In Rediscovery, Earth is a lost colony that fell so far we forgot we were not native to Earth. There are about 2000 generations of divergence from humanity’s base stock, but we’re still genetically compatible. They have found the remains of the starship that brought us in what is now Eastern Turkey – a military vessel from the end stages of what the Empire calls the Outsider Wars, a series of wars spanning about seventy thousand Imperial years which ended with the Empire completely in control of their home galaxy. It is not uncommon for fleet combat to open interdimensional rifts, and at that time, there was no technology capable of reversing the process. During that era, the incidence of operants was between one and two sixtieths of the Imperial population and most ships carried only one Vector pilot, whom they likely lost in combat.
One of the things the Empire had been forced to do around the time of its founding was a genetic modification program with the hope of producing what we might call reliable, inheritable psychic powers. They sacrificed upwards of twenty million children – including all the natural children of the royal house – but they succeeded in their goal, creating the first twenty operants. These successes were adopted into the royal family as the heirs to the then-ruler, Merlak II, and with the exception of the Ston Rebellion and subsequent Interregnum, the foremost of them, Merphon, and his descendants have been rulers of the Empire of Humanity since, a time period of roughly 114,000 Imperial years (about 80,000 Earth years)
Sometime in the 1840s, a defeated faction from a civil war in the Empire called stons discovered Earth and moved in behind the scenes, gaining functional control of most governments behind thee scenes. They eventually began striking at the Empire from Earth, leading to the Re-Discovery of Earth by the Empire.
The Empire is often described by readers as libertarian. They are not, although there is a functional similarity. They are instead guided by a set of sociological pressures referred to as M’Don’s Equations, after the man who developed them, demonstrating the consequences of diverging from the minimal necessary functions of government plain to rulers who expected to be around to experience those consequences.
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The Man From Empire opens with a deadly terrorist attack on Indra, one of the provincial and financial capitals of the Empire. In this case, however, someone happened to be present who was capable of following the attackers back while marking his own trail for follow-up.
Osh Scimtar di Baryan (‘ScOsh’) was a Fourth Order Guardian pretending to still be a Second Order. He was the son of Scimtar di Baryan, one of the Empire’s most important political and military leaders, although ScOsh was of far less importance himself. But he was a strong enough operant who had absorbed enough of the principles of inter-dimensional travel, and able to take the war to the stons hiding on Earth.
In the process, he meets Graciela Juarez (‘Grace’), a late twenties college student with a rough past who accompanies him on his travels. She’s American of Mexican ancestry, living in southern California. In the process, she experiences an operant awakening, demonstrating that Earth is descended of Imperial-era humans (Humans have had at least four eras requiring them to be refugees for survival – the Empire does not know the original home planet of humanity)
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A Guardian From Earth begins seconds after the climax of The Man From Empire. Grace has survived the confrontation, which leaves her with a problem: How does she learn to take advantage of her new abilities?
She’s found by the expedition that followed ScOsh to Earth, led by ScOsh’s much younger sister Anara Scimtar di Baryan, who offers to take Grace back to the Empire with her, where she can learn what she needs to.
Grace accepts, and spends most of the book learning how to use her new abilities and then learning the profession of Vector pilot – basically the Imperial equivalent of a trucker, moving cargoes from one star system to another. Being a Vector pilot requires operancy, and although about one in seven Imperials is now operant, Vector pilots are always in demand. She also finds herself a husband, Asto, third of Anara’s four children, but she also is directed to read ScOsh’s report of the situation on Earth – a situation which is on a course for disaster. Since she cannot countenance not getting involved, she creates a plan to create a link of trade between the Empire and Earth to deflect events, a trade centered on mostly on dogs, and to a lesser extent on cats, neither of which have an analog in the Empire.
However, she discovers that there are worse things than stons present on Earth, causing the problems that have Earth headed for disaster.
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Empire And Earth begins the morning after the climactic events of A Guardian From Earth. Grace is aware that she herself does not have the ability to fight these ancient enemies of humanity, and the Empire has no intention of getting involved – far easier in their point of view, to wait until Earth’s civilization hits collapse and then step in as saviors. So she recruits a group of helpers, people who want to make money trading in dogs and cats, or who bear the fractal demons a personal grudge.
Meanwhile, the situation on Earth is deteriorating. Both the US and the EU are collapsing, while Russia and China are conquering their neighbors and there is nothing the US and EU can do about it – their currency and credit has collapsed, and they can neither buy equipment nor pay their military. However, inevitably the Russians and Chinese go to war with each other – a war that turns nuclear.
This is the one thing the Empire cannot ignore – a war that actually poisons enough of Earth to cause a population collapse by itself. The Empire has a visceral horror to destroying inhabitable real estate without an over-riding reason, and Earth has eight billion potentially productive citizens, people they want to become Imperial citizens, not corpses – they’re just not willing to fight a war of conquest to get them.
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Unlike the first three books, which form a very ‘tight’ trilogy, Working The Trenches takes place several years after the events of Empire And Earth.
Grace and Asto have decided to join the Imperial military for several reasons. It’s expected of Asto, and Grace feels an obligation to the Empire. Also, military service is a practical requirement for any position in the Imperial government – the Imperial viceroys simply will not appoint anyone without it to any significant position – most especially not any of their own family members.
Soon after completing training, they are approached to join the Merlon’s Eyes, a group of covert operatives generally assigned to diplomatic missions with the idea of discovering and forestalling attacks upon the Empire from without. The ideal of the Merlon’s Eyes is that the opposition never know they were there. But when they are assigned to an embassy to a species of matriarchal pack hunters, Grace becomes especially pivotal.
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