Six hundred years ago, a nuclear war devastated the planet, particularly the northern hemisphere. The war started over gene modifications that gave some humans special powers. Areas of the southern hemisphere are now slowly recovering, and civilization has begun to rebound.
Ostraya, being the least damaged of the southern hemisphere areas, is also the most advanced along that road to recovery, but its population density is still far lower than it had been before the nuclear war. After centuries of poor treatment, those Ostrayans who inherited the gene modifications are finally starting to be accepted by mainstream society.
Then, Ostraya is invaded by the brutal, totalitarian forces from the Japanese part of the Triple Alliance that extends across thousands of worlds. The Japanese enforce their rule through the use of chips they place in people's heads. These are attached to metal tendrils that spread throughout the brain of the person, allowing the gene-modified mentalists of the Alliance to control them. This is the story of that invasion.