Prologue

Summary
Many thousands of years before the start of Breakthrough, and still many before the beginning of the Dragon Empire, Aer was filled with surface life. Fauna and flora were highly complex and flourishing, giving the world color and flavor. However, a catastrophe happened. A large meteor the size of a large island smashed into the planet, creating a heat- and shockwave that spread across the entire world in a matter of hours. Plantlife was decimated in a wave of fire and smoke, strangled for sunlight. Any animal near the impact site perished from the extreme heat, and those on the opposite side of the planet starved to death slowly as the smoke and ashes from the ground clogged up the atmosphere. The world died.

However, Dragons, the most highly evolved species at the time, escaped into a huge underground network of tunnels carved out over the last decades. Not a huge amount made it, but enough so the species was to survive - trailing Dragons sent blasts of fire at the entrance to weaken the rock and cause it to tumble, sealing the species in the dark for millenniums to come.

Other species survived this apocalypse, although through more unconventional ways. Hiding underground in smaller burrows, primarily, although some survived through the coolness of mountaintops and the safety net of plants used to the cover of darkness and extreme temperatures.

Timeline

 * ??? B.C. - Meteor strikes
 * - Dragons run underground
 * - Other species hide
 * ??? B.C. - Dragons establish themselves underground
 * ??? B.C. - Large flora fully dies off
 * ??? B.C. - 97% of above-ground species dead
 * ??? B.C. - Coastal oceanlife decimated
 * ??? B.C - World seemingly dead