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World Broadcast Network (WBN) holocast, December 31, 3492

"Get ready folks, the time has come. We are about to enter a new era. At midnight tonight we will see year of the Microscopic Era, or ME for short," said anchorman Ron Thompson.

"That's right Ron and what a beginning to an era it will be. I remember the first time the Institute of Science first announced that they planned on shrinking every living thing on Earth to a fraction of its normal size. People are actually going to be no more than 0.2 millimeters in height. I'm glad they are adjusting the measurement system so we can all still think in feet and meters instead of something that small. But, this is all simply amazing," reported anchorwoman Alice Smith.

"Amazing is one word for it, but we've needed the space for a long time now. Especially after the last failed attempt at creating a faster than light drive," Ron said as a graphic appeared over his left shoulder. On it there was a vessel just exiting Mars orbit. The engines on the vessel flared up a bright blue color and then there was a massive explosion that consumed the red planet. Mars had been shattered by that explosion and it showed signs of becoming a third asteroid belt. "As you have just seen the last attempt humanity made to leave this solar system and find worlds for habitation using methods that do not require multi generation vessels only resulted in the creation of the Mars crescent belt."

"At least we still have Venus and some of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter as well as our own humble little moon. And even those places are starting to get a little crowded. The Institute says this will only stretch out the population problem, but that by the time it becomes a problem again they are sure they will have perfected a FTL drive," said Alice as she shook her head in a sign that she did not believe what the Institute of Science said.

"Yeah, I'm sure that will happen. But, let me bring the viewers attention to the screen for a moment," said Ron as the image the news anchors was replaced by a map of the Earth. Areas of the planet were highlighted in red, yellow, and green. "If you are in currently located in the red zones you need to exit immediately. As you know by now the very land itself will be altered to mimic the various biospheres of the Earth multiple times on every continent. This is going to be like making one Earth into many Earths people. Since the current features of the Earth, such as rivers, lakes, and mountains, will be reduced in size along with the creatures and plants of the planet new features are going to be added as well. The last thing you want is to be standing on the location where they decided to grow a new mountain. Yellow zones will be little safer and it is strongly advised that you find your way to a green zone immediately. If you are out on the ocean you don't need to worry. They say the size of waves will also be regulated so they seem normal to us even though the actual size of the continents and the oceans will remain the same as they are now."

"And if mining happens to be a hobby of yours don't worry. They're moving in metals from the asteroid belt to seed the Earth with much shallower veins of precious metals so you won't have to dig through miles of dirt and rock to get to them. The Institute of Science actually says it is a safety measure in the event that civilization collapses, like that's likely to happen," Alice commented. "But, they reason if something does cause the collapse of human civilization then they will need readily available materials to get civilization back on its feet. There has actually been a lot of discussion among them about what would happen to humanity if we lost all of our technology. The alterations made to crops and certain livestock has ensured that a primitive civilization could maintain a larger civilization than they could in the past and they are discussing what numbers like that could mean to a primitive society."

"I'm sure they have Alice and I'm sure our viewers would like to hear about that about as much as they would like to have the specifics of how they will be doing everything they plan to do at midnight GMT," Ron laughed.

"If only we had the time," Alice said, "but it is time for us to move onto the sports report with Mitch Taylor."

537 ME

The Earth had more than enough space for everyone. People were happy and modern technology ensured that the vast majority of humanity never lacked for anything. Humanity had grown complacent, except for a select few. These people thought that humanities complacency was leading to disaster. Nobody took them seriously and they remained ignored for the most part. As time went on the group organized and became known as the Terran Coalition. After they failed to sway the majority of humanity to their view point they resorted to the tried and true method of forcing everybody to believe what they wanted them to believe. Their numbers were ridiculously small compared to the rest of humanity, but you did not need great numbers when most people had not even seen a weapon since they were born. All they had to do was plot in secrecy until the day they decided to start their war to subject the rest of humanity.

During this year many people would see the beginning of the first war in over 1000 years. Most people were too scared or confused to know what to do. But, there were some people prepared to resist. A few families and communities had a strong military tradition that they had held onto while other people were just paranoid and always thought somebody would try something like the Terran Coalition had. If the TC had been organized from the very beginning they may have succeeded before anyone could fight back. The problem was that many of their members had never had to organize a major military offensive before and the opening day of their attack had been incredibly sloppy by anyone's standards. That gave resistance to the TC the chance to organize and strike back. By years end Earth and all of its colonies were engulfed in a war between the Terran Coalition and its opposition, the Solarian Federation. The conflict would come to be known as the Enders War.

Chicago, Illinois, May 17, 549 ME

Solarian Federation Headquarters

Three people gathered on the twelfth year of the Enders War to discuss how out of hand things had become.

"So what have you got for me?" asked General Farwell.

"Not much good news I'm afraid. We've lost the final colony. Those paranoid idiots destroyed Io just because they thought that new bio weapon the TC has been developing was on it. Everything we can find out says that they moved that project here on Earth about two years ago, but they just won't listen," responded Major Lee.

General Farwell closed his eyes briefly as he thought back on the destruction of every major colony in the Solar System. It had started when the TC had used some previously unheard of chemical weapon on Venus. Every living thing on the planet had somehow been wiped out in less than a month. Then went the colonies on Earth's moon which were soon followed by all the other colonies throughout the solar system. Io had been all that remained. "How did they do it?" asked the General.

"They replicated the affect from the failed FTL drive test that destroyed Mars," said Major Lee. "General, isn't there anything you can do to stop them? We're supposed to be on the same side fighting against the TC. But with policies like these..."

General Farwell sighed, "I would like to, but you know most people are so scared they're willing to go along with the paranoids instead of us. The last chance we had of winning the people over was destroyed along with the Venus colonies. All I can do now is attempt to ameliorate the situation. And you know how hard even that has been." That last comment was directed at the third member of this group.

"Indeed I do General," said Professor York. "I thank you for all you've done for my research team. Most of my people are already having trouble looking themselves in the eyes. I can't imagine what things would be like without you. But, are you really sure you want to make these dragon's sentient. They're like living light tanks with stealth capabilities."

"I understand your concerns Professor. Truth be told, I would have tried to get the project scrapped if I didn't know the TC was doing something very similar at the moment. The difference between us and them is that they are creating semi-sentient beasts that are going to be forced to obey their master's sadistic whims," said General Farwell. "Creating an entire race to do our fighting for us is something I couldn't possibly stand for. They are going to born into a world at war and I want to at least give them the choice as to whether or not they want to fight. I known they will probably have to fight anyways since the TC would probably want to subjugate them like they do everybody else, but at least they'll get to say yes or no. And on the subject of creating races to fight for us, how is that counter virus to the TC's, um, what did you call it? Ammoro, antrow, anthro something or other?"

"The Anthropomorphic virus General," responded Professor York. "As you know the TC has been trying to find a way to strike at us in any way they can. There numbers have never been that great and they barely have any offensive capabilities left. It was almost inevitable that they would result to depending on chemical and biological weapons. This Anthropomorphic virus is supposed to target the animal population. If this thing is unleashed it will give animals a very humanoid or centauroid appearance. From what I can tell many of them would even be able to interbreed with humans. Some will keep their original form though. About half of the ones affected by the virus will gain human level intelligence, but they will be incredibly violent. Well, they would be violent if it weren't for our counter virus. We can't figure out how to reverse the affect, but we can at least make it so that they would be able to live normal lives without having to tear apart everything that moves."

"How much of the animal kingdom would be affected by the TC's virus and how many could ours help?" asked Major Lee.

"There's no way of telling exactly. But or best guess says about 10 percent of the planet's animal population, with the exception of insects since all of them don't have the body mass to survive the transformation process or the cranial capacity to support intelligence, will be affected by the TC's virus and ours should severely reduce the numbers that will be uncontrollably violent, my best guess would be about one in 100000 will remain violent monsters. Still, if they have our intelligence there will be some of them that like to kill among their numbers just like humans. Some of these creatures will be as tall as our dragons. A four foot tall anthropomorph may not sound that bad, but imagine what a nine foot tall one could do if it decided to go on a killing spree. And by the way, congratulations on your ability to distribute our counter virus all over the globe General," lectured Professor York.

"No, thank you for producing it so fast Professor. I have also made sure the equipment needed to detect the TC's virus is at each of the facilities our virus is stored at. The moment they try to unleash their virus our facilities will automatically release our virus to counter theirs," said the Professor.

"Good, now all we need to worry about is the shelters you've had me set up," said Major Lee. "I would like to think they aren't necessary, but with how the TC has been acting and what our own side just did to Io we'll need to put everything we have into making sure we just survive this war. I don't think it's possible that anyone will be able to claim a true victory after this thing anymore."

552-570 ME

Fearing immanent defeat the Terran Coalition unleashed its most advanced, but still incomplete, biological weapon. Their intention had been to wipe out humanity before it could slowly die off like they thought would happen if they lost. The efforts of a select few to insure the survival of humanity and the incomplete nature of their weapon insured that they wound up in failure. What the virus did do was wipe out the leadership of most of the Solarian Federation. With the collapse of both governments anarchy soon ensued. By the time the weapon had run its course less than 95 million humans and five million sentient dragons had survived. Considering the fact that well over a trillion people had lived on the Earth before the Enders War started, the death toll was truly mind blowing.

Things were not ready to get better for the survivors either. The dragons were not the only creatures that had been created during the war. Leftover genetically engineered creatures roamed the Earth, some friendly, many not. It was also a time of persecution. Many of the people responsible for the worst atrocities of the war were killed off during the Terran Coalition's spectacular demise. Without anyone left to blame, the people turned on the next most available group of people. That group consisted of scientists, engineers, and anyone else with any considerable technical expertise. The end result was the loss of so much knowledge that humans were knocked right back into the Stone Age.

It did not help that the 100 million survivors were spread so far apart that it was impossible for them all to communicate with each other. Eventually, people banded together in small tribes that did not trust outsiders and often fought with other survivors. The only thing preserving humanity on Earth were some of the alterations made to the environment in the past as well as other technologies that worked to aid humanity even without human overseers.

The Age of Chaos

Approximately 571-23389 ME

During this time strong leaders managed to assert themselves among the various human tribes while dragons tended to just keep to themselves. Unfortunately, strong leaders often meant violent leaders. Minor wars became almost commonplace. Still, the human population started to make a comeback at an extremely rapid pace. Local warlords encouraged people to breed so they would have more bodies for their armies. It also helped that earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters no longer occurred. The human population enjoyed the benefits of advanced medicine during this period. Unless it was artificial, no disease could affect the human or dragon populations.

As time went on many of the warlords became kings and emperors as their territory expanded. They made a conscious effort at suppressing any form of technological development at first. Memories of how technology had been used against people like them still remained and they were determined not to let something like that happen to them. Things would not change until technology that could only maintain itself for but so long started to fail. Coastal nations were the first to see the affects. The devices keeping ocean waves small and docile failed and they returned to pre Microscopic Era heights. Waves that dwarfed any vessel humans could construct ended any possibilities of sailing to other continents. Now humans that once had access to multiple worlds no longer had complete access to their own world.

Such a visible failure had an affect on even the most hardened tyrants. For the first time in millennia technological development was encouraged. The risk of more wonders of the past becoming inactive seemed too great. Not everyone had good intentions though. Other tyrants saw the technological development of their neighbors as a threat to their own power. A new technology race had begun. It became apparent very quickly that the race would be lead by teams of archeologists that were sent out to investigate ruins from the past. When even children's learning materials were more advanced than anything available in the present it was easy to understand why that was so.

Some of these advances helped lead to a new era, an era that would come to be known as the Reconstruction Era.

The region formerly known as Mato Grosso, Brazil

October 3, 987 RE

"I think I've found something Marco," said Victor.

"Well be careful. I think this is one of those old Terran Coalition facilities. We can only get rich off of these finds if were still alive to get something back to the old man," said Marco.

"Come on. These people knew how to make some scary shit, but it can't possibly be that dangerous after all this time," Victor remarked.

"Comments like that are the reason why people think I'm the smart one. A lot of the tech put on place even before the Enders War is still working today. What makes you think their weapons wouldn't be any better you damn fool," Marco stated.

Victor just rolled his eyes and snorted. Marco did not like being in a place like this with someone so dimwitted, but it was the only help he had been able to find on short notice. He might be right though. No one had stumbled on anything too bad as of yet and it was not likely they would do so today. Marco noticed a computer terminal that still looked functional and walked over to it. The terminal turned on at his approach but Marco did not expect much. A logo on the screen did indicate that this facility was a Terran Coalition facility as he had thought. Everything of significance was also sealed behind numerous security programs as he had expected. If the TC and the Solarian Federation had not been so obsessed with security humanity could have at least made it back to twenty fifth century pre ME technology by now. Instead, no one Marco had heard of had made it past Roman level tech.

Marco heard Victor gasp and then it was like the facility they were in came to life. The screen he had been staring at changed to a display of the Earth and said something about the release of some sort of virus he had never heard of. "Damn it Gil, what the hell did you do?"

Victor actually looked horrified for once. At least he had the intelligence to realize he had done something wrong. Maybe he would have a few minutes to understand that he had doomed the human race. "There, there was this button that started flashing. None of the other buttons were flashing and, and I didn't think it would do anything wrong," Victor stuttered.

"I'm sure everybody will be happy to know you unleashed a Coalition virus because you were damn too stupid to exercise a little caution. And," a new smell began to permeate the area, "and what is that smell. It's kind of like cinnamon. Wait, look at that screen." Marco and Victor walked over to the screen as its display changed to a new display. It had the look of something urgent.

Victor read the word on the screen aloud. "Warning, Solarian Federation viral agent detected. Take appropriate countermeasures."

"Great, it looks like the SF had something ready to strike back at the TC. Looks like you may have killed us twice," Marco said sarcastically.

"No, we might be okay. That cinnamon smell has to be the virus. If we aren't dead yet this might not be lethal," Victor said in a tone that sounded almost like he was pleading.

"You know very well the TC didn't deal in non-lethal viruses. If they had something to do with this you can guarantee..." Marco was interrupted when he heard a commotion outside of the facility. It sounded like something had spooked the horses that were tied up outside. They both ran to see what was going on. Marco thought he was delusional when he arrived on the scene. Three of the four horses were perfectly fine. But the fourth, a dappled mare, had something wrong with her.

She was panting heavily as she stood up on two legs. At about eight feet in height she towered over the two men. Then in a voice that had obviously never been used for true speech she said, "Uh, hi guys." Victor passed out and Marco thought he was about to do the same.

Fort Morrisville, Caressee

January 9, 988 RE

"So, the emperor has finally decided to allow the anthropomorphs to join the military effort. And it's about time. We could sure use the numbers. If things continue the way they're going right now we'll end up getting overrun by the Southern Alliance this time next year," said Lord Protector Presley.

"But can they really be trusted my lord. I've already heard some horror stories about them. Why, in the town this fortress is protecting there was a family that had their pet cat turn into a nine foot tall monster and murder the whole lot of them just for the fun of it," stated Colonel Easley.

"There were a few cases like that early on, yes. But, they all seem to have petered out. Apparently, a few of them were so violent that they started attacking everything they could. They were also so aggressive that they were easy to point out and kill within the first week of their transformation," Presley said. "All the others are just a bunch of scared and confused people that have found themselves as sentient beings. If we can get them to join our cause I don't see how that could hurt us in the long run."

"The long run sure, but how are we supposed to house all of these things. And none of them have any skills whatsoever," said Colonel Easley.

"All the more reason for them to join the military. I'm sure the trainers could figure out something to do with a nine foot tall anthropomorphic creature that is stronger than any human is even pound for pound. Even the small ones would make for excellent scouts. It's not like any of them have lost any of their extraordinary senses. And that alliance of fools is persecuting their own population of anthropomorphs right into our hands. If they want to drive the numbers needed to beat them right into our hands then I say we use them," explained Presley.

Colonel Easley sighed. "I just hope the emperor's decision was based on logic like yours and not because of some of the rumors I've heard coming out of the capital."

The Lord Protector had to laugh at that one because he knew it was a combination of logic and the rumors that had driven the emperor's choice. Before the Southern Alliance had chosen to invade about three years ago they had assassinated the emperor's wife. He had sunk into a deep depression and the only thing he seemed to care about in the world was his pet dog and his favorite horse. It turned out that they were both female and both affected by what had transformed many of the animals on this planet. They had also gained human level intelligence and had been eager to help the emperor through his depression in any way they could. A lot of beloved pets had found themselves able to return their masters affection in ways they never could have done before they transformed.

Cooke Ridge, Caressee

August 27, 990 RE

"How do you stand them so easily? They seem to think the only thing we're good for is fighting their war for them," a tall tiger morph named Tim asked.

"Well, for one thing I'm a bit more social than you are," responded Gabe, an equally tall lion morph. "Besides, what can you expect of them? The only thing either of us was good for was heavy lifting when we first made our way here. Would you really have been happy doing that? And compare us to most humans. Most of them don't even reach our chests. If you were losing a war you would be glad to see people like us as a part of your military."

"Sure, sure, but even when we win this war I doubt they'll be rushing to give us equal rights. Most of them look at us as if we were mere talking animals," Tim complained.

"I fairly certain you're right about that. But, that is to be expected. This event took them off guard about as much as it did us. And some of our more violent cousins aren't exactly making a good name for us. We'll just have to give the humans time. I've already made friends with most of the humans in my unit," said Gabe. "And this might surprise you, but most humans think we're kind of cute. Humans have a thing for felines I suppose."

Tim's expression displayed surprise and disbelief. "How could they think we're cute? I could break a human in half with one hand."

Gabe laughed, "Our strength doesn't affect the level of our cuteness to them. You have to try and tear them apart before they'll change their opinion of you."

"Bah, humans are crazy."

"From what I've learned from them and the other anthros I've encountered that craziness seems to come with sentience."

991-1984 RE

Things began to settle into a routine of steady progression mixed in with periodic wars. It was much the same way things had always been. Some serious attempts at taking over the world were entertained by a few individuals, but the amount of land to be conquered proved too much for any one nation to govern. The ocean barriers still remained impenetrable as well. Systems continued to fail, but at a mercifully slow pace. Most of those failures did not affect the daily life of most people anyways. As time went on few people felt the need to waste the time and effort to advance as fast as the doomsayers said they needed to. It was not until 1984 RE that a much more catastrophic failure would need to be addressed.