BARD PAPER: OPAL8654 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
BARD PAPER: OPAL8654 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
Arcanum is evidence of some kind of bizarre whimsy in the former Imperial administration. The world is an experimental colony that was established in the aftermath of the Psionic Suppressions, designed to observe social development in primitive human cultures. The original population was generated in vitro, raised to adulthood by the research station personnel, and then released onto the world with only dim memories of their childhood. As these primitive humans and their Edenic society developed, the gods (research personnel) would clandestinely monitor their progress.
As demented or egotistical at this project sounds, it was grounded in real scientific need when it was initiated. Sophontologists working with human subspecies wanted a better distinction between naturally evolved human traits and those engineered by the Ancients. It was also done against the rising tide of eugenics and geneering programs that flourished prior to the Solomani Rim War. But as with most paternalistic programs, Arcanum became a victim of its own hubris. After the Rim War, the eugenics fad faded away, and the project fell largely to the wayside. Its funding was cut several times, and Research Station Alpha was held up by critics as a mockery of scientific principles and common sense.
All of this changed during the Civil War. Because of Vargr raiding along the Deneb-Corridor interface there existed the very real fear that the world would be abandoned to its fate. Alpha personnel lobbied then Archduke Norris for years to keep the facility open and Imperial contact present on the world. After Virus was released, the government relented in allowing millions of the locals to be evacuated safeside. Because of their adaptions to a very thin atmosphere most were resettled without adverse effects to Deneb, where they have converted to To Will One Thing and are fully integrated into the Regency mainstream. The future status of the world remains undecided, though expatriates have expressed their intention of returning to their homeworld and modernising it.