The most inhabitable (and civilized) 'continent' since the war is a collection of thousands of islands of various sizes, many of them geologically active, and often with mountains and canyons that make wheeled transport difficult (like the
Indonesian Archipelago, but much bigger and a bit further north), with an estimated population of over 30,000 Gormelites. Until the Final War, over a quarter of the islands had been ruled by a nation called the Commune of the Great Islands ('Commune' is a somewhat arguable translation, but is literally accurate, at least; functionally, it was formed as a federation of pre-existing kingdoms and other polities that saw itself as 'a commune of nations' rather than 'a commune of people'). The region was not part of any faction in the Final War, and thus less effort was spent destroying them, as the main factions focused on annihilating each other; the islands still lost every city and significant military base, and many towns. The Commune effectively still exists (citizenship can be inherited or granted, and some Gormelites were citizens before the war), and is thus technically the most powerful nation on the planet, though its institutions are mainly inoperative, and its international influence minimal. The islands of the Commune have a population estimated to be greater than 12,000 Gormelites, and a few hundred Irari scientists and aid workers (the latter are scheduled to be replaced by humans, once enough volunteers have been trained for the local conditions and culture, while the former will be supplemented by human scientists with the same caveat); this makes it the most populous vaguely-united region on the planet. Slavery was not a strong part of this region's culture after around late TL3^, though the Commune did not make it illegal until about twenty years before the Final War.
Common heirloom technology from the Gormellians includes big, stompy, piloted robots (which may have been gladiatorial vehicles or construction equipment before the Final War, adapted since then for real combat), battlesuits, vehicles (some of them having a very Mad Max/Car Wars sort of look), factories making a variety of TL8^ and TL9^ items (including Mitigator drugs for the Gormelites' mental disadvantages), various ballistic and energy weapons (most surviving examples are of the 'low maintenance, durable, and easy to recharge or to get ammunition for' variety, or are made in a still-working factory, or both), and rare, experimental TL10^ items. Many VI-driven robots of various types (a few quite sophisticated, into what THS calls 'Low-sapient AI') are still active, though some are less 'heirloom technology' and more 'environmental hazards' or 'strange and disturbing encounters.' Often, they are still following the last orders they were given by dying masters, and no-one alive has the command codes to change that.
The Gormellians were oddly slower to develop space travel than the Terrans or Irari, being nearly at TL9^ before they had people walking on a moon. Some of their orbiting stations, spacecraft, and extraplanetary bases did survive the Final War, but they could not sustain life for very long - the crews either died in space, or returned to Gormel and died there. It is possible that there may be some survivors that the Irari have not discovered, possibly even in suspended animation, but this is currently deemed unlikely. Some extraplanetary VIs do remain active, including one asteroid mine that is still waiting for their growing stockpiles of rare metals to be picked up.
There are a small number of Gormelite mutants who lack one or more mental disadvantages, or who have different ones, but they are often few and far between. More numerous (though still a small fraction of the surviving population, and becoming smaller until the Irari arrived) are those who use mental disciplines like Autohypnosis, Breath Control, or Meditation (or various Combat Art skills, thanks to the Body Discipline perk) to mitigate their inherent mental problems, largely due to having been trained to do this from early childhood, by parents who were also trained the same way (at this point either the parents or the grandparents were probably trained this way by members of the extinct ancestor race). There is some evidence to suggest that the Gormellians had more natural berserkers than the Gormelites do - the mental disciplines were originally developed to help
them, and were adapted to deal with other issues later.
From the records that the Irari have found, it seems that the earliest known ancestor of the Gormellians (and thus of the Gormelites) appeared in the fossil record roughly 1.7 million years ago (around the same time as proto-Irari appeared on Irar), with no discernible relatives on-planet; the skeletal remains of this ancestor strongly suggest that they were a member of the genus
Australopithecus (or
Paranthropus, if the two are separate, which is a matter of some debate), possibly a phenotype or modification of
P./A. robustus. The Gormellians had thinner fur than the Gormelites, being more like humans that way. The last known survivor of the Gormellians was an insane psiborg brain (
GURPS Psi-Tech pp39-40) who self-destructed after conversing with Irari explorers; there is little chance that others remain, but it is not impossible...
The largest extant land predators other than the Gormelites themselves consist of a few species that appear to have evolved from early horses (mostly SM+1, bordering on SM+2), two that appear related to deer (SM+0), and a wide variety of rare and sometimes unique horrors created during or not long before the Final War (not always intentionally). Common 'vermin' niches are occupied by land-lobsters (SM-6 to SM-12; the tail is normally curled in, and used for jumping), horned gophers (SM-4 to SM-7), and tiny (SM-5 to SM-9) goats. A common pet (and pest-catcher) is a variety of bear a bit bigger on average than a housecat. They are likely to become popular on Earth, due to an instinct that the Gormellians engineered into them, making them gentle with children (which includes many small, sufficiently primatoid life-forms, including young humans).
The Gormelites have a range of martial art styles, a few of them new, but more of them surviving examples or adaptations of forms developed by their progenitors. Smasha (
GURPS Martial Arts p210) appears to have been developed since the war, though it may have been inspired by earlier 'street' or 'brawling' styles. Another one, translated as 'Berserkergang,' or more poetically, 'To Take Very Enthusiastic Walks' (see
GURPS Martial Arts: Yrth Fighting Styles pp15-16; the style has a number of local variations) seems to be a composite style created not long before the Final War, based on a few earlier styles centering around using Berserk. Battlecraft (
Yrth Fighting Styles pp14-15) is an ancient style - an early form of it seems to date from the Bronze Age, and it is believed to have been practiced more-or-less continuously until falling out of use during TL4^, being revived by re-enactors and researchers around TL7^. Styles similar to Aikijutsu were common among many police forces (see
Martial Arts p149; generally, add one Melee Weapon skill and sometimes Guns or Beam Weapons to required skills, Handcuffing, Judo Art, and Retain Weapon to required techniques, and Body Discipline & sometimes Teamwork to perks). A few styles resembling Ars Clemens (
Yrth Fighting Styles p14) survive, though based on ritual psi rather than the spell system (e.g. Thaumatology is replaced by Expert Skill (Psionics), Special Exercises (Magic Resistance up to 5) becomes Special Exercises (Psionic Resistance up to 5), et cetra).