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Wurm

Palaeolithic Metasoft baseline preserve world

Wurm
Image from Steve Bowers
Wurm

Data Panel - Wurm system

StarJD 836901
Type G3
Luminosity 0.96 x Sol
Distance from Sol 1066 ly
Planets1/ Mindel
Type Hermian.
Radius 4311 km
Orbit 0.2 AU
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2/ Riss
Type Selenian.
Radius 2828 km
Orbit 0.56 AU
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3/ Wurm
Type GaianTundral. Terraformed.
Radius 6058 km
Orbit 1.02 AU
Moon: Emia 1019km
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4/ Gunz
Radius 12237 km
Type EuJovian.
Orbit 5.6 AU
Emia, moon of Wurm
Image from Steve Bowers
Emia, moon of Wurm
Wurm was colonised in 3980 by the Metasoft Version Tree. The planet was in a cool, early stage similar to the Precambrian era of Earth. The Version Tree chose to terraform this world as a Human Baseline reserve, in order to establish a population of primitivist humans who would exist at a technological level comparable to the Middle Palaeolithic on Earth.

This was part of a long-standing project within Metasoft known as the Redux strategy, which was intended to establish a series of stable and self-sufficient worlds around the galaxy populated by human baselines living in lo-tech or primitive conditions. Since humans had existed in a similar primitive state for hundreds of thousands of standard years, it was expected that they would continue to survive and thrive on these worlds, even if Terragen Civilisation as a whole collapsed.

On Wurm a small population of volunteers, mostly Mortalists and primitivists, formed small tribes in widely separated parts of this cool world. The first generation of colonists were aware of their origins on other worlds within the Terragen sphere, but they refrained from describing this civilisation to their descendants. Although a few rumours and speculations persisted among the new generation of tribespeople, for the most part they knew nothing about the other worlds. Some legends persisted about the 'stone men' or 'crystal men', god-like beings who had created the world; these may have been memories of the Metasoft vecs who set up their society, although none of the second generation were ever permitted to see them in person.


The tribespeople occupy the ecological niche they originally evolved to fill, specifically gatherer-hunters on the cold tundra and the warm equatorial plains, herding wild caribou and fishing in the shallow seas.


Wurm map
Image from Steve Bowers
Geographical features on this world have been assigned labels by the Metasoft guardians of Wurm; here shown translated into basic Anglic equivalents
The animals and plants of this planet are almost all Earth species reconstituted from genetic records; some species are lazurogened, such as mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.

On Old Earth humanity remained at the Middle Palaeolithic level of development for about three hundred thousand years. The Metasoft guardians of this world expected the population to remain in this natural, unspoilt state for at least that long. However this colony and its long-term strategy was disrupted by the events of the Second Vec War, after which the situation changed radically.
 
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Appears in Topics
Metasoft Version TreeMiddle Regions/Hinter-regionsSystems & Worlds W - X
 
Development Notes
Text by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 18 September 2012.

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