Apes are the rulers of the planet of Ashlar. The apes first came to the planet along with the humans when the space station Oberon crashing to its surface due to a giant electromagnetic storm, killing half the crew.
With no way of getting off the Ashlar or contacting Earth for aid, the survivors decided to build a settlement and increased the genetic manipulation of the apes so they could do manual labor and to combat the hostile lifeforms that threatened them. This backfired, however, as an ape called Jonathan lead a bloody revolt against the humans, killing most of them. Jonathan, now called Semos, led the apes and the humans he enslaved out of the ruins of Oberon. He later became worshiped as the God of the Apes and was prophesied to return to Calima, a place within the ruins of Oberon, now called the Forbidden Zone.
Relationships between the apes and humans improved a bit after a time-displaced former Oberon scientist, Leo Davidson, led a revolt against the apes with some ape supporters. After Leo left Ashlar in order to get back to Earth, however, tensions began to rise once again as some ape factions began to resist human equality, however thanks to a coalition of apes and humans they were defeated, and lasting peace was finally brought between the two races.
Years later, the apes developed a society similar to that of modern humans and ape General Thade was hailed as a hero for allowing apes to take over.