The Sanctus Aurum began life as the Entranza Sanctus in 2551. After the loss of the Entranza Agios in 2561, the Sanctus was put up for sale and bounced between several different owners before arriving on the auction block in Aberdeen in 2581, where it was purchased by Emmett Morgan and re-christened the Sanctus Aurum.
Morgan spent the next five years modifying the ship and moving it into place in a relatively unknown system in Freelance space. As an allusion to Morgan's prosthetic eye, his nickname derived from the same, and the system's blue dwarf star, the system became known colloquially as Cobalt's Eye before Morgan's heir, his daughter Amelia Morgan, made that the official name when they registered the system in 2600.
The Sanctus Aurum now sits in orbit around Tortuga, the gas giant single planet in Cobalt's Eye. It serves as a safe haven for smugglers and other crews who prefer to engage with the Underworld. An interested pilot or crew can rent accommodations by the day, the week, or the month. Several blocks of housing also offer longer term leases. Even the ship docking ports can be leased out to a specific ship for their exclusive use.
Morgan added several amenities that cater to the smuggler's life, including refueling equipment at every docking point, a thriving market with no official oversight, a shipyard with official licensing from Emory and Talbot along with a team of engineers on loan from CNK. It was Morgan's goal that the Sanctus Aurum be a safe and welcoming place for all of those operating in shadows. To that end, everyone who docks at the Aurum must sign a legally binding contract that they will not disturb the peace of the haven.
More than one crew early on thought that this contract was unenforceable, and were quite shocked to find their ships, gear, and goods confiscated and all responsible parties given the choice of a permanent ban and a transport ride to either a League or Confederacy port, or a quick walk out an airlock. Word spread swiftly and the Aurum has been widely recognized as one of the safest places in the galaxy ever since.
Morgan and Amelia also made the decision to arm the ship against any aggressors. Through his various contacts in the Confederacy, Morgan was able to get his hands on the wreckage of both a Republic and a League battleship and he made great use of their armor plating and surviving weaponry. In later years, after Morgan passed away, Amelia reached out to CNK and brokered a deal that resulted in a full weaponry upgrade for the Aurum and an expanded CNK presence. In fact, the one and only CNK storefront is located onboard the Aurum and by all appearances, it does a brisk trade in everything from personal devices all the way up to fully custom ship orders.
The Sanctus Aurum houses a permanent crew of 1,750 and can comfortably house 30,000 guests at any one time. Typically, there are between 20-25,000 people onboard, with roughly 8,000 of them living there full time. This includes the CNK people, the shipyard crews, and other independent retailers who maintain storefronts.
Additionally, the Aurum is home to a large population of free Lyndri, some 800 of which are part of the permanent crew. The rest hold down jobs in various store fronts or as independent contractors. Morgan declared that any Free Lyndri who arrived on the Aurum must be treated as equal to any free human or NorAellian who arrives onboard as well. Some people take a while to adjust to this reality, but by and large, bigots who are loud about it don't make many friends on the Aurum.
In what many consider to be the irony of the century, the Aurum also plays host to an official Lyndri Embassy and while normally, this would be anathema to any significant population of free Lyndri, Morgan and Amelia have an understanding with this Embassy.
Morgan routinely tasks crews looking for work with carefully recovering Lyndri artifacts and relics that are, officially, owned by Morgan but housed here. Lyndri are given free admission. Everyone else pays a small ticket price, 50% of which is secretly funneled back to the Lyndri government.
The principle market for black market goods
From Matt:
Meet our equivalent to the Errant Venture from the old Star Wars EU. The Sanctus Aurum is, in nearly every respect, a smuggler's paradise. A modern day, spaceborn Tortuga. If you need black market goods, an untraceable upgrade for your ship, and luxurious place to lay low, the Aurum has you covered. Best of all, since the ship pays all of the taxes and duties for every transaction that takes place onboard, the Confederacy has no cause to interfere. The League and the Republic deeply wish they could find cause to blow this ship out of orbit, but neither one is willing to cross the lines that they would need to cross to do that. And if you can get one of their Admirals alone and drunk enough, they'll also tell you that they aren't willing to commit and risk the number of ships it would take to remove the Aurum.