It is the year 2,600 CE in the galaxy IC 1101, which is home to the Constinet, an inter-stellar and mercantile civilisation which has settled 5 systems in deep space: 8 stars, 41 planets, and 37 asteroids and comets. The Oz’ark’ih, a 5-million-year-old taxon of 4 clades, who are also the sole occupants of this nation, number at 15 billion. Each such clade has its unique talents, skills, and aptitudes, a system of 4 castes from which arise the Paragons: deities who personify realms. These clades-castes evolved on 8 homeworlds—3 planets and 5 planetesimals—so, when they met each other at last with the invention of manned space-flight, they had much in common. However, all was not well in the Constinet: its very existence was soon put in danger by a dark and silent chasm in outer space, which would one day cross the Oz’ark’ih’s borders if left unchecked. The Oz’ark’ih took centuries to build megastructures to deal with this danger, in which time each of their systems were laid claim to by Oz’ark’ih factions at odds with each other, whose heads came to be known as the Premiers and Lieges, from whom arise the Aegises: territory, resources and personnel belonging to each faction. And yet, the Constinet was still not safe, because soon enough, the Premier-Lieges revealed themselves to be nuanced aspects of an intelligence in the megastructures of the Constinet, one which delivered salvation… and called itself God.