The Library

We have discovered clear signs that … was once densely populated. However, whatever destroyed their civilization did a very thorough job of it: very few useful remains have been found.

Our scanners have detected several large cavities deep below the surface that may once have supported life. Perhaps we will have more luck there.

Our excavation of the cave systems on … has found well-preserved remnants of an underground, high technology society built on a vast scale. Many of the ruins are in surprisingly good condition, and we have managed to find what our … are describing as a "library" of encrypted data crystals. Hopefully, these can shed some light on what happened here.

A … exploring the ruins on … recently disappeared. After a short search, we found a … that seems to have belonged to a …. Our … are in no doubt that these remains are what's left of our missing …, but they are baffled about how the body decayed quite this quickly. They urge caution as we continue our investigations.

As we interpret the data crystals from the caves on …, we begin piecing together a picture of a troubled planet.

The planet was once the center of a prosperous civilization known as the Ilanii Foundation. During that civilization's latter years, the Ilanii turned more and more to the hoarding of knowledge instead of more material matters such as procreation. As a result, their population fell rapidly. Alarmed by their dwindling numbers, their leaders attempted to find a technological solution for immortality. Records become scarcer around this point - though it appears to predate whatever cataclysm forced them underground - and it is not clear yet what results their efforts yielded.

We can now piece together what became of the Ilanii's attempt at immortality. It appears that, far from bringing them everlasting life, they created a terrible menace - a swarm of microorganisms capable of multiplying rapidly and almost instantly devouring any organic matter... as must have happened to our team's lost member.

The resulting cataclysm wiped out much of the population. The survivors splintered into two groups: one, unwilling to give up …, took to the depths, recreating their civilization in air-tight pockets such as the one we found. However, this solution proved unsustainable in the long run, and eventually the microorganism found its way into their habitats; the caves became their tombs.

The other group instead went into exile, enforcing a planetary quarantine by utterly obliterating the surface, rendering it uninhabitable. They would henceforth live in small enclaves and dedicate themselves to preserving the lost knowledge of their civilization, eventually morphing into one of the ancestors of the modern ….