2068 was a terrible year for man and nature. The Kentucky 15R methane dome explosion rained down molten metal and glass in a fifteen mile radius, causing severe wildfires in all directions with the resulting smoke coinciding with the first appearance of the persistent and dreaded Delta Epsilon Rho Phi Covid strain. It was made far more deady due to the mass protests against monoclonal therapy despite the practice having been replaced by recombinative nanotherapy almost ten years prior. Making matters worse was that the site being protested at only housing a shipping warehouse for the postal service, a mistake the political forces aligned with the ignorant protestors refused to admit which lead to a paralyzed delivery system in the US over the next three years as terrorist attacks against postal sites occurred frequently due to the conspiracy theory that aliens were real, and all cartoons were live action shapeshifting energy-based actors rather than drawings who were held as sex slaves by the Pagan shipping industry elite. An estimated eighty seven thousand Americans lost their lives that month alone, only overshadowed by international attention as the birth then-princess Amilee in the Louisiana royal family, the ninth child to the first generation Imperial American monarchs.
What is little remembered today is the market release of the first bio-commodified non-chimeric animal, the Tawkie Hammy. Experiments had taken place where animals had been granted capacity for human speech via implementation of Fluffy speech bulbs in the brains of various creatures, but all previous subjects were isolated and destroyed upon completion of the experiments. The hostile approach towards regulation in the presidential administration of the time resulted in the executive branch using every trick possible to circumvent, defang, and stymie any attempts to stop the Centrifugemaster company from the creation and release of their crimes against nature. As a result of the rush to get their product to market before the 2067 holiday season the creatures were almost completely untested in a serious manner for marketability; the only concern was getting them into stores.
Almost immediately employees were overwhelmed by the far more complicated creatures, made worse as local law enforcement cracked down on the initial retail and breeding culture treating the talking hamsters, bunnies, and mice in the same manner as Fluffies. Animal cruelty snitching and arrests skyrocketed as it quickly became clear that, modified or not, the public did not see the creatures through the biotoy lens. Likewise, unlike Fluffies who were prone to bratty behavior and stupidity despite (and usually because of) programming, the elimination of the assumption of innocence and helplessness that being unable to communicate lent to small pets was shattered as acts of standard cruelty seen among rapidly reproducing animals, particularly cannibalism and selfishness, was now seen through the human lens. While a Fluffy could try to justify their murder as the result of color racism or elimination of the weak and came with either genuine grief or belief they did the right thing, a talking hamster would become defiantly belligerent about not needing a reason to cull its young before simply refusing to talk more. Even Abusers were offput by the creatures, since Fluffies pleaded for their lives and hit moments of surrender while rabbits merely shrieked in the recognizable sounds of their feral kin and insulted their enemy in English defiantly, both in even measure until death. Any child hoping for a cartoon friend in a talking mouse was very likely traumatized or grew up quickly when dealing with a colony of talking mice with the mental instability and frantic aggression common to domestic breeds.
Much like Fluffies before them, the advanced animals escaped into the wild to breed. Nowadays its rare to find a non-speaking example of those species, and many non-domestic varieties were driven into extinction by the simple fact that creatures capable of communicating in specifics have a greater chance at survival. The internet meme “uthe cwaka”, often placed in text accompanying pictures of lucky incidents, originates from the description of rare and unique experiences of finding nonspeaking small mammals in several of the popular children’s poems from famed children’s author Bongani Mbeki.
As for the effect on Fluffies, the price increase on non-talking rodents in pet stores increased which made Fluffies all the more attractive as feeder pets. While the ability to communicate has lead to Fluffies finding niches as companions to talking small mammals, often purchased as cheap friends to keep one expensive purchase company, the Feral population has been documented as being literally farmed by intelligent mice for meat, used to vent frustrations both sexual and emotional by intelligent rabbits. Feral intelligent hamsters have been seen taking leadership roles among Fluffies as “Hammy-Smarty-Friends” and engaging in clan warfare for territory and mates among other hamster warlords, and intelligent rats are sometimes kept and paid in home and comforts by homeowners who utilize their aggressive territoriality to eradicate Fluffy infestations and prevent home and yard infestations. Mutualist relationships have also been documented, with many rat and mouse nests keeping several Fluffies to feed scavenged foods that are poisonous to their kind but safe for humans and Fluffies such as avocados and citrus fruit, feeding on the Fluffy excrement which has processed these foods to a safe degree.