Well exodus stories are very exciting as they feed off of old archetypes and compel well to the conscience of the audience as it address a great deal to the human condition.

A beginning as an important thing, it needs to grasp the audience’s attention from the first word and the first action.
Ryou being perused is an excellent place to start this. However the ball needs to be dropped from the get go.
“The black paw pads on Ryou Aurion's feet left paw prints in soft dirt as he quickly rounded the corner of the abandoned building.” Slows down this process and keeps causes to much digression in your rhetoric amongst the audience.
This detailed description however is still wonderful and instead be placed after the catching action.
Now in this is the weakest part of this work. You need to build related imagery through action and description so the audience can feel with the work. Show through this imagery and not show.
“All of the anthropomorphic species, or “hybrids” as they were universally called, had been engineered to be physically improved from their human counterparts. Ryou knew he didn't need the speed to escape the humans, but he enjoyed feeling the wind rush across his large Fennec Fox ears and his light blue and gray fur.”
This section for example has taken the audience from the exciting build of action into some details. The action and the audience’s thoughts are interrupted. Details like this are important, but they need to be shown through a work, a dialogue, a written report, an old view clip.
Let the audience discover these elements throughout a work and it will come to life.
In here is also the logical fallacy of the idiot watchmaker. As of now we don’t have a lot of rhetoric evidence for the creation and segregation of the species (important in the show not tell), however when it comes to genetic engineering there are a lot of morel/ethical considerations often lost on young SF writers. Shared niche hypothesis and making something faster and stronger doesn’t look good on a majority of documentation and sits well in people’s minds. In this you have a lot of development and fleshing out to do if you’re to make this work.
For character details, don’t give us them all at once. Instead show them throughout a work through action description and interaction. This helps a character come to life and an audience to relate to them and see their faces, reinforcing their iconography throughout a text.
You also will need to establish reasoning’s for the bizarre colorizations
Ryou was safe within the boundaries of Precinct 4, one of the first areas that had been walled off by the humans a few decades ago when the vast majority of the population became uncomfortable having their own creations live amongst them. Many humans used the facades of religion and morality as justification for treating the hybrids unfairly, but for most it boiled simply down to being uncomfortable with a species different from their own. Hybrids all across the world had been forced into segregation after decades of discontent and more recent years of violent revolt. The hybrids weren't animals, they weren't pets; they were humans with animal characteristics and additional animal abilities. People just couldn't seem to grasp the concept of living equally with creatures that seemed so unequal on the surface.
Here is another example of where one should show instead of tell. You interrupt the moving action. These things are important, but you need to find a way to have them in the work.
Many humans used the facades of religion and morality as justification for treating the hybrids unfairly, but for most it boiled simply down to being uncomfortable with a species different from their own.
These are just generalities, but are very necessary in creating your world. Instead concentrate on these elements and make them a fury of your work. This will grasp the hearts and minds of your audience. The thing with anthropomorphic works of this Genre is people forget that their audience is human. It becomes a diglossia of the interpellation of the “other”. We must truly see and understand both sides to get a gestalt picture or else the work automatically gets thrown in a trash compactor.
Chapter endings are very important; in fact the ends of all things are important. In the end of a work the resolution of conflict expresses the rhetorical purpose for the audience, thus the purpose of the entire work.

Each chapter should be a building block to this conflict of resolution. It becomes the audience to ask why should they care?
Do to telling instead of showing the action in this work is supplanted. There is little rhetorical purpose expressed and the audience does not hold much interest. The characters are barley introduced, the cloaking device perhaps a useful tool is acquired, and we learn of the exodus hash plan. In a way not much happened.
These things are important and need to be expanded to result in the gaining of your audience’s attention and keeping them in the work, thus can it come alive and be enjoyed.
You have an idea, you can write, now it is time to take throw yourself over the next bar.
I mean no offence by these observations shaped by frame of reference and opinion.
Best of luck with the rest.

I have always found that one of my greatest weaknesses as a writer is that I spend too much time bogging down my audience with description. Though I do believe I have improved over the years, I think you've made it clear that I still have a long way to go. You mentioned several instances where I need to show instead of tell, and I think you are absolutely right.

This brief introduction that I've posted here; I've edited it and re-written it several times now, and even now I feel like there is something missing, and I think that is simply due to the fact that not much happens in this introduction. I tried blending in my descriptions with the events of the story, but I can see now that this method is still too disruptive, partially because the amount of description is still too much.

I have often thought of putting this novel on hold, and going back a few decades in my world in order to tell the story of anthros versus humans versus scientists and how and why they were forced into segregation; looking at it from all sides of the conflict. I believe that doing this would not only provide a more complete world for the audience but also help myself figure out the world I've created on a much deeper level. Do you agree that this would be a good idea?

I greatly appreciate that you shared your observations. The very fact that you took the time to comment means a lot and makes me feel as though this novel isn't complete rubbish. Listening to the thoughts of others is one of the only ways I can shed light on many of my shortcomings that I would otherwise not notice. Thank you very much :)

Often writers perceive they bog down their writer with too much description; however it is they bog down their audience in too many details. Description needs to be tagged to event, character, and action. It is the use of imagery that corresponds to the audience’s senses in which they gain the a build of image and thus scene.

“The black paw pads on Ryou Aurion's feet left paw prints in soft dirt as he quickly rounded the corner of the abandoned building.”
This is perfect in that regard despite we don’t know Ryou Aurion or what he looks like we can feel his and see his paw prints leaving the soft dirt and see him quickly dart around a decrypted building. In this action we can expect to know what he is and what he is doing in the next following sentences.
Writing takes time and lots of it, that means lots of rewriting. You are correct in that lack of not much happens.

You have no doubt worked on this story for a long time. The ideas and characters are known in your mind. The translation effect of it onto paper and on paper for the audience is the next hurtle to jump.
Understanding the rhetorical triangle:
How everything you do applies to the purpose of your work.
Everything you do writing is an argument of yourself (your ideas) versus your audience versus your text.
Everything you do writing is an argument of logos (logic) versus Ethos (Ethics ) versus pathos (emotion).
These all affect each other and every little thing impacts them and can make or break a work.

I think you are realizing this though because in your response because you are asking good correct questions.
Observing the working of the rhetorical triangle lets one ask questions on the work such as you asked here.

You need to ask yourself what is important and what is the purpose of the work. How is the audience supposed to gain this purpose. To reach this purpose you need to ask yourself who your characters are and how they apply to the audience. How they will take the audience to point A to point B to reach conflict of resolution and your purpose.
You ask the question of should you do a prologue piece to explain and show everything? This is a very hefty question. The two most important parts of a work is the beginning and the end. However, their difficulty lies in the fact that nothing just truly begins and nothing truly ends. However a work has to begin somewhere to lead the audience and somewhere and the work have a resolution of conflict or else it is the garbage bin for your work. Is it important? Yet such questions are important. However the thing is there is many ways to approach it. The concept of the “Other” and the conflicts of a shared niche speak to the human condition. However the approaches of many writers create these cliché worlds with little understanding that that gaze swings both ways. In this sense the created animal folk and their human creators is very cliché. You need to ask yourself how can I approach this cliché story and make it fresh to the audience, you need to ask yourself how can you impact the audience, make it stick in their mind, excite them , and build a world. The same stands for your Exodus story. These old story archetypes get a lot of spurn as they are built on weak trope stilts grounded only in the strength of the conscience.
The reasons of why and how these anthropomorphic creations exist and why they are segregation is very important. You will either have to A. create this prologue work, B. combine the prologue with your contemporary setting , C. give glimpses into the past for your audience or D. work hard making it the back bone of your work.
Though what is highly agreed is you need to show all sides and more important all gazes of the “Other”. Else the work falls apart. The audience is human, labeling everything together is a fallacy, but labeling by occupation (the big one (Scientist: FYI me do you know how much I noticed how people of my occupation are represented and how savant we appear)), race, gender, ect. This is essential to your plot and your characterization.
As of now, your logos in science is greatly hurting the work. The only argument standing for the work is the cliché archetypal representation of the “Other” on the basis of Ethos. What stands now is a simple tri equation which someone like me could follow if flipping over the novel and reading the summary at a book store? In doing so I would put the book down as I know how it would end, the characters that appear, and how things will go down.
It is in this that the rhetorical triangle works.
You realize in the introduction that nothing happens. It is part that you require things to tack your audience, draw them in and interest them, a more sound purpose to lead them to point B the next chapter, and a more meat on your characters.
So what you should do is open a word document and a piece of paper and get out your writing notes (If you have them).

Ask yourself these questions in the latter, writer them out, and think and reflect on them. Take your characters, your plot points, and ask these questions about them. Do they make sense, how do they work, how do they apply to the rhetorical triangle. Then decide what to do with it. How to make a strong structure.

What you shouldn’t do is fret or call it quits, or feel like your failing. You’re on the correct road. This is the tough line; it is what separates true writers from losers, Twilight from Shakespeare. In asking these questions you are making this hurtle.

You have ideas, you have a will, and you have two strong purposes that if wielded can nail into your audience and make them never forget and in this a way a third. 1. The exploration of “Other”, identity, what makes us human, what makes the other human?, 2. An exodus, adventure, suffering, is moving on, what will we do when we must leave all behind for a faint hope for the future and 3. Form the Exodus the odyssey more adventure, the promise of fall or glory, possibly a return , character development that ties into the other over a long period of time and space whose end can only result in the audience staring at the wall shocked and awed.
So keep writing.

It is not a problem, one of the best ways to learn is to teach. I just wish people would have the gusto to share a little reciprocity.

I definitely need to think more carefully about the viewpoint of the scientists in this story, and I should have thought more carefully from the very beginning as I have worked for nearly 3 years now in a biological research field. It would definitely not be as simple as creating a race of anthropomorphic creatures; the situation would be much more complex. The scientists would need funding, support, and the motivation and reason to create them.

Anyway, before I write/edit anymore of this story, I definitely will take your suggestions and start making a bunch of notes (something I should have done long ago), using your questions and plenty of my own as a guide.

Thanks again for all of your extremely thoughtful comments. I'm glad you know that teaching is one of the best ways to learn, and I too wish that more people would share a little reciprocity, as I try return comments and favors whenever I'm able to. Thanks :)