Animals go extinct constantly on Earth due to habitat loss and human misuse of the lands and animal stocks. Thanks to the paradox of time, and good ships, they came since the earliest era, and animals being driven to extinction due to human actions were collected and taken to pristine worlds where they could thrive, being careful to introduce the animals in a way that didn't harm, or alter, the local ecology, but rather where the animals could integrate into the ecological system smoothly, so that what was there was not harmed. It was a delicate balancing act done out of love. Animals as small as tiny as the bee hummingbird all the way up to massive mammoths. As quirky as dodo's, to as frightening as tasmanian tigers. And many aquatic creatures as well. Animals from deregger worlds, in similar straights, were also rescued and taken to such sanctuaries to save their species as well. All of these sanctuaries, of course, were in Alliance space.
The deregger ship found these worlds and found many of the animals from their worlds, which had been hunted into extinction for their feathers, fur, and other items which made them insanely valuable for trade in deregger space, but was thwarted by those that guarded the systems. But the dereggers would not go away quietly. -- DaniAndShali
[AN: Not quite an Amalgam story. I engineered things in my pet universe so that time travel is plausible but also functionally useless. It involves FTL travel and relativistic temporal shenanigans, so by the time you get to the era you want, you're too far away to do things. So... not my usual universe.]
There's strange engineered worlds all over the galaxy. Call them... snapshot worlds. They are copies, of a sort. Echoes of another world. Kept by unknown forces known only to others as... the Preservers.
They've never been seen. Their primary goal is twofold - maintain species diversity, and maintain discretion. If any encounters are recorded, it is highly dubious that they are true or factual. Despite the large number of Human accounts to the contrary, there's no evidence at all to support the fact that Humans are at all of interest to the Preservers.
Given Human predilections towards accepting the universe as their automatic property, it's no great effort to figure out why. Thusly, Preserver sanctuaries are amazing example of what the Earth could have been like if there weren't any Humans there to mess things up.
There are special habitats for specific populations of the genus Homo and the genus Australopithecus... but they are under tight restrictions and never face the forces that promoted the changes that made... well... Humans.
It's not just Earth. It's a thousand other worlds that have suffered a thousand other extinction events. From the microscopic to the megafauna. All kept in perfect worlds made just for them.
There's an entire planet, for example, for marsupials. Overall, Preserver planets are as if the Svalbard seed archive were also made for animal life. They could have frozen the genetic stock in racks like their parallel on Earth, but they chose to keep the life in its natural form.
Of course, for every attempt to preserve, there are those who also attempt to exploit.
HardinCorp had cracked the code. They had found a way to track down every Preserver planet and exploit everything they found therein. Want to wear Polar Bear fur? They can get it. Quagga hide leather for your boots? They can get that. Thylacine-striped coat? Oh yes. Feathers from the Dodo? Oh yes.
They had been careful to leave a breeding population. They had been careful to tread lightly so they could keep their costs high. That was, until Blake Hardin IV took over the company.
Motivated purely by profit, the new CEO expanded operations as far and as fast as possible. Hiring more hunters, chasing every Preserver world down and surveying everything for anything and everything they could exploit.
Then, long about the time that HardinCorp was selling the last of their custom koala-fluff earmuffs to the highest bidder... something went aggregiously awry.
HardinCorp vanished.
The hunters vanished. The trade stations vanished. The interstellar harvest ships vanished. The buildings, the establishments, the training facilities, all of it. Gone. Especially the private yacht of Blake Hardin IV, uber-quadrillionaire included.
Even the products they were auctioning or selling were gone.
There was no footage of the abduction. No trace of what happened. No wreckage. No hint of who had done something, what had done something, or where they had all gone.
Tentative surveys of known Preserver worlds revealed that they had been restored back to normal.
The Preservers had detected a problem. They had, according to all speculation fixed it. The method of how they fixed it was a message for everyone left. Clear and without any possible misinterpretation.
Do not destroy Preserver worlds.
They could visit. They could take samples. They could study. They could even take a few creatures they found there.
But...
They could not take everything. They could not obliterate everything.
Or else.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Enjoylife]
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