Gunn (world)/secret

Long, Long Ago

This is a theory put forward by the crew of the ISV Ranville...

Before -30,000 Imperial, Gunn had abundant native life and had produced a proto-sophont species. These creatures were generally insectoid in form, around a meter in length, appeared to prefer a colder climate than humans find comfortable, and had large brains relative to their body size. They had developed a rough tech level of TL–0 (equivalent to the copper age / bronze age), and a native culture, including ritual burial and possibly star-veneration.

Tacneto, the system's star - always a temperamental primary - underwent a particularly intense period of activity between -30,000 and -10,000 and effectively sterilized the world. A few primitive species survived, however, within networks of underground caverns, protected from the high levels of radiation that soaked the world. None of these survivors were more sophisticated than organic slimes or fungi-parallels.

The aliens had utilized these same caverns to bury their dead. Multiple thousands of years of erosion, weather, and geological activity have erased all traces of the inhabitants from Gunn's surface, but their tomb-caverns, filled with artifacts made from precious metals, remain hidden deep under the ground.