A world where all mammals of the Western Hemisphere died off

Crossposted from DeepIntoWorldbuilding.com Welcome to a world very familiar and yet quite different from our own. It’s a world where two of humanity’s most hated enemies, the rats and the mice, play the role of the heroic sidekicks, fighting against the villainous cats and dogs, who have committed atrocities on an unimaginable scale. It’s a world where the bees and the ants rule supreme, filling the roles of the great empires of old. Yet, despite the differences, this world is disturbingly similar to our own. It has its own version of the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Korea, and China. Its own versions of George Washington, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, and Hirohito. If you pay close attention, you might see the rising smoke from the cities of the traitors, who have been crushed under the merciless heels of the heroic cat armies. You might hear the distant thunder of cannons, announcing the start of a new war against the mongrel vermin. This world may have the same leaders, nations, and events as our own, but it couldn’t be any more alien, any more terrifying. It’s a world where the familiar and the bizarre collide, creating a reality that’s at once captivating and unsettling. Welcome to a world where all mammals of the Western Hemisphere died off. --- The Western Hemisphere died before the Eastern one did, being struck by the disease in 1492, out of 4 total “waves” that the world had to endure. With the Western Hemisphere devoid of mammals, the badass animals that lived in that hemisphere, such as jaguars, pumas, anacondas, caimans, fer de lance snakes and some spider species, took the roles of apex predators. Humans took the roles of the large grazers and the herbivores, while rats and mice (who had been accidentally brought to the New World by the aboriginals) evolved into the predators. The human replacements for bison, camels and Pronghorns (the New World’s answer to antelopes) were the Jivaros, the Iroquois and the Apaches, who roamed the Great Plains and who were constantly on the run from the human predators. Humanity in South America roamed the Pampas, in tribes. The Naahualtin were the sea human equivalent of seals, otters and Manatees, and lived in the Gulf of Mexico. Humans had absolutely no Supervillain Jobs in this Hemisphere, instead, they had to pay for all the effort that the Naahualtin put into protecting them from marine predators. Marine predators included giant lampreys, dolphin eating bull sharks, alligator gar, badass killer whales and, in the Caribbean, saltwater crocodiles, who had never lived there before. The oceans of the Americas had no humans and no Basque Whalers to threaten their marine mammals, so the sea mammal populations grew toリーズ amounts never seen before, badass killer whales terrorized Caribbean beaches, while giant humpback and gray whales lived off the coast of California and Baja California. Wolves and the few bears that lived in the Western Hemisphere had badass roles. Jaguar wolves had the role of African wild dogs, and lived in packs of up to 20, and weight of up to 150 pounds. Grizzly bears had the role of bears that lived in the forest floor, who were expert climbers and who would generally attack in a stealthy fashion. Black bears had the role of Panda bears, and spent most of their days eating bamboo, the way Pandora from Avatar ate those protein rich plants (Na’vi also fit the roles of black bears, by the way!) So, let’s go to the Eastern Hemisphere. In the Eastern Hemisphere, humans had a Supervillain Job, as they had in our world, and they went from a species who lived in trees to the species who dominated the world. To say it in more detail: In our world, the first humans came from the forests. They were a prey species. They had to live in trees to survive. Then, they learned to make and control fire, and they moved to the grasslands. Then, humans went from a prey species to a predator species. In this world, humans also came from the forests. But they weren’t a prey species, they were a predator species. Humans didn’t have to live in trees to hunt, but the trees protected them from their natural enemies, those being bees, wasps, hornets and fireflies. Over time, humans found out that they could survive on the surface. They could make fire. They could make way better hunting tools to hunt. They could make suits to protect themselves from the insects. And so, humans went from a forest predator to a grasslands and savannas predator. Humans had superior intelligence and pack hunting tactics to their competitors, the lions, the leopards, the tigers (who lived north of the Himalayas) and the hyenas. They could survive for longer in the surface than any of those animals, and were also more coordinated and more deadly. Humans had no natural enemies in this world. They had super predators, who had a constant and powerful “instinctual” hatred for humans and their competitors, but humans could still win against them if they had to. Humans’ super predators were always threatened by human intelligence, and had to “get creative” to take down the humans. For instance, bears could get humans to fight each other. Hyenas, who had the role of African wild dogs as well as spotted hyenas, could steal humans’ food and make them hungry and weak. Jackals, who had the role of cheetahs, could steal humans’ hunting kills. Humans could still win, but it was a losing game for their super predators, who eventually went extinct. Then humans transitioned from hunter gatherers to pastoralists. Sheep, goats and cattle were the first to be domesticated, and they became humans’ protectors from the badass insects and from the super predators. The humans who rose to dominance and who built civilizations were those who lived next to badass carnivores, such as lions, leopards, tigers, hyenas and bears. Then the lions, hyenas and bears went extinct, but the humans didn’t change their ways. Eventually, dogs and cats rose up against the humans, but humans found friends in the rats and the mice, who joined humans against their natural enemies and crushed them. Then the Supervillain Wars came. Humans rose to global dominance, and they did all the evil things we did, but in a world without mammals, and where most of the animals we consider majestic were endangered. Humans took over the world, bringing some animals in, such as eagles, vultures and ravens, and killing off others, such as badasses like the lions, leopards, tigers, hyenas and bears. Humans fought long wars for resources, including wars of extermination, where they killed those they considered inferior and weaker. Humans took to space. Earth was the capital planet of humanity, but they colonized Mars and the moon. Humans then fought wars over resources in space. Humans killed each other over petty squabbles, such as over who should rule the world, who was “superior”, over what form of government was better, over whether or not God or the Gods existed. Humans committed atrocities on an unimaginable scale, such as the Great Slaughter of the Killer Whales or the Suffocation of the Great Barrier Reef. Humanity eventually was forced to abandon Earth, to preserve it and keep it livable. So, in the end, humans had destroyed Earth and killed off entire ecosystems, but managed to colonize other planets and build an interstellar society. The world where all mammals of the Western Hemisphere died off is a world where the expected and the unexpected collide, creating a reality that’s both captivating and unsettling. But despite all the challenges faced by this world, there are still reasons to believe that, one day, a new era of peace and prosperity will emerge. Anything can happen in a world that’s so similar and yet, so different, from our own. --- Edit: I have not seen an anime in my life.

A world where all mammals of the Western Hemisphere died off

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