Belle Terre

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For the novel of the same name, see Belle Terre (novel).

Belle Terre is the fourth planet in the Occult system, in Cluster Z-80 of the Saggitarian Stellar Group, six months distant from the United Federation of Planets in the 23rd century. A lush, Class-M world, Belle Terre nonetheless remained uninhabited until the 2270s when sixty-thousand or so Federation citizens set out on the Belle Terre Colonial Expedition to settle the planet. (Star Trek: New Earth novel: Wagon Train to the Stars)

The planet had at least one moon, nicknamed the Quake Moon. Three weeks after the colonists arrived at Belle Terre, pressure within the unstable Quake Moon built to the brink of a catastrophic eruption. The planet would have been rendered uninhabitable had the USS Enterprise not intervened. It led the colony ships in using tractor beams to crash "the Needle" (a small moon of the twelfth planet in the system, a gas giant) into the Quake Moon, alleviating the pressure. Even so, the Quake Moon's eruption bombarded Belle Terre's largest continent with radiation, and released quasar olivium into the atmosphere, casuing severe weather conditions across the planet. (New Earth novel: Belle Terre)