(From the private journal of professor Alaric Dellhorn. Contemporary Civic Studies; Zootopia University … published postmortem)

  Everyone knew something happened after that first festival in the tundra district …

  No one knew who had the idea, nor who was crazy enough to take the infamous Night Howlers and make it into a tea blend …

  The plant is responsible for at least a few of the articles surrounding the biological war crime prevention act, and quite a few traumatized veterans of the great war … has now found another niche market besides pest control and biological warfare …

  A party drug, an ‘energy drink’ …

  In hindsight, it was obvious what that was supposed to acomplish …

  ***

  The cracks in the law were masterfully exploited by Fabiano Bigbby and his corporation to skirt the edges of legality pertaining to the plant.

  His own company acquired the rights to use said plant for pest control of their new ‘tea’ operations, everyone knew it was a front for the legal cultivation of the Night Howlers, but nothing could be done quickly against an army of lawyers.

  Big's Incorporated even acquired some chem labs to certify their tea, preventing the suture surge of low quality copies to mar the reputation of the now named blend ‘Fire Starter’.

  As the production became more sizable and the ‘Fire Starter’ spread all over Zootopia and the surrounding territories … the State sued Big Incorporated in a case that marked the decade and is still discussed in depth by students of the law.

  ***

  Zootopia v. Big Incorporated is still debated to this day as one of the most important and most damaging cases in Zootopia records …

  As to not go in-depth over the legalese that made the case possible, what even the common mammal could derive from it is that safety and freedom exchanged places in the eyes of the public from that time.

  The core argument used by the State was the risks of allowing what was basically a wartime drug to be openly sold as stimulating tea in the same manner one would a shot of espresso …

  Big Incorporated lawyers counter argument pointed over many other ‘drugs’ that weren't even seen as such anymore, the previous sites caffeine, cat-nip, nicotine … even the rather famous magic mushrooms could be easily cultivated at home …

  As loaded as those arguments were, the known use of a plant as heavily regulated as Night Howlers didn't bode well for Big's case … despite the preemptive lab certificates and current mammal studies about the ‘safety’ of the ‘tea’ … all financed by Big Incorporated … the matter was, what was a mammal allowed to cultivate, sell and consume ? … and should a corporation be responsible for the damages its products may cause ?

  The tobacco industry from years prior did heavy damage to corporate good will … but much of the secrecy and outright lies that made the tobacco industry face severe backlash, were simply non-existent when pertaining to Fabiano Bigbby.

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  While it is still too soon to speak about possible health risks concerning its use, actual research is being done and the transparency about it all means that anyone could take a bite at it …

  Big Incorporated wasn't just another Company and Fabiano Bigbby wasn't just another greedy CEO … Fabiano was an infamous philanthropist … so much so that he was the sole responsible for the creation of the much needed Little Rodentia district, the rising juggernaut of the city …

  Those taxpayers might be small in size, but they were sizable in votes and wealth …

  The specifics of why little mammals have quite an unfair advantage in Zootopia’s economic scene is another thesis worthy matter, but it is safe to say that Big Incorporated at the time, was much more than a ‘company’ … It was a hometown name that manny mammals stood behind, to some, Big Incorporated was synonymous with government … and the hefty lobbying and voting preferences basically made it so …

  Such weight of political influence, economical power and public good will made the case news worthy …

  And all weight obviously moved the scales of justice in the case now known as ‘Safety v. Freedom’.

  ***

  After it, ‘personal responsibility’ gained quite a lot of weight during the ensuing cultural ‘revolution’ with the new lawful precedent.

  Companies, districts and even individuals now had a bit more ‘freedom’ over what they could and couldn't do, what they were responsible for and what they weren't …

  As much as that precedent, years later when the asbestos empire collapsed, made prosecution of the companies involved quite difficult, this historian argues it was a necessary consequence … for the current Zootopia would not have come to be, if not for an entire generation rebelling against ‘TAME’ practices in the most Zootopian way possible, cultural festivals.

  ***

  Speculations apart, one should view history with less rose colored glasses … while the overt story of Zootopia might sound pleasant, that time was anything but.

  The Fire Starter was a stimulant that made mammals bold … and the government can't have a population willing to confront it … the monopoly of violence is the only thing keeping anarchy at bay and ‘Fire Starter’ as the name implies, was responsible was quite a lot of fires during the city wide protests …

  TAME individuals were raised believing conflict was something to avoid, that unity was a worthy end goal, one worthy enough to make children endure the conditioning …

  When presented with a front of predators and even a few prey, together in a way that was deemed impossible, things took a ugly turn for TAME and its enforcers …

  Police officers, Firefighters, Surgeons … any mammal in a profession dealing with high stress situations had to pass through an ‘untaming’ training to be able to perform their jobs … and as things came to light, questions were being asked about the long term effects of the training they were subjecting children through …

  With a timing that many conspiracy theorists call ‘planned’ … the Ministry of the DUA suffered an untimely death … and following that one of the biggest cases of government leakage in Zootopia history … sealed documents found their way into public view … and the public view didn't like it …

  So much so that the case about the use of Night Howlers became buried by the media storm surrounding TAME, its institutions and Zootopia's status as a neutral city nation that was at play under the revealing documents.

  A military coup that almost took place …

  *** *** ***

  Unknown to that historian, there were much darker things at play …

  Such as one Nicholas Piberius Wilde, an accomplished young adult … though most of his accomplishments wouldn't ever be known …

  Many that knew the Fox could tell that there was something inside him that wanted more …

  The way he looked at things, the way he would call bodies interesting, like an electrician seeing a well put circuit board … The way Nick observed people was interesting in a visceral way … you could see the Fox working out how what made people tick … you could see in his eyes something … predatory …

  And working with Fabiano gave Nick a lot of opportunities to learn …

  Fabiano's bears learned how to subdue a smaller opponent … while Nick learned how to fight against those massively bigger …

  To Fabiano's body-guards Nick was a Fox shaped menace, tricky in the worst ways and overly dangerous when pressed … To Nick they became playmates to “play” with …

  With Fabiano … Nick learned how to project respect in a way that wasn't flashy nor violent, just posture and speech …

  And with the rest of the family of little ones … Nick learned how to not be seen …

  ***

  Little mammals were underestimated in a way that bordered on insult …

  They could do almost all jobs available in a modern society and they were the best at anything that required dexterity or fitting into tight spaces … and most importantly, they consumed little for what they provided.

  Little space, little houses, little food … It was easy for a rodent to become wealthy in Zootopia, and yet they were underestimated, seen as inoffensive if seen at all …

  That meant they could be anywhere, listening, learning, just out of sight … and when least expected, they could just jab a needle filled with paralitics … maybe even a pair of needles suspiciously shaped like snake fangs … into someone …

  ***

  … Someone like the Ministry of the Department of Union Assurance, who was trying a little too much to bring a military response towards Zootopia …

  Nature's lethality was such a bit of a mystery … bright colors, loud and visible, things that screamed: look at me, I’m dangerous … little packages and strong poisons …

  Ministry Bellweather found his untimely end at the hands of a snake bite during a bath, the snake wasn't found, probably escaped via the toilet … the fast acting venom and the sound of water made it so that when his family found him, he was already long gone …

  On a bar in the tundra district, Fabiano Bigbby and Nick Wilde drank a shot of ice distilled vodka in cheers over an enemy well buried and a plan well executed …

  The documents found in the Ministry’s home were copied and anonymously delivered to mammals all over … too many for a cover up …

  Zootopia's Fire Starter did start a fire, now they just had to keep it burning for long enough …

  ***