BARD PAPER: OPAL8645 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
BARD PAPER: OPAL8645 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
Woaros was settled by humans during the latter days of the 700s. In the cold, wet local environment a strain of bacterial meningitis somehow crossed over into the local ecology and mutated into a deadly new disease. Known as Crackbone Neuraglia for its deadly brain seizures, the new disease wiped out half of the population in a matter of a few weeks in 813. When no cure could be found, and with the world's population dying out too rapidly to save, the Imperial Navy interdicted the world to prevent the release of the disease offworld.
That the Navy led the way to interdict the world caused no small amount of conspiratorial speculation during the antebellum period. Many speculated that the disease was either developed by the military, or that it wanted to convert it into a weapon. Documents released since the Collapse indicate that the measure was actually preventive; apparently the disease proved too dangerous to effectively control.
The current population is mostly wandering nomads who herd local grazers for their hides and meat. The local climate is bitterly cold, with glaciation a problem even in the temperate regions. Quarantine restrictions prevent offworld contact of even an innocuous nature, as most of the populace are non-symptomatic carriers of the disease. and the local society quickly slid into primitivism. Since the Collapse a warming trend has enabled some permanent settlements to develop, and the world's technology has increased to pre-industrial levels.