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_ Prologue _

In the year 2030, a breakthrough in genetic engineering allowed scientists to begin altering DNA in fascinating ways. The first stages were akin to a baby taking their first steps- this embryo's eye color would be blue, this ones' hair would be golden blonde. Simple things. But as few to no issues developed with these new techniques, more aggressive approaches were applied. And not just to the unborn children. Cancer was seemingly cured overnight. All types of skin diseases became a distant memory.

"But why stop here?" One aspiring geneticist was quoted for saying, "The human body is flawed in many fundamental ways- we now have the ability and the knowledge to change that."

Thus what started as a cure became something greater- an evolution of humans through science. By 2040 , a mere 10 years after first began, several grassroots movements started to take shape- but had no specific target. They wanted to pin all their problems and fears on this new technology, but they saw nothing they could definitively point to and say things like "This is wrong" or "This is evil". But they soon got it.

The first of the "improvements," so like the original changes, were subtle. Denser bone structure, suited for higher gravitational force. Sharper senses, noses as keen or keener than a dog, ears more sensitive to the slightest vibration. All for a noble goal- space exploration. After all- we had already reached space, why not keep going?

Space travel had also evolved in these years. The genetic alterations may have even been paid for by companies and private investors who saw that What was needed was a better human to take the next step and inhabit the stars. 2035 brought about the beginnings of an experimental and slightly unstable warp drive, capable of barely exceeding the speed of light. Distances that could take a hundred years without that first drive could be bridged over the course of half a decade with it. But there was room for improvements even there, and by 2040 there was a call for more sensitive equipment, and then the two disciplines began truly helping each other.

What if you could hear what was wrong, if a bolt was loose due to vibrations? Could sense high and low pressure pockets of gas in a contained environment? Then you would be faster to respond to issues than needing equipment that you might not even know you needed in the first place till it was too late. Some ideas were a bit far fetched- why stop at sensing temperature differentials, and instead an individual could manipulate it themselves? Or Energy fields? Telekinesis? Telepathy? No matter how crazy, ideas were brought up- but most could not be implemented due to limiting factors.

The human psyche couldn't handle all the added stimulus required to do these things. There was no harm in adding them, but nothing developed- or if they did, it was so weak as to be useless. But one scientist had a crazy idea, and in their lab isolated on one of the man made islands in the Atlantic on Earth in the year 2047, he spliced the DNA of his son with that of a dolphin through the use of a retrovirus. His son, you see, adored most all aquatic life, and dolphins most of all. And his theory was that if the human psyche was the limiting factor, remove it- allow the greater processing potential of sonar and cognitive thinking to mingle, and allow the line between the two species to blur. And it worked.

The resulting hybrid was a fully cognizant anthropomorphic dolphin by the name of Henry. He retained all his memories of being human, but in greater clarity then all but those with photographic memory could boast. One other interesting phenomenon was that Henry could also hear the thoughts of a few individuals if they concentrated. This was the first positive sign that these abilities were not a mere pipe dream. The world's outlook, while at first hopeful, began to see the first stress fractures from these radical ideas. But more and more were lining up for these splice enhancements, until there was a healthy breeding population of anthro animals both mundane, and fantastic. After all, when you have the ability to create a hybrid, why not start mixing and matching till you get exactly what you want? Therefore Dragon Anthros, as well as several other fantasy species Anthro morphs came into existence, but in much rarer numbers, and genetically they were slightly unstable.

The previous grassroots movements finally had a target. These Anthro animals forfeited their humanity to become creatures that they saw as lower than humans. Legislature was silently passed into law limiting those individuals' rights, until they were completely driven off Earth around 2060. Only in space were they accepted for their abilities and as themselves. This event eventually became known as the "Anthro Purge." Those movements- no longer grassroots but firmly entrenched as mainstream, called for an outright ban on all genetic modifications outside of what they considered "normal human evolution." They became know as the Pure faction, and had substantial pull in world government.

Anthro's would have a rough time of it at first- they needed to adapt to space quickly, or die. Thus they took they warp drive technology, which was more stable now but still in their collective minds "inefficient" and redesigned it. Thus two paired technologies were born in the space of 4 years. The "Warp-tunnel Tech" and the "Slipstream Drive."

Instead of accelerating a ship to multiple times the speed of light, The first allowed a ship to create a tunnel through space-time, shortening the distance required to travel via light speed to trivial levels. For example, Alpha Centauri is the closest galaxy to earth, but would take 100 years to travel at 13,411km/s, which is only 4.5% the speed of light. The initial warp drive could travel that in 4 to 5 years. It only took the warp-tunnel system to cross that gap in 6 hours. The slipstream drive was much smaller, and could essentially "tail" a larger ship using the warp-tunnel drive through a phenomenon similar to drafting a car in front of you to reduce energy expenditure.

The twin technologies allowed the establishment of space stations fairly quickly throughout known space, with more being built as time went on. By 2075, our arm of the universe was slowly being filled in with what systems were green for colonization, which were red for even travel due to dangerous environments, and some that were gray- no planets of note, yet nothing to stop a station from being built.

Anthros were not the only ones to reach out for space. The Pure faction, realizing that overpopulation would kill them out quickly, began to make use of the Anthros' Warp techniques, stolen by industrial spies, and began setting out into the stars as well. Many of these ships carried the prejudices of the Pure Earth faction with them, hunting down and destroying any Anthro ship they found. But not all were this hateful. Some had good working relations with Anthro crews, even if they did not specifically have any Anthro members on board.

As genetic modifications had been outlawed on Earth, the Anthro's and scientists that favored the project had taken the technology with them, as those they left behind would have only destroyed it. Species were refined in space for specialized jobs, hostile environs, and in some small cases, strictly for cosmetic purposes. There were even rumors that some of the very tech that brought those disparate species into being had been improved, refined, and installed on special "Ark Ships."

But no one quite knew the names or numbers of these ships, only rumors of them.