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| Primary | M4
| | Surface gravity | 12.9 m/s², 1.32 g
| | Day length | 2.84 Ms, 32.8 Earth days (synchronous rotation)
| | Year length | 2.84 Ms, 0.090 Earth years
| | Seasonal change | None
| | Atmosphere | 147 kPa, 18 kPa partial pressure O2
Fires burn reluctantly (-1 Flammability score)
| | Climate | Sweltering to cold
| | Notable features | Tide-locked
| | Population | 32 million, primarily Gummis, Tweechis, and Pirangs
| | Wormhole terminus | Uuroowhii
| | Prominent businesses | Wormhole power distribution, repulsorlift and affector wing vehicles, robotics, industrial tractor/repulsors, Tweechi agriculture, Pirang ranching
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Natural Features
Grummer orbits a red dwarf star, which despite its name is more yellow in color. Like most habitable planets about red dwarfs, it is tidally locked, with one side always facing the sun and the other locked in eternal night. The night side is covered in kilometers-thick ice sheets. The sub-stellar pole (the place on the planet where the sun is directly overhead) has a permanent cyclonic storm constantly swirling, with dramatically menacing grey skies and flickering lightning. Only in the twilight regions, between the storm clouds and the ice sheets where the sun hangs near the horizon, is the planet clement for life.
Grummer's sun is fairly quiet as red dwarfs go. Its flares are small, and sunspots are not much of a problem. Consequently, Grummer maintains a fairly constant temperature and climate. Other than the occasional rain storm (or, near the ice shelf, snow storm), the weather on Grummer is fairly uneventful.
Most of Grummer's settlements are in comfortably warm semi-tropical areas.
Like all habitable worlds around red dwarf stars, it has dark greenish skies in clear weather, and the outdoor lighting has a notably yellow cast, similar to that of an incandescent bulb.
The gravity of Grummer is high. While not overwhelming, it people will tire more easily and are more likely to get injured during physical activity. The high gravity leads to shorter mountains and shallower valleys, but it also makes the air get thinner faster with altitude so the tops of those mountains are just as rarefied.
Under this gravity, one's natural walking gait increases speed, and the glide speed of a flying Tweechi or aircraft is faster.
Gummis adapt well, because they are already low to the ground. Humans and Pirangs tend to get dizzy when standing up rapidly, and may faint, especially if not acclimated. It is more exhausting for a Tweechi to get airborne, and once in the air they must maintain a higher flight speed to generate lift.
Grummer had no macroscopic land life when first settled, and only the most primitive slug-things and filter-jellies in the oceans. It now hosts an ecology made up of introduced life from around the Gummi's home galaxy and nearby galaxies, including a significant selection from Tweechi and Pirang home worlds.
There has not been enough time for alien life to colonize the whole planet, but in places where people go and for hundred of kilometers around where people live one usually finds complex living organisms from distant galaxies making this world their home.
History
The first Gummis to reach the Milky Way galaxy arrived at Grummer. Long range scans indicated a world in the habitable zone with a breathable atmosphere, and the low-mass, yellow star made the planet promising for their Tweechi and Pirang allies who were adapted to such environments.
The exploration wormhole came sleeting in at hyper-relativistic speeds, slowing down to a capture orbit via a repulsor ray between the wormhole mouth and Grummer itself. After surveying the planet, the scout team chose an auspicious landing spot. The sensors reported a safe atmosphere and no dangerous radiation, and the intrepid explorers disembarked from their staging area at a planet on the outskirts of NGC 3109. While Gummis and their allies had made intergalactic trips before, this was the farthest jump any had ever taken. The scouts arrived safely and began their evaluation of their new world.
Soon curious Gummis, Pirangs, and Tweechis were flocking through the wormhole to settle on Grummer. As expected, it proved an ideal environment for the Pirangs and Tweechis; driving stock or farming vase flowers or juice vines, setting up their pack houses and nests.
As more worlds were explored within the Milky Way, Grummer became a cross-roads planet, the root node of the Gummi expansion in this new galaxy. Soon, the rural frontier developed booming ports and trade-towns. Nogis set up campuses to manufacture goods and to do business.
The early ad hoc coordination committees found their remit expanding and their influence growing, and their members taking on highly respected positions in their communities.
Contact with the Humans sent a pulse of excitement through Grummer, shortly followed by relief when it became apparent that the Humans would rather talk and trade than fight. This, in turn, increased the amount of traffic flowing through Grummer, as Human-made goods passed through on their way to Whum, Doonzhee, and the old galaxies of NGC 3109, Antlia Dwarf, Sextans A and Sextans B.
It was the industry attracted to Grummer by easy access to trade that saved the Gummi settlements in the Milky Way during the Bump in the Night. That manufacturing capacity allowed Gummi Space to maintain their civilization, holding on to their handful of worlds during the collapse, and then to rebuild to a comfortable level within less than a gigasecond.
Government
As a Gummi world, Grummer has no world-government to speak of.
The closest is the Grummer Coordination Committee, a group of highly respected Gummis (and two Tweechis) from around the world with a strong influence with their respective "constituencies".
As with most Gummi organizations, the Grummer Coordination Committee's decisions are non-binding, but carry significant weight among the regional coordination committees and the people of the planet in general.
Grummer's central location also makes it convenient as the house of the Primary Coordination Committee of Gummi Space, located in a sprawling campus and composed of thinkers and statesthings from many worlds.
People
Despite being one of the most populated of the Gummi worlds, much of Grummer is still rural. That which is not howling wilderness is generally cropland or pastureland, with hardy farmers tending their fields and ranchers looking after their herds. The Pirang rancher on Grummer has something of the same mystique about it as cowboys from Earth.
Most of the rural population are Pirangs and Tweechis; Gummis tend to cluster in the urban area around Uuroowhii.
In the built-up areas, mounded Gummi-style houses pile into reef-like structures, with Tweechi nest houses clustering in the high places. Winding paths weave their way between the lumpy, melted-appearing walls, leading a passer-by past small shops, open-air markets, parks, and sleepy residential neighborhoods.
Places
Uuroowhii
Uuroowhii is Grummer's largest city, a metropolis of some 15 million souls. Wormhole traffic from among the various branches of Gummi space and out to the Verge Republic make it a thriving hub and port, and invigorates its economy. Uuroowhii is known for its cross-cultural artistic scene, with outdoor concerts and plays, civic sculptures and murals, and scent-art exhibitions.
Goorwhiimoong Education Committee Campus
The Goorwhiimoong Education Committee is one of the more prestigious universities of the Verge. They have a sprawling campus a half-hour's travel out of Uuroowhii, built along an ancient river channel lined by metamorphic cliffs. Expansive parks and walking paths separate and connect the laboratories, lecture halls, dormitories, and office buildings. Many of the buildings are located on the cliffs themselves, which is not a problem for Tweechi or Gummi staff, faculty, or students but causes some irritation to Pirangs and to visitors of other species (except for Pannovas, who can climb easily enough).
Goorwhiimoong is well known for its expertise in the physical and biological sciences, engineering, and medicine.
The Verge's foremost experts in Antecessor technology work at Goorwhiimoong.
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