Fleur is a planet where amazing, colorful flowers grow. The only sentient race is insect-like, relying on flowers for all of their needs. They’ve even harnessed the power of the chemicals that flowers and plants produce and release. They use those chemicals to concoct formulas that can give them longer, healthier lives, change other plants, and make the larger, dumb species of Fleur do their bidding. They can even use complex formulas to program the behavior of some species to do specific tasks. There are grave punishments for using flower alchemy to manipulate fellow Fleurians, so it is never done. Or so it would seem.
Due to the Fleurians’ harvesting practices and their heavy dependency on flowers, the environment on Fleur is becoming too heavy with oxygen. There’s not enough carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce the massive crops of huge flowers needed to support their overpopulated society.
The Fleurian governing body sends a family of four on a stellar quest to find more CO2 to harvest and bring home, or at least bring back some alien technology by which they can increase CO2 levels on Fleur.
After several months, the Fleurian family has used up their rations on the ship, and are at death’s door. They crash-land on Earth, rendering their ship useless, but not before they record the massive, increasing levels of CO2 on Earth, sending the data back home. Whether the message is received, they don’t know.
The Fleurians tumble out of their tiny, broken ship, all but invisible to the sentient creatures of Earth. They were lucky to crash in a natural area, and they locate flowers, but what odd flowers they are. What strange derivatives of the chemicals they’re used to.
Over time, the Fleurian family gets used to their new environment. As sustenance, Earthian flowers are not as biologically appropriate as their home-world flowers, and so the poor Fleurians suffer from chronic malaise, but they’re determined to survive. And they’re learning, quickly, how to mix the chemicals in Earthian flowers to program the larger creatures around them.
Alas, due to the biological inappropriateness of Earth, they eventually realize they’re going to die faster than they would have on their own planet. As a last bid at survival, they learn how to chemically program the mind of an Earthian insect to replace themselves, in both body and mind. When they succeed, they all take on new bodies, starting a cycle that will span 100 Earthian years and result in taking over larger and more complex creatures. Inevitably, they take on human bodies.
Having resolved the question of their survival, they return to their original quest: to harvest CO2, or some technology for making CO2. However, the four family members are not operating in unison. The initial chemical formula the first sibling used to take over a human body resulted in an incomplete takeover. He acts like someone damaged and becomes fanatical about a misinterpreted aspect of their quest. He becomes obsessed about increasing the CO2 levels on Earth and begins a long quest to wield the power of the rich family of his human body to begin manufacturing huge, alluring vehicles that burn gas at 10 miles per gallon. His human family’s private investments grow to include Oxygen bar patents that they know will be worth a fortune in the future when people need to stop in for some clean air.