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Druidworld
Druidworld
Image from Steve Bowers
Terraformed planet famous for large-scale archeological artifacts.
Druidworld is a planet of spectacularly eroded mountains, boreal forests and gigantic, mysterious constructions. They resemble menhirs and gigantic stone rings, together with large-scale, complicated structures made from the entire peaks, mountain chains and valleys. This planet has great sightseeing appeal and is justly famous throughout the Middle Regions. The attractiveness of Druidworld is enhanced by the history of the world, particularly the Druid Incident.

AH-2134 was an a snowball planet, which was terraformed into a cold-temperate climate and leased to a primitivist group called the Moderate Druidism Alliance. (Certain Negentropist historian/archivists took issue with the MDA's obsession with megalithic structures, they point out that the historical druids of Northeastern Europe did not in fact build any megaliths themselves, but were content to use pre-existing neolithic structures. The MDA responded that they were improving upon ancient history). It then developed as one of the less successful, but intriguing, prim worlds. Druidworld was apparently from the beginning a sociological experiment of the archailect known as Taam, who was apparently sympathetic to the Druidist's vision of improved history. Modern infrastructure was limited to two autonomous ecopoiesis complexes which made use of native primitive lifeforms and were hidden deep under the oceans.

Within 640 years, the local population was slowly overtaken by luddism combined with religious fanaticism, reverting into a society resembling pre-Christian Europe. It included prohibiting information exchange and migration, encouraging instead feudal organisation and slash-and-burn agriculture. Tweaks, splices and vecs were prosecuted and forced to participate in gigantic building projects using largely early industrial technology. This period saw the building of the giant megalithic structures we are familiar with today.

Weapons and means of punishment were one of few technologies maintained by the ruling class. Soon, the outside community was alarmed with rumors of ideological manipulation, acts of atrocity towards provolved animals (some provolves were, conversely, worshipped) and falling life standards. Local administration proved to be xenophobic and completely non-responsive to calls of restraint. It is remarkable, because the Druidworld colony was at that time just 750 years old. Many of the longer-lived people of Druidworld, particularly the ruling class, remembered the old hi-tech spacefaring civilisation; when faced with a coalition of forces from nearby concerned colonies within the system, they revealed a wide range of nano and conventional weapons in orbit.

The High Druids threatened heavy damage to the policing forces or, conversely, to suicidally destroy the Druidworld ecosphere and all its sophonts. With time, restraining all advanced technologies started threatening the maintenance of the autonomous machinery controlling the planet climate.

When concerns were expressed over welfare and stability of the Druidworld, Taam answered by removing all influence on the planet except hidden medical nano. Within as little as 20 further years, the locals abandoned technology completely. The now pre-industrial population was then easily rescued by the policing vecs sent by Taam. All sophonts were fully rehabilitated and offered voluntary memory conditioning.

All what is left on the chilly planetary surface is the restored ecology and gigantic constructions, built by the inhabitants during their centuries of isolation from the outside.
 
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Appears in Topics
Middle Regions/Hinter-regionsNon-Coercive Zone (NoCoZo)Primitive Tech Societies
Systems & Worlds C - D
 
Development Notes
Text by Jorge Ditchkenberg
Initially published on 22 October 2008.

 
 
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