You know, I've always wondered what it would be like if humans DID exist in the universe of Zootopia. No, not a HIZ or some space timey-wimey dimensional shift blabbery from some super advanced version of ourselves, but if they existed in the universe already. I've not seen anyone (correct me if I'm wrong) take this approach before, and figured I might as well take a shot at it. If you have a better take on it or suggestions, feel free to throw em out there.

Note: Keep expectations where they should be, this is FanFiction, not a college exam.

.

.

.

The City of Zootopia, the lands surrounding, and all other Nations have one thing in common, they all have the gift of sentient awareness, the ability to think and learn, and not act based just upon instinct. Many movies, plays, books, poems, and other forms of art have been made praising the coming together of predator and prey ever since that decisive date. Tens of thousands of years later, they've advanced into the early beginning of the information era. The populous, as a whole, continues life as normal, going day to day in their own activities and whatnot. Kits go to school, adults go to work, the elderly play scrabble. A few, however, have a different agenda than most. All celebrate the coming together of the two kinds of mammals, but almost no one asked one simple question.

"How do you think we gained the ability to think?"

"Seriously? We evolved, didn't you pay attention in biology class? I swear, you ask the dumbest things for someone that has the most qualifications out of all of us."

"Really, literally every single mammal spontaneously gained sentience at the exact same time ten thousand-ish years ago? And before you ask, yes, evolution is fact, duh, but it's always poked the back of my head that somehow all mammals at the same time went from… well… savage to-"

"Yeah, yeah, we've been over this conversation a million times, miracles happen, we'll figure it out eventually. Besides-"

The two heard a faint yell, and instantly knew they'd been at their one minute conversation two minutes too long, the door swung open faster than a normal mammal would have done, a horse walking in obviously about to give them an earful.

"Ryan, Violet, stop slacking off and get back to work, we're supposed to be making breakthroughs here, not dillydallying!"

"Damn horses and their hearing…"

"What was that Violet!?"

"Nothing, sir! I was just thinking that tie looks great on you!" She flashed a smile, knowing that he always fell for that one. After all, foxes were quick thinkers, but being able to use the same thing a thousand times in a row without the effect of diminishing returns? Best thing ever. Wolves, at least in Ryan's case… not so much.

"Yeah, and that suit, looks like you just ironed it!" Putting his paw up and giving a thumbs up with a smile that looked like it belonged to a used car salesman.

"…Ryan, I have one suit. That I have worn for the past two weeks. Which is just thrown into the only washing machine and dryer we have like everyone else's attire. We don't have an iron either, try harder next time. Or buy me a hay and clover burger from the nearest deli three hundred miles away across the ocean. Take your pick." He deadpanned. Ryan gave a nervous chuckle and his smile became a tad deformed, "Yeah, I'll work on my compliments, sorry about that." He gave a quick sigh, before moving on to a different topic "So, back to work. Say, Violet, didn't you have some old piece of weird looking metal object you were examining?"

"Yes…?" She looked at him confused, they'd had the thing for Three days and he chooses now to bring it up?

"Can it, Ryan. You're about as good as changing a subject as Violet is new compliments" and with that he left the small facility, more like a shack with five hundred thousand dollars worth of archeology equipment and two beds as stiff as a rock in it though, as Ryan liked to call it.

"He's right you know, did you really think he would catch on to your one compliment after saying it a million times?" She scoffed at his remark, "In all seriousness, why do you find that piece of metal so fascinating? You've been peering over the thing like it's suddenly going to transform into some advanced alien technology," he turned back to his side of the table and tossed a pencil into the air a few times before continuing "We have evidence of ancient buildings older than any recorded before, bones that don't match any animal on record, jewelry that seems like it was synthetically made because it's so precise and perfect… and you're gawking over a piece of…" he sighed, knowing he would get nowhere with her, "In all seriousness it looks like someone took some metal and melted it, then buried it a few feet in the ground here"

"That's because you haven't put it under a microscope. This is way more fascinating than some old rocks and bones. And no, it's not "melted", it's been underground for thousands of years. It was rusted, and after cleaning, this is what's left" she exchanged a lens in her microscope to zoom in more, moving the object to get better angles as well and sometimes lifting it slightly if need be. "See, look here, it looks like something fit in here and fed… another something into this small pocket here"

"So technical, I can see that Ph. D is paying for itself" Ryan chuckled.

"Shut up, what are you working on, anyway? Seeing that you want to get chewed out by Mr. Longface again"

"Eh, mostly trying to find out the composition of the material of the buildings that whatever mammal built this used, though it looks like a form of concrete. For about twenty thousand years old, this place is in amazing shape, surprised we didn't find it sooner"

"Surprised we didn't find an ancient village the size of twenty buildings about ten feet tall in a thick, uncharted jungle, really?" She turned to him, with a look that screamed "are you serious?"

"We have satellites with telescopes on them, you know, could just zoom in and probably find all the lost cities" He said, "though I doubt the government would even consider doing that" They could hear a soft siren ring for a few seconds, signaling dinner time, and sleep two hours after. Or as most called it, time to clock out. "You coming, Violet? They're serving cicadae and grasshopper burgers tonight, you know how rare those are"

"Grab me one, I'll keep trying to figure out what this thing is" she waved him off, too engrossed in her hunk of metal to eat, apparently.

"Huh, suit yourself, there aren't many of us predators here, I might be able to grab a few extra. Don't know if any will make it back to this shack though"

"And your bed will be missing everything except the springs if that happens" she turned toward him, eyes half closed in annoyance, obviously trying to actually work now.

"Fine, fine, don't get a knot in your fur"

"Excuse me?" too late though, he already closed the door and was walking away. "I swear, he can crack lame jokes at the most random of times, but somehow loses all common sense when there's any pressure," she turned her chair back to her station, putting in a different lens to get a closer look at the inner workings of the "thing". She tried to figure it out, but to no avail. A few minutes pass, and taps could be heard all around the room that got louder and more frequent as the seconds passed. Her ears perking up involuntarily "Just what we need, more rain…" she sighed. A few more minutes pass by, and chatter among her colleagues could be heard, probably sprinting back to their respective trailers or tents to avoid the onslaught outside.

Steps could be heard outside the door to the one she was in, however. A second later it flung open, slowly closing but was stopped by a foot. In came a water logged wolf with a box in one paw, four burgers in the other. She looked at him in amusement, a small grin forming at his unfortunate predicament. "Great weather out there, huh?" she mockingly asked.

"Oh, it's wonderful. You know, the lads and I were going to build a pool, but we didn't want to leave you out of the designing part. I can throw you out there if you want to see where it is" dropping the box carefully on the floor and tossing half the burgers over to her. Violet didn't have much of an appetite, though she knew it would come to bite her back if she didn't eat anything now instead of later. Ryan walked into the bedroom, a few seconds later he began again, his voice echoing off the walls "Do we seriously have no towels in here?!"

"We don't exactly live here, permanently anyway, so we don't exactly have a wardrobe. It's not like anyone prevented you from packing your own things, too" she yelled back. More ruffling, an object dropped with an ensuing yelp and some choice words. She almost jumped when Ryan yelled again much louder than normal "Found one!" and proceeded to walk out a minute later with a new change of clothes, wiping his ear with a pink towel. Wait, pink? She jumped out of her chair, yanking the towel out of his paws "Did you seriously just barge into my stuff for a towel?!" waving the cloth in his face.

"I knew you'd say no if I asked, besides, that's actually mine, kind of" he yanked it back from her and continued to wring out his ears. She looked at him confused "You really bought a pink towel?" she actually had to stifle a small laugh. He looked back up at her, using the towel as a sort of glove to poke slightly in his ear and wipe any guck that was itching on the inside of his ear. "Nope, it's my sisters, just happened to take it when it was laying on the hamper. Figured having one towel wouldn't hurt, just forgot about it is all. Oh, and before you ask, I DID in fact pack a few clothes, including a very nice black polo. I just chose to wear company things so that my actual clothes aren't ruined. Never understood why they chose white though, that shows all the stains..."

"Pft, okay, two questions. One-did you take those from your sister too? Two- why do you have a black polo, you might as well just put a polo sticker on your fur and call it a day" she paused "Please don't actually do that, that would be… really weird" he gave one loud laugh, "Hah, you'd like that, don't lie. Besides, if you didn't have our comanpy emblem on your uniform, others would think you're doing that too" that got him a death glare if he ever saw one, "Oh, lighten up" he tossed the towel into the bin they used as a makeshift hamper and walked over to her station, dragging his chair over and hopping onto it. "Sooooo, how's your little experiment going? Make and groundbreaking discoveries in the ten minutes I was busy?" she nodded side to side. "What about in the three entire days you've been looking at it?" again, another side to side nod. "So, three days, and you've got zip." He snorted "You know, you're probably delving way too far into this thing, it's destroyed way beyond whatever it was before, and it doesn't resemble anything we can use to go off of"

"Which is why it would be great if you left me to find out what this is so we DO have something to go off of" clearly annoyed at his poking fun at her absence of progress in her little project. "Actually, you know what" she stood up and fully turned towards him and pointed. "If you're so amazing, why don't you try and figure this out? I mean, you're obviously omnipotent, so this should be a piece of cake!"

"Speaking of cake, they were going to make a few, but uh… thunderstorm" he sulked. "Stop dodging the question, Ryan" staring daggers at him. "Alright, mother, give it here." She picked it up carefully, and set it down on his side of the table. "So, what tests have you done on this thing? I don't want to waste three more days just for you to tell me you already did those things"

"Well… let's see." Tapping a digit on her chin a few times recollecting, "Composition tests, mostly steel with what looks like some sort of nickel plating on it, well, what's left of it. Structural scans show a ton of pockets and what look like lines going through it, and a large chamber at this end. Then there's the obvious two foot long tube for the rest of it with a missing piece on the bottom. Looks like something attached and slid on it" pointing at certain places. "Took an X-ray of it a day ago, didn't show anything the structural scan didn't. I obviously didn't start cutting this thing open, since it's the only one we have in existence"

"We invented duct tape for a reason, just cut it open" he deadpanned. "Besides, even if that's the only one left, if we never find out what it was for, there's not much of a point in researching it" He took a marker from a small pile of writing utensils nearby, "I say we cut…" pausing when he had absolutely no idea where would be a good place to actually cut. "Why don't you mark it, you've been married to this thing for three days, so you probably know better" he lightly flipped the marker over to her. "I didn't even want to cut this thing, what makes you think I want to now? Finding out its purpose aside, it's a literal one-of-a-kind right now. Its historical value alone is what keeps me from cutting it. Besides, cutting it might break things that have just barely made it through cleaning, and I don't want any more damage on this thing than there already is." She tossed the marker back into the pile, sighing and rubbing her temples. "Look, just from the looks of it, it wasn't a part of some contraption or some ancient machine. It's meant to be held, at least, I think it was." She carefully picked it up again, holding the curved side in one paw, the straight length with her other. "If you look at it like this, there's a small ring like piece that looks like you could put a digit of your paw in. there's also what looks like a cut rectangular piece that used to slide open to put… whatever in"

"Sounds like a gun to me" he leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "But that can't be right. Gunpowder wasn't really widely used until a thousand years ago. And most firearms are just pistols. That thing looks like nothing I've seen."

"…Wha? This looks nothing like a firearm, like, at all. And like you said, it's too old to be one. If I had to guess, it's probably just some primitive farming equipment, but that makes no sense either, since the oldest evidence of refined steel wasn't discovered until the discovery of the Charmelo temples, only about 800 years old. That and there was nickel plating on it too. Nickel, Ryan. That wasn't even discovered until about 400 years ago, let alone produced. This is at the very least twenty thousand years old" she stared at it for a few moments, trying to think of anything that made any sense, but coming to no answer. She threw her arms up and groaned, "This makes no sense at all! It's ancient, but the technology needed to make this sort of thing is way too recent for that! Its shape makes it look like it was paw held, but there either isn't enough of it left, or I can't figure out just how it was supposed to be!" she let her head slam into the table, though not too hard, but enough to make an audible thump.

"Look, you're obviously frustrated, tired, you barely ate one burger, so hungry as well. Just get some sleep and get back to it tomorrow" he got up and started walking towards the bedroom, though stopped after a few steps. He gave a small chuckle and turned his head towards her, "Besides, it's not like the rest of us have managed to figure out much of anything about this place anyway" he leaned on the wall, trying to make sense of the place as a whole. "If you think of it, this place technically shouldn't even exist. The buildings are entirely made of concrete". Violet gave him a confused look, "So what?" He gave her a surprised look, "Seriously? Concrete doesn't last long at all if it isn't maintained regularly. Our concrete, at least, would probably crumble into dust in a few hundred years. A few hundred years, not twenty thousand plus". The only explanation I can think of for this place is that, One: We used to be as advanced as we are now, something happened, and we got sent back to our primal ways." He stopped, pausing for an obvious dramatic effect. When he didn't continue Violet took the obvious bait, "And what, pray tell, would be version two?"

"Aliens". He put his paws up, almost acting like a salesman trying to sell you something you obviously didn't need. That got a laugh out of Violet, she spoke through her laughter, somehow being able to speak clearly.

"Aliens… Really? I mean, I knew you were an alien conspiracy nut, but really?" her laughter slowed into a chuckle. Ryan shrugged, speaking up again.

"Going back to sane conversations, sleep would do some good for you" Ryan said.

"Yeah, sure. That alien joke was still horrible, though" she jabbed as she walked past him.

He gave a mock scoff, "I'll have you know that is a legitimate hypothesis!" Violet gave single sarcastic laugh in return. "I think it is, at least…" Ryan grumbled to himself, lost in thought for a few minutes before making his way to the bedroom as well. He was about two steps away before the ground gave a small shake, only for a couple seconds, but it was severe enough to jolt Violet slightly out of her near sleep state. Judging by the commotion heard from nearby tents and other research rooms nearby, enough to wake everyone else up as well. "Strange, we're in the middle of a tectonic plate, shouldn't have any earthquakes here…" he gave it a shrug, though "probably nothing" he looked back at Violet, now lightly snoring "The real question is how she can fall asleep so fast, it's been like, thirty seconds, snoring away already. Wish I could do that" he hopped into his bed, clothes were clean, so no need to change into anything to keep his bed clean. "Hope tomorrow goes better, make some progress at least" he thought to himself before drifting off.

.

.

.

I know, not much in the way of progress on the first chapter. Wrote this as I went, though I already know from memory how I would write this story, however. If you like it, let me know, and please, if there's anything that I could improve upon, let me know. I don't consider myself a writer, let alone a good one. So I know for a fact that I can improve on basically everything.

Edit: Looking at the reviews, I did fix the dialouge in the chapter. I DID finish this one late a night, so I probably wasn't paying as much attention to paragraph structure as I should have. Ah well, fixed now.