Ancient History of Oiy

Oia formed several billion years ago as one of many worlds forming in the young universe after the formation of the first galaxies. Later religions and mythological traditions explained this beginning in different ways. Some civilizations believed that the world was deliberately created by the gods, others saw it as an experiment of an ancient superior race. From the point of view of natural history, however, it was above all an extremely rare coincidence of conditions, thanks to which an originally hot and unstable body became a planet capable of sustaining life for a long time. Oia is approximately half the size of Earth, which fundamentally influenced its further development. The lower gravity allowed for different body proportions in many creatures, the more active inner core maintained a strong magnetic field for long periods of time, and the atmosphere stabilized relatively early. It was the combination of the planet's size, chemical composition, long-term active internal heat, and extremely favorable position relative to the star that caused Oia to acquire habitable conditions at a geologically very early stage of its existence. While the development of life on Earth is often described as a series of booms and busts, on Oia life developed in greater continuity. Disasters came, but rarely resulted in the complete obliteration of vast branches of life. Thus, species were not repeatedly erased from the history of the planet, but rather layered, adapted and specialized. It is this extraordinary biological continuity that is the key to understanding the later emergence of humanoid races.

The biggest difference between Oia and Earth lies not only in geology, but in the nature of evolution. On Earth, it was often the case that after a great extinction, new species occupied the vacated niches and the world began to reshape itself. There were no such drastic restarts on Oie. Older species survived much longer, shared space with new ones and created a more complex network of relationships between predators, herbivores, decomposers and more intelligent creatures. This stability created an environment where success was often not based on brute strength or speed, but on the ability to adapt over the long term. It was in such an environment that lineages that were not extremely specialized in just one mode of survival began to gain an advantage. The first ancestors of humanoids later separated from them. Furthermore, a stable biosphere meant that the emergence of intelligence was not a response to a single catastrophe or a brief evolutionary sprint. It was a very long process in which fine motor skills, upright movement, social behavior, working with the environment and the ability to store experience were gradually combined. Thus, the humanoid branch did not arise from a sudden break, but from millions of years of slow selection pressure.

The earliest humanoid ancestors appeared in what is now Ulvenor approximately 400,000,000 BC. Later scholars collectively referred to them as Alpha humanoids. They were not yet intelligent beings in the later cultural sense, but an extraordinarily successful lineage in terms of development. Their main advantage was not physical strength, but versatility. They were able to move upright, use their upper limbs for manipulation, and respond to changing environments more flexibly than most other species. Alpha humanoids used simple tools, made organized sound signals, and functioned in groups where basic roles already existed. Their language was still very primitive and closer to screams than speech, but social cooperation was strong enough to make them a persistent and expanding species. Many millions of years later, approximately 150,000,000 BCE, the Alpha humanoids evolved into a more advanced branch known as the Beta humanoids. They already have a significant development of the brain, vocal apparatus, planning and shared learning. Beta humanoids learned to control fire, build shelters, create more permanent communities, and began to spread into new biomes. It is they who represent the common ancestor of most later races.

One of the biggest turning points in prehistoric history was the eruption of the supervolcano Henstir. It was not the end of Oie's life, but an event that fundamentally changed its direction. A huge amount of ash, dust and volcanic gases entered the atmosphere, which led to a sharp cooling. Temperatures in many parts of the world have dropped so much that the oceans have partially frozen and old migration routes have broken up. Beta humanoids survived this crisis through cooperation, the use of fire, and the ability to move to new areas. The frozen oceans temporarily created land bridges between the continents and part of the population got far from the original centers of settlement. As the climate gradually stabilized over the centuries, many groups were separated from each other. It was this long-term isolation that became the basis for the later division of the races. Individual populations adapted to their environment more and more specifically. Mountain groups gained robustness and resistance, forest populations got longer bodies and more efficient metabolism, swamp branches changed the shape of the skeleton and balance, and the inhabitants of barren landscapes evolved towards a more economical way of life. Races thus arose not by sudden creation, but by a long specialization of one original humanoid base.

One of the most striking features of many of the Oiy races is their unusually high age. In ancient history, this phenomenon is not explained supernaturally, but biologically. The planet's stronger magnetic field for an enormously long time limited some of the harmful cosmic rays, the atmosphere was more stable and in many areas richer in oxygen, and some branches of evolution had developed extremely efficient mechanisms of cellular renewal. Beta humanoids could thus live to an age that would have been considered impossible on Earth. In later races, lifespans began to vary according to environment and evolutionary strategy. Some branches bet on slow growth, long memory and high resistance, others on faster maturation, shorter generations and a more flexible response to inhospitable conditions. Even this difference later became one of the basic divisions between the Oiy races.