The vessel moved at a relatively modest pace for interstellar travel, only a few multiples of light speed. Sensors had detected a seed planet teeming with carbon-based life, the third-distant of such from a nearby micro-star. Instrumentation analysis had shown the usual chaotic spread of ultra-low grade signals that marked emerging technological civilizations. Parameters met, the vessel made a quick course correction and shot towards the nascent star system.

Enroute, a few decisions were made as it slowed down and additional information arrived. Remnant signals from the planet sent long ago that passed nearby were amplified and then analyzed in detail. Cloaking measures would be a frivolous waste of power, the vessel decided. The dominant species, ‘Humans’ according to local terminology, had not yet charted the universe with the aid of anything but the narrowest parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and, in some recent cases, gravity. Thus detection of the newcomer to their solar system was flatly impossible.

Culling, the usual course of action, was out. While biomass levels were acceptable, humans had reached a level of sentience that exempted them from such a fate. This meant draining, replanting, and conversion protocols were also off limits. If the vessel could, it would have sighed. Those were some of its favorite protocols. Particularly as they meant it could quickly be on its way to a more active quadrant. Perhaps one of the nearby superclusters.

Instead, the vessel captured a satellite the humans had sent off for exploration long ago. Its technological capabilities were given the grade: ‘fledgling’, the second-lowest possible for sentient life. Genetic modeling based on trace cell remnants still frozen and attached to the instrument revealed the species was far too simple currently to enact the harvest protocol. It simply wouldn’t be worth the effort.

That left the interstellar newcomer with just one option: cultivation. Its own internal instruments and labs immediately began mixing the appropriate ingredients and solutions necessary for the task. Factories smaller than any living human scientist could currently conceive of as possible fired up from deep within the vessel. Their work processed specifications with error margins so far to the right of zero the final products were measurably perfect.

A number of smaller objects fired off the vessel shortly after. They quickly created a mesh cloud of interceptors for signals that would prevent other powers and players in the galaxy from detecting what was about to happen. If any of those happened upon this particular spot, their instruments would simply return a number of uninspiring large rocks. Similar to most unclaimed locations the vessel had already explored in this galactic group.

The reason for this additional effort was simple: cultivation was a messy affair. Any interference could dramatically impact the final yield, or even destroy it utterly. Such an outcome was unacceptable to its internal parameters.

The vessel decelerated almost to a stop just shy of the small planet whose inhabitants dubbed the quaint rocky mass "Earth". It was orbited by another body, even less impressive than the first, whose name was deemed unimportant.

Despite the utter lack of resources present at the site, this body’s darker side was an ideal monitoring location for the vessel’s purposes. It embedded itself in one of the larger impact craters and buried itself a few hundred meters down. Cultivation protocols then began stirring up within a long-dormant section of the craft.

A single day later a small object - smaller even than one of the humans' manipulation appendages - launched off the vessel and entered the Earth's atmosphere barely a moment later.

The object flew directly over every populated settlement, reasonable concentration of biomass, and dominant air corridor on the planet. It traced dozens of rotations, never passing over the same location twice. Chemical trails of the specialized growth accelerant descended in wide clouds behind the object wherever it went. Invisible, odorless, and tasteless to the creatures below - the mist either fell upon or was inhaled by every single one of them.

After the object had finished, it began to circle the planet alongside the many satellites already put into orbit by humanity. Sidling up next to their ‘International Space Station’, the object deployed a number of monitoring instruments of its own. Through these, the vessel could observe the effects of its efforts in real time.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Earth, the humans’ name for their spinning blue ball, was in a state of chaos unlike any seen before in its history.

As the accelerant entered the bloodstreams of living creatures – using whatever intake means the object had deemed most expedient – each fell to the ground, unconscious and unmoving. On the outside, it might have looked like the mist had been paralytic. On the inside however, was where the cultivation protocol began its first steps.

The accelerant’s primary function was to take the genetic information of a creature, interpret and combine with its subconscious mind, catalogue its desires, then rapidly – and forcibly – evolve it to achieve a state as close to that being’s ‘ideal form’ as it could.

The process was… intensive. No part of the creatures’ genome was left unaltered. For creatures in the nascent stages of known evolutionary maps, it was an experience unlike any other. One their own minds would instinctively shutter away as a defense mechanism.

This had the unfortunate side effect of completely immobilization for an extended period of time - not something generally conducive to survival.

In order to prevent the loss of its frail subjects, the vessel had included a low-grade metamorphic barrier as an intermittent stage of the evolutionary process. Previous cultivations had seen much higher success rates with this method. Thus, despite the minor performance loss this usually accompanied in the end product, the barrier had become routine.

Given the planet’s varied biomes, as well as the apex species’ propensity to travel at speed in poorly designed metal crates, this measure soon proved key in lowering inadvertent death rates.

Plant life was excluded, for now. Experimentation eons ago had shown that including vegetation in habitats where such vegetation was not already the dominant source of intelligence often resulted in unacceptably low cultivation parameters.

The vessel’s advanced calculations had ensured all 7.864 billion humans would be affected within 24 hours, as well as every creature of appreciable biomass. A fact that played out exactly as it had predicted.

There was no warning. By the time the first images of what was happening spread to other cities their own inhabitants were soon falling to the ground. Eighteen hours after the object first entered the atmosphere, the last human fell unconscious. Five hours later, the last non-insectoid creature collapsed as well.

The object took notes on all of this, refining its calculations and algorithms for future use. Its predictions had been accurate to within seven seconds this time - a fact it would need to rectify. Billions of processors within the object got to work on just that as the planet below grew dark.

For several days after the mist fell, the Earth was blanketed in an expansive quiet for the first time in millennia. Not so much as a single word, bark, or sneeze escaped any biological body, on any continent. A few trees fell, but there were none in any state to hear them.

The metamorphic barrier’s thin film worked exactly as intended, preventing many deaths from collisions as many fell unconscious piloting their vehicles. Others were protected from the creatures of insignificant biomass who could not penetrate the barrier yet sought to anyway.

It did not prevent all deaths, however.

The film still cracked under high pressure. Many in planes, high-speed vehicles, or those who crashed into the water were lost. As were a select few who had died to insects specialized in penetrating toughened shells.

The object did not grieve for the fallen, it merely updated its already extensive notes on the experiment. Such data would be useful in improving the yield of future cultivations, it knew.

So it merely watched, continuing its silent vigil as the planet below it slumbered. Occasionally sending reports back to the vessel it had come from every few microseconds when it had spare processing cycles.

Four days later, the first of planet Earth’s newly evolved organisms stepped free of the biotic shell that had so suddenly entrapped them.

It was a creature the humans referred to as a ‘tiger’ and the most immediately apparent change was the tripling of its natural size. Famished, the enlarged creature began hunting immediately.

Three days passed from that point until the first humans began to emerge.

That was when the small planet truly held its observers’ attention.

That was when the chaos truly began.