The dominion of man ended on the sixth day of June, 2022.

Catastrophe after catastrophe had rocked the world: economic chaos, climatic change leading to poor harvests on a worldwide scale, natural disaster in the form of earthquakes and tidal waves. With each calamity people took a deep breath and told themselves "if I can survive this, I'll be all right. Nothing can be worse than this."

It got worse.

The Overthrow first revealed itself with the Ravies virus (it got its name from the fact that victims fought and bit like rabid dogs, screaming and raving until collapse and death). Simultaneous outbreaks all over the country of a new disease which brought the host to a state of violent psychosis in seventy-two hours shattered the tottering civil authority worldwide. A few recognized the biowarfare assault for what it was, but even the military was overwhelmed. The services had been spread too thin in dealing with natural disasters and food distribution.

Defeat was organized from within as well. A few key individuals sold their species for gifts of power and promises of a place in the New Order.

Into this maelstrom came the Reapers. Scarecrow figures in their heavy cloaks, seemingly superhuman in their terrible strength, they took control where civil order was weakest, and imposed their rule mercilessly. Strangely enough, some welcomed them for they brought peace, food and protection. Or so it seemed at first. Elsewhere armies of Grog warriors, adapting with alacrity to human arms when they did not posses better weapons of their own.

What resistance there was quickly escalated to the use of a few tactical nuclear weapons in the country's last need. Vast stores of equipment at airfields and shipyards were destroyed if they could not be used. Washington burned, and the Vice President fled, taking with her what was left of the government and the Joint Chiefs to Mount Omega, clutching in her hand a final Executive Order. The President shot himself shortly afterwards, having just heard that his family was killed in their emergency residence at Quantico by the Ravies virus.

Within just a few short months, the Earth belonged to the Kurians.