Preface
The people of Earth frowned on the scientists,
branding their interests as incompatible with a just society.
But the researchers wanted to continue their work, for it was all they had.
They went out into the blackness of space,
sorting and poring over millions of worlds to find Zefphyr.
They saw the cloudy, wind-swept planet as a haven.
A hideout.
A sanctuary from prying eyes.
It was different – strange and powerful.
Wrapped in cloaks of harmonic energy that the scientists plundered
with their machines and raped for their tests and their experiments.
For their version of nature.
And they brought their flora, their fauna.
Workers and helpers, partners and
children.
But they found the planet inhabited
by a precursor race.
Felids - learning and growing, evolving on their own path
with their own spirits and destiny.
The scientists took the rustic cats.
Ripped them from their homes,
molded them
and put them with the other life forms the humans had brought and created.
From all their animals and from themselves
the masters took whatever they needed to follow their destiny.
They made the seeds.
They were, to a one, driven.
Cold.
But their servants and builders
were not.
The helpers saw the sentience in the seeds of life.
Saw themselves in the genetic
creations.
Some broke away – ran away with the
seeds they could save or steal.
They could not let their brothers languish in servitude and slavery as toys.
And so began the struggle for control - A battle for life and death.
For what was... humane.
Heroes and villains rose and fell,
until the eve of the greatest conflict.
The greatest destruction.
The meltdown.
All that the scientists had brought and built was destroyed.
At once and finally, with the greatest of sacrifices.
Only scattered remnants of
technology and tools remained.
All that were left struggled - some stumbled together, some apart.
Across the planet the varieties spread and grew, changed and evolved.
For a thousand years.