The Planet of the Whales

Panaspera, a planet in the farthest reaches of the Sagittarius Arm, was just a barren world around 50 million years ago. Then, the Jovian Cephalopods, a technologically advanced and time-traveling alien race, set their eyes on the cold and rocky Panaspera. Having exceptional knowledge and technology to manipulate space and time, the aliens had traveled back in time and decided to terraform the desolate planet, turning it into a flourishing biosphere. They started by recreating the atmospheric conditions conducive to life. Their terraforming machines, powered by wormhole-fission reactors, hunted out primordial gases locked beneath Panaspera’s surface, releasing oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other vital gases necessary for Earth-like life into the air. Once the atmosphere stabilized and oceans began to form, they introduced microbial life to foster a functional ecosystem. This microbial life blossomed into flourishing ecosystems of prehistoric Earth-derived flora and fauna, with a particular emphasis on certain taxonomic groups. Millions of fungi, various plant species, invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, and small reptiles were sown onto the terraformed lands and seas. However, the ultimate jewel of Panaspera would be the introduction of the cetaceans, represented by both toothed and baleen whales, taken from Earth's own history. The planet was soon brimming with these aquatic animals, filling the oceans with a rich diversity and making them the dominant megafauna. But the aliens weren't done yet. In their grand experiment of life, they selected a portion of these whales to return to land and guided their evolution to adapt to the terrestrial environment. As millions of years passed, different species arose, exploiting the vast number of niches left untapped due to the absence of other mammals. Not limiting themselves to the seas, these new whales evolved into varieties of mammalian life forms, some of which bore resemblance to familiar terrestrial beings on Earth, while others took on truly alien forms, defying terrestrial norms. Panaspera became a lush and vibrant sanctuary, filled with giant forest fungus, various flora, squirts of agile invertebrates, fishes and amphibians, small reptiles basking under the giant plants, and towering forms of whale descendants, both aquatic and terrestrial. The planet stood as a testament to the power of life, adaptation, and diversity, garnering a galactic interest in its whale-evolved beings, a spectacle of an ecosystem rarely seen in the known universe. The once desolate planet had been transformed into a cradle of unique and thriving biodiversity, all rooted in this grand experiment by the Jovian Cephalopods.