Preparations for War Series: The Background

Calmena (Epsilon Indi A II) is a planet filled with humans descended from the Imperial 'Lost Colony' of Earth (Sol III). The Fractal Demons discovered Earth in its barbarous Stone Age state, and decided to see if they could domesticate humans. The experiment was not a success. There were a few lines or families that responded well to comparatively good treatment, but the demons' own nature worked against them. Furthermore, the 'special' families' own efforts were bent more towards preserving their own relatively privileged status than actually improving their capabilities or performance, and they never amounted to serious competition with their Imperial peers. The rest of the descendants of abducted humans were servants, slave laborers, and eventually, food.

The demonic society itself is built around a caste system, with a descending order of precedence and power enforced by genetic programming, as Fractal Demons are an ancient race - at least a billion Earth years old in their present form. They conduct bloody wars between each other and their minions, as well as more subtle means of each advancing their own interests. The lower castes breed prodigiously, the noble castes somewhat less so but their descendants also struggle with each other over over positions of power, as well as cooperating - grudgingly - in conquering or destroying other developing races. This was the point of their contact with the Empire of Humanity.

Lost Colonies led the demons to the Empire. The Empire was in a vulnerable stage. It had recently expanded the option of activating the mind powers originally bred thousands of years earlier at hideous cost in defectives. Despite long generations, the DNA for those powers were present in all but a tiny splinter of the Imperial population, and there was demand for expanding the pool of operants beyond those who were born operant or became operant later through natural means. From less than a twentieth of the Imperial population being operant, the majority of new births were technologically activated, while the number of new births also increased as prospective parents were apprehensive the option might be removed in the future.

Unfortunately, power corrupts, and the Empire had insufficient numbers of adult operants to teach the new generation about the constraints upon their power. The Fractal Demons found the new 'ston' operants fertile ground for their seduction. Revolt followed, and its success was followed by a series of conflicts between the victors that left the former Empire with roughly a three thousand to one population crash, accompanied by an inability to maintain its former technological base. No former Imperial planet managed to keep as much as half its former population levels, and every single one of the major habitats was functionally destroyed. When the survivors of the old Imperial hierarchy declared themselves, the Empire was essentially re-established within twenty years, and had no significant human-based competitors within another twenty. But they realized the role the Fractal Demons had played in the chaos of the Revolt and Interregnum.

Against this background, the Empire 'discovered' Earth and soon after, Calmena. Calmena, with its Gates was a particularly useful tool to them to trace the Fractal Demons back to their own habitats in preparation for a future war with the demons that was all but certain, and a small base was established in a remote area of Calmena to support those efforts.

Left to their own devices, some of the Calmena humans had managed to escape demonic captivity. Some, led by the operant agaani ('gifted' in Demonic, the only language the Calmenans had left) established fortress-towns capable of withstanding local demonic attempts to re-subjugate them. Others became primitive hunter-gatherers in small communities and as individuals, scratching a meager living but free from the domination or either the demons or agaani.

Into this situation, an Imperial charity is organized led by a man named Folsogon with the goal of teaching the natives to advance their own capabilities, with the idea that a more capable native population means difficulties for the demons. The constraint put upon them is that the new technology must be in believable increments for the natives to have done it themselves.

The major continuing characters are:

Joseph Bernard ("Joe") an Earth human, discovers Calmena inadvertently during Earth's first expeditions beyond its own solar system in hopes of finding colonization or terraform-able worlds.

Asina - a native woman 'rescued' by Joe during his initial mis-adventure upon the surface of Calmena. She began life as a 'breeder' in an agaani fortress-town.

Sephia- An Imperial officer in the Planetary Surface Garrison on Calmena, a veteran of the Reunification of the Empire nearly three thousand years previous who re-enters the Imperial forces.

Folsogon- never comes on camera but the man who administers the charity funding Joe and Asina's activities upon Calmena.

Preparations for War is a complete series of four books, Preparing The Ground, Building The People, Setting The Board, and Moving The Pieces. It is available from Amazon here and from all the Books2Read retailers (B&N, Apple, Kobo, etcetera, including two library services) here