Anthropomundus, although a young planet compared to Earth, nevertheless bears a rich history in its own right. Layered over its short geological history are centuries of exploration followed by a formal permanent settlement attempt hundreds of millennia later by humans, ultimately culminating in an abortive attempt to defend this celestial holding only to be conquered by a hyper-advanced civilization, who would then modify the planets inhabitants, including the humans into Microhomunculus progenitor, with the subsequent diversification of this and other species thereafter. Below is a condensed timeline of all of Anthropomundus's history from today to the very point in time you're reading this thirty-six million years in the future.
Anthropomundus, a two-billion-year-old planet, lies undiscovered by humanity 8,000 light years from Sol, teeming with its own microbial life, evolving undisturbed.
Humanity finally defeats the last vestiges of climate change, its self-made common enemy, after a turbulent century and a half and looks outward as nearly one, marking this moment with the discovery of hundreds of new exoplanets, with Anthropomundus being one of them. Unmanned probes sent from a century earlier reach Proxima Centauri b, revealing a resilent, thriving alien biosphere.
Humanity receives yet another strange signal. Half a century would then be spent to decode the message. When the work was finished, it was determined to be an attempt by an intelligent civilization to contact humanity. A response signal would then be beamed its way. Humanity becomes a type I civilization on the Kardashev scale.
With the invention of the Alcubierre drive and a means to power it efficiently, the entire Orion Arm was within humanity's reach. Manned and unmanned exploration missions were sent to most known solar systems, including Sol Anthropomundi, whose mission was unmanned. After a few centuries of study, all of its secrets came known to humanity. A diplomatic mission was sent to the direction of the signal of 2403. The senders were revealed to be humanity's first equal in the galactic stage: the Cygnans as they were termed. A technological and cultural alliance would follow the two species's friendly first meeting. In the following millennia, two additional allies—one outside the Orion Arm—were discovered by joint cygno-human taskforces among the stars. These civilizations would be called the Velans and the Saggitarians—who were the senders of the "Wow!" signal in humanity's terrestrial infancy. After centuries of scientific, social, and cultural exchange, the four races form an intragalactic polity in the Interstellar Alliance.
Humanity becomes a type II civilization on the Kardashev scale, and begins to expand its permanent living frontier beyond the Sol System. Barren planets were terraformed to make way for human expansion to more stars. Other, yet inhabited planets were still settled though consciously unimpacted by human colonization, bearing the lessons from Earth in respecting life for its intrisic value. Tragically, on a few of these planets, those lessons go unheeded, with the naitve life wiped out or overexploited to the point of mass extinction. Anthropomundus was one of these unfortunate worlds, due to the deemed "insignificance" of its life, as it was seeded with autotrophic organisms from Earth, including species of sea grass, algae, fungi and bacteria. Fortunately, the native life perservered in the face of these extraterrestrial invasives, even as they're poised to change the planet forever. Alliance astronomers detect ominous activity from the Perseus Arm bearing the signatures of a highly advanced civilization. Desperate wartime preparations follow.
The worst feared became reality: a massive incursion of extragalactic invaders mercilessly destroys the human-lead alliance in millennial increments. A billion years old and god-like in virtually every respect, the Alliance's preparations were of little avail as they sought to remake the universe as they saw fit. A human defense detachment from a nearby colony world was sent to Anthropomundus to attempt to repel these invaders just long enough to buy the colony time to escape into space. After one successful repulsion, this detachment was ultimately defeated, and the genes of its personnel in addition to those of all of the wildlife of Anthropomundus, native and introduced, were used as the blueprint for their vision for this planet.
Humanity and its allies extinguished. Every planet without exception came under the subjection of these alien conquerors, bearing their mark, especially the habitable ones, whose ecosystems were entirely remade according in their image of an ideal universe. On their planets, human beings were, for their kind's offenses against the cosmos in the conquerors' compound eyes, mutated into an unsettling array of forms—wild animals, fleshy embellishments and novelty organisms that were forgotten as quickly as they were made after the departure of the conquerors. Anthropomundus was spared no such fate, as the genomes of the detachment personnel were woven into the punitive form of the progenitor posthuman, Microhomunculus progenitor, coexisting tauntingly with extravagant sea grass and deadly, boosted carnivorous native flora, thanophytes. Monuments and mechanisms, including those that arrest evolution, were installed on all the planets swept through by the conquerors, including Anthropomundus, to ensure that nothing on them deviated from their master plan in and to leave their divine mark reminding beholders of their place in the cosmos.
The conquerors move onto the Carina-Saggitarius Arm, leaving behind millions of modified worlds in their wake. Over three million years after their installation, the mechanisms break down, allowing evolution to resume its course naturally on Anthropomundus. The M. progenitor posthumans begin to speciate into a wide variety of shapes, from streamlined, raptorial forms to long-fingered suspension feeders to sprawling finger crawlers. The majority of the extravigant sea grass become extinct alongside their thanophyte attendants as they were readily exploited as an easily identified source of food for herbivorous posthumans. The atmosphere's oxygen concentration increases to Silurian levels on Earth.
The rapidly accumulating oxygen of the atmosphere of Anthropomundus results in a mass glaciation event, causing the remainder of the ornate sea grasses and some of the new posthuman species to become extinct. A fortuitus fit of volcanic activity and its resulting effusion of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmsophere prevented this from becoming a mass extinction event. Most modern posthuman clades have made their evolutionary debut during this time.
After tens of millions of years of oxygen saturation, geological activity and species diversification, you are reading Anthropomundus.