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In 400 years time
150 years in the future a huge war erupts between the world's superpowers, in which conventional, energy, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons are used, triggered by overpopulation, climate change and increased volcanic activity, all but destroying mammalian life and human civilization. In the aftermath, a strange new world emerges...
250 years after the Anthropocene came to an abrupt end in a "WWIII"-style sixth mass extinction, a new epoch of the Quaternary Period is already underway; the Ornithocene. All but a hand-full of terrestrial mammals have gone extinct via habitat loss, over-hunting, pollution, and, most significantly, biological warfare. However, nuclear fallout has dramatically increased rates of mutation, and consequently, evolution. As birds race to fill a mammal-shaped hole in the food web, archosaurs, for first time since the Mesozoic, rule the land.
Organisms[]
Due to the extinction of almost all forms of mammalian life, and the heightened mutation rate due to nuclear fallout, birds and some reptiles have evolved at an unprecedented in order to fill the enormous gap left by the mammals. Some animals inhabiting this new epoch include:
- Asiatic Moa (Struthio mongolica): The most numerous of the various species of ratites to fill the niche of large, grazing mammals, roaming the vast steppes of Central Asia, East-Central Europe and post-thaw Siberia; despite its name, it is descended from the Somali Ostrich.
- Congolese Ostrich (Struthio africanus): another species of grazing ratite, inhabiting the savannah-wetlands of west and central Africa after extensive logging and clearing in the Anthropocene; it is descended from the common ostrich.
- Sunda Emu (Dromaius Wallacia): This massive ratite is the largest avian species on earth, with numerous subspecies inhabiting the scattered savanna islands of the East Indies.
- North American Rhea (Rhea antarcticus): the most widely ranging of the new ratites, inhabiting the entire length of the American super-continent, from the plains of North America across the cleared rain-forest of Latin America and South American Pampas across the Southern Ocean to the Antarctic taiga, and so there are many sub-species; it is descended from the puna rhea.
- Antarctic Lynx (Puma polaris): one of only 5 known surviving land mammal species, it is a grotesquely mutated descendant of the cougar inhabiting the mountains and woodlands of Antarctica, South America, North America, Greenland and East Asia. It has a pure white coat in Winter, fading to spotty in Summer, with three pairs of legs and a bushy tail, it is a scavenger-mesopredator living in the shadow of...
- the Ravager (Tetrao titanica): an unlikely descendant of the western capercaillie is the top predator of the Ornithocene world, resembling Titanis of the early Cenozoic, weighing more than a polar bear at of 700 kilos. It inhabits all Ornithocene continents except Australasia.
- Kiwi Dragon-Beast (Sphenedon draco): last descendant of the tuatara lineage, this huge draconian reptile is the apex predator in the Australasian food chain, weighing two tonnes with almost impenetrable armored scales and an electrified sting on its spiky tail, earning it the nick-name of "shocker".
- the Reaper (Homo sapiens barbarus): one of two remaining hominid types, this descendant of unprotected humans that were subject to nuclear fallout are loathed by remaining humans. It is a scavenger-mesopredator that hunts in packs, with a furry main, claws, and carnivoran-like teeth that distinguish it it physically from "modern" humans, which loath it; also, it communicates by smell, growls and howls that make it seem backward and wild.
- "modern" human (Homo sapiens technologicus): one of the more numerous of the remaining mammals, "modern" humans are the survivors of the bunker-dwelling Anthropocene humans, and are thus genetically identical to their Anthropocene ancestors.
Geography and environment[]
After four centuries, the environment has been changed radically. Most notably an additional 150 years of human habitation has left deep scars on the environment that still have not healed by the 25th Century, and may never will.
Eurasia[]
In Central Asia, notable changes have been the complete desiccation of the Aral Sea, with the Aralkum Desert taking its place. Sea level rise has flooded much of the North Chinese Plain, the Ganges Delta and much of Northern Europe including the Low Countries, Southern Sweden and South England. The continued desertification of the Arabian subcontinent has the left the Negev, Arabian and Syrian deserts drier than the Atacama. Mean while, the thawing of the Siberian steppe has created a lush but intensely seasonal grassland inhabited by vast herds of Asiatic Moa, whilst in the East Indies, Anthropocene deforestation has yet to heal, producing a vast savanna.
Africa[]
In some ways, Africa has changed the most of all the continents, baring Antarctica. In the Congolese basin, Anthropocene deforestation and the decimation on native rainforest by introduced species has changed in in to the world's largest savanna, stretching from the Atlantic to Indian Oceans. In the Horn, the Rift has opened even further to create the Sudan Sea, a rich, tropical and geologically active sea brimming with bleach-resistant reefs, Paradise islands and wildlife including descendants of the Arabian humpback, though the new Ethiopian subcontinent has become increasingly desert.
The Americas[]
In North America, sea-level shift has flooded southern Florida and the a strip of the East Coast, and Glaciers only remain in the far north of Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago,