Initially the government tried to keep this alien demands a secret by covering or hiding the arches but the aliens wouldn’t have it and soon the message was displayed across the night sky. Soon the world was in fear.
The idea of the orders were to bring the population of Earth back to the optimal number of 500 million. Meaning that except for 6.25% of humans their humanity would cease to exist. The second part of the idea was reversing the changes that humans have made to the biosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere. The “loosing” humans( 93.5% ) would be put to use making these changes possible. The alien arches transformed the loosing human into whatever resource or organism was needed to replenish the earth. Their was of course initial panic from humanity but these settled down somewhat when humanity found out that these changes would take place over the course of two years and their consciousness would be preserved. As payment for humanity sacrifice the saviors enticed the “ gift” with cures to most diseases( HIV/AIDS, Cancer, Ebola, and Altzeimers), a space elevator was created, and they provided us with designs for sustainable fusion energy.
Their was of course skeptical about the consciousness disease. However on the first day of “ The Altering” the Savior handlers that control the process allowed humanity to do a “ test run”. Several volunteer humans agreed to undergo the process to prove that their consciousness would be preserved. Each scientist went through the machine and was transformed into an animal. Each animal was able to proficiently establish that they had been humans before. Our story takes place amongst the people of the USA who are hesitant yet curious about how The Altering will change their lives.