History of Kapernia (an introduction)
NOTE: This contains information on how and why I created Kapernia, as well as giving a little bit of backstory behind Kapernia's origin. Much of this is new material that I haven't shared before, but some of it has been changed for personal reasons. Anyway, onto today's topic...
Kapernia's Origin (in real life): The very beginning of Kapernia (or what would become Kapernia) started in 1992 when I had to make up my own land as a part of a school project. I was in 6th grade at the time and I was just starting to get interested in building my own world. This led to the creation of the fictional world of "Dreamland" (yeah, I know, unoriginal title is unoriginal) which would later become East Island, which would later become Mason Island (the place where the vast majority of my stories take place on). As the years went on, I gradually expanded my made-up universe to include more islands and eventually lead to the creation of three worlds of mine.
The main world in my universe (when I created them in 2000) was first known as Vulpes (naming it after the Latin word for fox since...well, I don't think I need to tell you why I chose that for its name! ;3 ). In addition to Vulpes, I created two other inhabited planets (which would become more like moons of Kapernia). One was Aquaticus (a world made up mostly of water), and Articqua (a world made up mostly of ice). As the years went on, I started to think that the name "Vulpes" was not very original for a planet, so I wanted to think of something else that was. It took several years, but a couple years ago I thought of an answer.
Drawing inspiration from Star Fox and the Greek alphabet (as well as the first letter of my real-life last name), I decided to re-name the planet formerly known as Vulpes to Kapernia (Kappa + Corneria). Over the last few years, I've also decided that I should work to expand my planet's known universe and explain how life on Kapernia came to be, which is the next part of the discussion.
Kapernia's Origin (in canon with my universe): Millions of years ago, in some solar system light years from where Kapernia is now, there was an Earth-like planet known as Cylia. The planet of Cylia was inhabited by a race of humanoid beings known as Cylians, who looked similar to humans, but had light blue skin, small ears, and rabbit-like noses. They were a futuristic culture, having evolved over millions of Earth years becoming a peaceful and curious race. This led to the development of intergalactic travel as the Cylians wanted to explore the universe and discover worlds that were like their own, hoping to come across other intelligent lifeforms.
The father of Cylian intergalactic travel was Zeddmore Kapernus, who had developed the first engine capable of traveling at warp speeds. He also discovered that there were many wormholes in the universe, connecting one solar system to the next, which would also greatly reduce the amount of time needed for interstellar travel. The first mission the Cylian Space Exploration Project undertook occurred approximately 10,000 Earth years ago. Amongst the planets that were discovered by the Cylians was Earth.
Back when Cylians first landed on Earth, humans were scarce, and the human society was still rather primitive. They discovered plenty of native Earth wildlife on their expeditions and being a curious bunch (and having similar conditions to Earth back home), they brought some of the animals from Earth home with them. Fortunately, Cylians had a unique ability to communicate with wild animals, to not only let them know that they meant no harm, but also to find out what they needed for survival. In addition to the animals, the Cylians took various seeds of Earth plants back home with them to be planted in specific areas to be used as wildlife preserves. DNA samples of all the animals they gathered were also collected for study and for future use.
Cylians were a healthy and prosperous race, with all known diseases eradicated from Cylia for thousands of years and the average life expectancy of an adult Cylian being over 200 Earth years. However, on one of their Earth expeditions, they brought back an unwanted passenger. A virus that was transmitted through air that didn't harm any of the Earth lifeforms, but proved to be lethal to Cylians. Upon returning to Cylia, the virus spread rapidly thorough the Cylian population, reducing the planet's population from 7 billion to 3.5 billion in 2 Earth weeks. In a desperate attempt to save themselves, scientists started to work on a cure for the disease, since it would surely bring about their extinction if they didn't do something fast.
Eventually, a radical solution was proposed by the scientist Harrington Kapernus (the great-grandson of Zeddmore). Since the Earth creatures they brought to Cylia were unaffected by the plague, it was decided that a group of Cylians could have their DNA altered slightly with some of the DNA from the Earth animals, thinking that it might save them. At the same time, a mass exodus was being planned from Cylia to find a planet suitable for inhabiting. They could've gone to Earth, but past encounters between Cylians and Humans ended very badly for the Cylians. They thought that humans were too violent to be reasoned with at the time and wanted a fresh start on a more peaceful world.
More of the Cylians died off because of the plague as the DNA alteration started to take place, with an initial group of 500 Cylians receiving the injection of DNA of various Earth animals. After the test run proved to be successful, the procedure was expanded to inject a total of 60,000 Cylians with Earth animal DNA. However, the rest of the population was dying off fast, leading the "vaccinated" Cylians to realize that the only way they'll be 100% safe from the virus was to flee Cylia. After all, it was possible that the virus could mutate and affect them as well. So, after being segregated from the rest of the population, the enhanced Cylians boarded their "lifeboat" and escaped Cylia as the remainder of the native Cylian population succumb to the virus. From Cylia, the ship traveled through one of the wormholes, arriving in a distant solar system a few days later. The solar system they entered had 8 planets in all, with two moons orbiting the third planet from the central star.
One of the moons orbiting the third planet was icy cold and while it had an atmosphere that could sustain Cylian life, it was far too cold for inhabiting. The other moon was mostly warm and wet, with only a small amount of land to settle on. While they could settle on this world, it would be difficult to adapt to conditions there. However, the main planet was a lot like that of Earth in appearance, being warm enough to sustain life while also having plenty of land for settlers to build new homes. They landed in the southwestern part of the main continent of the planet, soon building their new Capitol City of Zeddmore. Furthermore, since this planet was their new home and it was because of the Kapernus clan that led them to being alive today, they later named their new home world Kapernia.
As the new arrivals got settled into their new homes, also bringing along Earth animals to inhabit the Earth-like world, the Cylians began to breed to rebuild their population. However, the genetic manipulations started to affect the Cylians in various ways. After about 100 years on Kapernia, many of the Cylians developed larger ears and tails, something they didn't have before. Then, as they bred some more, their bodies started to develop fur, taking after the Earth animal whose DNA they had been injected with. They retained their humanoid characteristics (being able to walk and talk in their native Cylian language) but were otherwise becoming like anthropomorphic versions of the animals they brought with them from Earth.
Within 1,000 Earth years, the last of the known Cylian population was considered "extinct", in its place now stood a community of half-animal, half-Cylian beings that were now known as Kapernians. The Kapernian population spread throughout the mainland of Kapernia and established a new capitol city, naming it Harrington after the scientist that gave them new life.
***COMING SOON: Kapernian Physiology***
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