The twenty-third century. An age of optimism, expansion and diversity in the colonies of the moons of the outer planets; an age of repression on Earth; a clash of ideologies that explodes into the Quiet War. Although the colonists' attempt to win independence is defeated in the Quiet War, and Earth's Three Powers takes full control of their city states, the spread and divergence from the norm of new kinds of humanity continues. As tensions increase and Earth's control of the colonies is stretched to breaking point, there's talk of a second war, one that will determine the fate of humans and posthumans alike ...The first novel describes the build-up to a failed war of independence between the sclerotic gerontocracies of Earth and the exuberantly exotic Outer System colonies, and the small but significant hope of a better future embodied in the escape of several of the characters. The second novel describes how an aggressive philosophy of posthumanism rises from the ashes of defeat, and its escalation towards a war that could mark a phase change in human history.