it. The only images of the peak ever captured were taken by satellite.

Before long, a certain subset of tourist began to flock towards Seven Kingdoms -- mountain climbers. They came in many shapes, sizes and colors, from all walks of life, but nearly all of them had one thing in common: the desire to conquer The Black Citadel. The Local Authority was baffled, to say the least; The Black Citadel was deep inside The Scar, the glass desert surrounding the asteroid impact site. No living thing, aside from Hadean expeditions, had been seen in The Scar in decades. Temperatures soar above 150'F during the day and plunge to -40'F at night. Wind speeds routinely surpass 80 mph, rendering air travel impossible. During particularly bad wind storms, the entire region for hundreds of kilometers becomes a hurricane of flying glass shards. Generally the only way to survive The Scar is at night inside a Survey Crawler -- enormous self-sufficient all-terrain vehicles originally designed for conducting year-long geological surveys, alone, on uninhabited planets. These and many other reasons are precisely why there has never been a successful escape from Broken Skull in its entire 200 years of operation -- and these humans wanted to try and climb a mountain out there. Evidently, Mount Everest had become boring. The Local Authority of course denied them any assistance, claiming it was a waste of time and resources, and stating there would be no rescue attempts and no body recovery when -- not if -- they died. So what did the humans do?

A group of them pooled funds and bought their own Crawler and went anyway. They were, naturally, never heard from again, not until a second human-led expedition happened across their abandoned Crawler. The crew's personal tracking beacons still worked, however, and had been squealing their tones across standard frequencies for over a year. Dispatching a drone, the second group found a half-dozen dessicated corpses, contained in custom-built environmental protection suits and barely discernible from the surrounding boulders -- but they were nearly five full kilometers up the base of The Black Citadel. This second group did not attempt to climb any farther, but instead recovered as many bodies as they could and returned home, taking the previous expedition's Crawler with them. At first it was thought they had simply brought them home for burial -- which was still partially true -- but the primary reason was to examine and improve upon their suits. Six months later, a third expedition was sent. Like the first, this one disappeared and was later discovered by a subsequent expedition. Their bodies were not returned this time.

This grisly scenario repeated itself for quite some time, with peculiar side effects. Being little more than a research outpost, Seven Kingdoms didn't have any economy to speak of, however with the sudden influx of mountaineers one began to develop. Entrepreneurs flocked to Seven Kingdoms, eager to set up services for the suicidal expeditions. A sort of modern-day sherpa business was established, whereby owners of Crawlers would, for a fee, carry expeditions to the foot of The Black Citadel, wait until their trackers stopped moving (usually indicative of death) then return home. This base camp quickly expanded into a small town, "New Tibet", built from Porta-Shacks and trailers, housing merchants and their families who eagerly awaited the next flood of explorers. The Local Authority was at a loss for words, but nonetheless approved the necessary paperwork to establish New Tibet as an official colony, making it the first colony not centered around mining or geology to be founded on Seven Kingdoms in over 150 years.

The increasing popularity attracted several of the major corporations who were looking to field-test hazardous environment survival gear. The Citadel Foothills became the ideal testing site for next-gen Crawlers, exosuits and automated equipment recovery systems. Behind all this, however, the human push to breach the Citadel never faded. In 2557 Scott McDougal became the first human to get within 10 km of the peak, and also the first one to successfully return, although he died a year later from various complications stemming from exposure. By this point there were enough corpses on the sides of the Citadel to be used as landmarks, a grim trait echoing Mount Everest and Olympus Mons. The bodies typically lay where they fell and were remarkably well-preserved by the dry climate. Towards the end of 2572 William Vincetti finally reached the peak. He carried two flags, one for the Terran Stellar Alliance and one for the Galactic Hadean Federation, and planted both at the peak, but died soon afterwards with his hand still on the TSA flag's pole, observed by satellite. To this day, his body still holds on.

Now, in 2577, Humanity has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt they are not the simple arrogant fools we once believed. Not through military conquest or economic might, but by leaving hundreds of corpses on the flanks of the Black Citadel. They don't believe in limits, only obstacles. In essence, humans do not understand the word 'no'. As a result, Seven Kingdoms now has a bustling tourist economy, with many experienced mountaineers traveling there for "Hell's Pilgrimage" -- a grueling climb halfway up the side of the Citadel. There are still annual attempts to reach the peak, and since 2572 there have been twelve successful expeditions; unfortunately thus far nobody has made it all the way back down alive. However, the general consensus is that before the end of the century, the Siege of the Black Citadel will be broken, and the last unexplored frontier will have been conquered -- by a human.