The Society

Five mega-civilizations of humanity have risen over the life of the galaxy. Four have fallen.

The fifth-the Society-has only lasted for fourteen thousand years and is the youngest, most recent attempt. But over that time, the Society's many hominin worlds have united around a single truth: we are all cousin species. Now Earth has been invited to join, and it must decide if this vast interstellar civilization is the utopia it appears to be. 

Dr. Nina Rodriguez, the embassy's lead neuroscientist, believes that because of the aliens' medical advances alone, contact is the best thing to ever happen to Earth. But a medical incident leads her to suspect that Society technology may be altering human minds in ways no one anticipated-or will admit.

Thousands of light-years from Earth, Marcus Greer is wrestling with the guilt of leaving his family behind while adjusting to life in a post-scarcity culture. Stationed aboard the bioship Fulcrum's Light, Marcus finds himself fighting for his life when his ship uncovers a conspiracy on a primitive hominin world involving weapons from a long-dead human mega-civilization.

As ancient technology awakens and political tensions threaten humanity's place among the stars, Nina and Marcus must confront an unsettling question: In a galaxy where human civilizations have risen and fallen for billions of years, what secrets might the Society still be hiding?