What Comes After

Once upon a time, in a galaxy near and dear to our hearts, lived a star known locally as the sun, aka Sol. Around this star orbited 8 or 9 planets, depending upon whether or not you were an annoying astronomer who enjoyed crushing children by killing Pluto. Upon the 2nd planet, and later on 4th planet, life had developed, flourished, and faded to near extinction before it first became a bit of the primordial soup that was the planet Earth, sometimes referred to as the 3rd rock from the sun. None of this is of import to the cosmos as a whole, but carries grave significance to the story of planet Earth. An intelligent species(by their own reckoning, at least) known as humans had risen to dominance of the planet after a meteor resulted in the near extermination of sentient dinosaurs.

The gods have an odd sense of humor though, and seem to enjoy creating do-overs. A devastating plague reduced the earth's human population from billions to hundreds of thousands, virtually overnight. This led to a reemergence of raptor dinosaur species from the depths of the earth as well as an invasion involving orcs, kobolds, and goblins from the barrens of Mars. A second invasion came from Venus. This included in its number the elves, dwarves and halflings. Each of these new species(to Earth, but older in the age of the planetary system) brought with them both their own agenda and their own knowledge for use in achieving their goals. The humans had their science to fall back on for their own salvation, but each of the other species had differing knowledge, which the humans would collectively come to know as magic. Last, but not least, in this mix came the bird-men, christened harpies by those who lived the areas they overflew.

Each species was master of its own particular magics, but all species soon learned that they were capable of acquiring these new talents, though not to the same level of mastery exhibited by the parent species. The humans lost much of their science during the great plague, but what was left to them allowed for the salvaging of a civilization that still maintained global communication, though not the means to replace anything that broke down. This meant that communication became more difficult over time, particularly when an irreplaceable satellite was lost. Surprisingly enough, global peace, harmony and cooperation on a level never achieved in more advanced times prior to the apocalypse became the norm. Scholars believed that this was due not to a change in the human psyche, but rather a combination of the sudden population change providing room for various beliefs to coexist without the need to fight for space, plus the fact that alien invasion by numerous previously unknown species and by a few previously thought to be extinct led to the necessity for uniting against common enemies. This also created a whole new politics revolving around the need for alliance with other species whose morality seemed more similar to ones own when compared to the often divergent morality of others.

Intelligent species were not the only ones affected by the change in status quo. While the wild species tended to start making a comeback, domestic animals suffered terribly with the loss of their caretakers. Though many cattle and some pigs returned to a feral state, most canine species were eliminated or found their way into wild packs, living like coyotes or wolves. Horses became very rare and the few wild horse herds that survived, did so deep in the wilderness and far from their former masters. So it went for all domesticated animals, with the ornamental pets faring poorly while the working animals had a greater chance of survival.