The year is 2318, and Mankind has gone to the stars leaving a dying Earth. Mankind's descendants now populate the Terran Federation, a group of 200 worlds held together by uneasy bonds. A veneer of calm hides tensions; Man may have left Earth but he has brought most of its problems with him to the stars. The veneer of calm is about to be shattered though, and one man finds himself reluctantly thrown into the vortex, his fate and the Federation's linked.