Long ago, Orto I was a world of jungles and swamps, where savage beasts roamed and life for settlers was grim. Thus it was that the planetary council decided to take drastic action to make their home a more pleasant world. A team numbering several thousand workmen, geological engineers, botanists, agricultural scientists, and others set to work to transform Orto I into some of the most productive farmland in the Orto system. Over a fifty-year period, the jungles were hacked down, the climate adjusted, hundreds of species wiped out to be replaced with imported domestic animals which now graze their way across every region of the planet. Of course, there was resistance to this project from many quarters, but the populace stood to make so much money from their immensely fertile land that most pleas from environmentalists fell on deaf ears.

There are patches of temperate forest dotted here and there which provide a refuge for the handful of native species which still survive, and a hot desert on the equator which was not able to be turned into farmland. Orto I has a modest population for its size and the weather is mild almost all year round.