Sunset on the Thermocene

above: a scene of life upon the savannahs of South Anciska in the late Thermocene. Two tyrant serins at rest quietly observe as two male cragbacks fight for mating rights; though these large predators are not likely to target a healthy adult, sometimes these battles are so prolonged and violent that the losing male is left so brutalized and weakened that it makes easy prey. Further behind, three more primitive browsing serestriders, little changed over tens of millions of years, emerge from the morning fog and cross the open plains.

To the left, a large flightless bubird has startled a hopper from its nest in a thicket of grass and gives chase. If it catches the tribbet, it will swallow it whole. But hoppers have been forged from a world where just about everything wants to kill them, and they are quick. There is no way to predict which will prevail in this sudden battle of survival.

Soon, though, the day to day battles will be subsumed by even more dramatic challenges. In the distance, a volcano pushed up along recently colliding continental boundaries sends out a plume of smoke into the morning air... an early sign of things to come, things that none of these animals going about their day to day lives can comprehend. For very soon, the world as they know it will end.

The Thermocene is now almost over. It will be remembered as one of the world's most prosperous and biodiverse eras, a rich tapestry of strange and beautiful organisms entwined together in rich and varied webs of life. But as time marches on, all of that is soon to change. Soon, chaos will shock long-stable systems. Life will either adapt to the harshest environmental changes to fall upon Serina yet... or will die trying.