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In the year 2093 C.E., human scientists discovered the key to unlocking humanoid forms in animals. Two groups claimed to have discovered it first. A group in what was then called the USA produced a male raccoon they labeled P5-847, while another group in China produced a female white rat called An Jai (Peaceful Beauty). The Americans quickly adapted to popular opinion and changed P5-847 to Paul. Paul and An Jai were the first of many of their species to walk on two legs and have a language that humans could understand. As their popularity grew, so did the number of species that the scientists were able to successfully anthropromorphize. Within a few months, England had badgers, Japan had mice, Australia had rabbits, and Russia had bears. Within years of the first successes, everyone seemed to want their favorite animal to be the next species.

There were some species that didn't make the cut. The kangaroo, for instance, was considered to be too much of a pest as it was, much less making them human-like. All the primates were cut as being too close to human ancestry already. As were the amphibians and lizards, the difference between converting a cold blooded species to a warm blooded one resulted in far too many failed experiments. America tried to bring the golden eagle into the ranks of the anthros, but though the transformation was successful, there was a problem in the bone structure of the avians that increased their weight to a point that their wings just would not carry them into the skies. Shortly after this discovery, they found all ten of their prototypes dead; they had simply willed themselves to death rather than live flightlessly. Avians were put on the restricted list after that, at least until they could find a way to counter the bone density problem.

One enterprising young scientist off the coast of Wales even offered the technology to dolphins and other large aquatic mammals. About ten percent of the dolphins accepted the offer, however they made a few changes to the program. They didn't want feet and refused to allow their flippers to be removed completely in favor of arms, so instead they worked out a way to create hands and fold them into the tough outer skin of the flippers, and managed to give themselves a lockable "elbow" joint. It was at this point that the world realized they had lost the seas forever. The dolphins now capable of using tools, began to dictate terms by which humans could use the oceans -- terms they reinforced by sinking ships that overfished or deposited trash on the shorelines of countries that didn't think recycling was that important.

By that time every household had an anthromorph of their very own, a strange sort of almost-peace reigned on the Earth. It lasted until the anthromorphs started to outnumber the humans. Suddenly, it was hard to walk down the street without tripping over a homeless anthromorph. Granted, they had been given all the menial jobs, like garbage collection and waste management, but now they were starting to demand rights as citizens of their various countries.

Several of the more extreme religious groups of humans (who had been protesting the anthromorphs all along) now became wildly vocal, wanting to euthanize the whole lot of them. A cool head in Australia came up with another solution -- he wanted to use them in the space program. The world leaders jumped on this idea, and funding was arranged for five colonial ships -- Huston, Geneva, Sydney, Rio, Addis Ababa and Shanghai -- that would carry both anthro and feral versions of each animal into the stars, along with all the things needed to terraform the worlds they found themselves deposited on. The plan was that the anthros would prepare the worlds for general known-life-form habitation, and humans would follow a few years later. They sent along a hundred human volunteers with each ship, to oversee the journey, landing, and initial colonization.

Embarkation Day was a huge success; there were representatives from every nation on Earth there to wish the wayfarer's well. Things went smoothly for the first few years, then a mayday came in from the Huston. They were experiencing heavy meteor and debris fields. They remained in contact for three days before the signal abruptly cut off. No one knew for sure what happened to the ship, but the worst was assumed as contact was never reestablished.

A decade or so later, the Shanghai touched down on it's new home. All went according to plan, and the colony was well established by the end of the first year dirtside. However, there was an over abundance of magnesium on their new world, and after that year, the population started to die off due to an excess of it. They attempted to recover by planting crops that they hoped could filter out the excess metal; however, there was too much of the magnesium to sustain a viable population, and the efforts ended in tragedy.

The aging crews of the Geneva, Addis Ababa and Sydney realizing that they only had the normal human lifespan to work with, delegated the most intelligent of their anthromorphs to replace them should something go wrong. Luckily, this was an unneeded precaution. They all landed on their designated planets with precision.

Some major changes had to be made. The orbital year on each planet was different so to coordinate everything between the three colonies they came up with a new calendar; ten cycles, with five weeks, each made up of five days, for a total of 200 days. The word Year remained the same, month became cycle, week became wiki, but day remained the same. At the same time they were adjusting the calendar they adjusted the clock. There were now 20 hours in a day called chrons, each consisting of 100 centichrons (cens), which were in turn made up of 100 milichrons (milis).

The colony thrived for another decade before the humans realized that they'd been abandoned. At this point, the histories get a little fuzzy; either the humans died out, or they took the Geneva and headed back the way they had come. It is known that, for whatever reason, the location or existence of the Geneva has since been lost, and humans were no longer part of either the current society nor the well-recorded history, since the Founding. In any case, the anthromorphs were left on their own.