 The human race has largely recovered from the Siege of Earth by the Achuultani and the Bia system is being slowly re-colonized and its defenses re-activated.In short, the Empire is largely at peace, busy assimilating the technological advances of the Fourth Empire and building and manning a fleet to take the war back to the Achuultani and the master computer controlling them.The captured Achuultani have prospered; with the aid of cloning, their ranks have swollen and they have colonized a planet called Narhan, which was unsuitable to humans by reason of its heavy gravity - for this reason they have renamed themselves the Narhani.