The Big Triple S is an informal name for the estuary of the river Ess on the planet of Escaloda, a wide delta land of lakes, shallow mud and tidal pools. Escaloda was colonised in 2342 and an agricultural consortium had plans to grow rice on a large scale in the Big Triple S. When these plans hit major problems due to competition with a native species called the gumjum, a notorious and ultimately successful plan was implemented in 2345 to wipe them out with bioengineered weapons. At the same time, vast swaiths of native estuary plants were removed from the Ess Delta so that rice planations could be installed in their place. This event was known as the Escaloda Extinctions. The gumjum, also known colloquially as the slurpers, were a semi aquatic native of the mud plains looking like a giant mud skipper and able to burrow into the soft delta lands of the Big Triple S. Although they had no tool making capabilities and showed no evidence of civilization they possessed a level of intelligence perhaps similar to Earthly dolphins. Here we see a gumjum emerging to feed at sunset. The Escaloda Extinctions proved to be a significant turning point in relations between Earth and the Society of Contemporary Races which took a very dim view of these crimes, profoundly affecting galatic political life for the next thousand years at least.