450 years from our modern day the first cat emerged from a landed spaceship and curiously pawed this planet's soil for the first time. It was gradually followed by the rest of the population, along with rabbits, sparrows and mice.

Though the land has changed shape somewhat over the 2 million years since then due to erosion by wind and by the rivers that carve the great canyons, it is still the first land the cats laid eyes upon and still quite similar in nature.

The land increases elevation in large strata, formed by huge outflows of lava that created the continent hundreds of millions of years ago. The rivers carve fast through some layers and slow through others due to differing composition, resulting in the formations of flats where rock is hard and erosion of the aforementioned canyons where rock is easily broken down or dissolved. Deep cave systems formed by tunnelling underground rivers are also common here.

Back during the seeding of cats and their accompanying species, it was cooler with more regular rain and a warm temperate climate. Now it is hotter and dry periods of the year mean plants must have some drought resistance. Rivers dry out during the hot, rainless season to be replenished violently by flash floods at a much later time of the year.

The richest grasslands are where the silt from these floods rests. Here small forests or stands of tree-like grasses break up the open grassland. These tree-like grasses come from different grass species and do not have any one single ancestor. Some are maizes, while others are rices or millets. The rice trees are especially flood tolerant, while the other grass trees are more common in places less severely or frequently flooded. At the end of a long summer dry season monsoon rain brings life back to the Origin Plateau and the surrounding landscape.

Species that had been residing in other locations arrive when the rain and rivers have quenched the land. These species include riversnare trouts (lower left), hardly-changed descendants of the rainbow and steelhead trout (lower right), bee-eating sparrows (Upper left) along with the many new species of bees. A sprink cat (middle left) takes a drink from the river, although they are capable of going without water as long as they have food. As soon as the ground is soaked "hyper rice" buds open and shoot up to four metres tall in a week, fed on the carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere. After vegetative growth all further gains go towards seed production and next season's reserves.

After it's drink, the sprink takes a wander past a family of megors. Megors continue to grow well past reaching sexual maturity, and the largest megors are elders that play a vital role in protecting the rest of the group from cats. Elder megors don't tolerate each other as they compete more aggressively for grazing spots, but they do tolerate subordinates and adult offspring who know their place. They increase the survival chances of not only their own babies but grand-babies also.

In this case there is no danger, only alarm. The sprink is far too small to take on an elder megor, and experienced enough in life to simply walk away from their threatening displays and loud screeches. She is looking for smaller prey.

Prey such as louse mice (descended from the West Plains Mouse) may be found on or around rotting logs after a significant amount of rain, when the woodlice that they eat explode in numbers. The rain assists the decomposition of the wood, which allows more species of woodlice to thrive because the woodlice feed not only on rotting wood but also mycelium of the various fungi that grow on the wood. When the wood is moistened and rotting, this makes it easier for the mice to break apart the wood with their incisors and foreclaws to reveal the woodlice living just under the bark.

In the drier season reporduction of the surviving woodlice slows or halts, and the mice take on a much more generalist diet, which not only includes other invertebrates but also seeds and even carrion.