The Alliance Galaxy

"The Alliance keeps you safe. The Alliance keeps you free."   The far future. Ruling from Earth, the authoritarian Alliance once controlled half the galaxy. In the wake of a devastating war against a impossibly alien opponent, the Alliance is crumbling. Its subjects are seizing the chance to escape its thrall. Civil war threatens to break out between the old guard and a faction who may drive the Alliance even further into darkness.   Artificial wormholes link the galaxy - the Alliance; the reclusive, insectoid Hernid Empire; the peaceful, multispecies Delheidian League. And across the desolate Dead Sector lay the Alliance's mysterious rivals, the Ilarians.   The Elluda, cybernetic warriors used by both sides of the Alliance-Salknein War, are quarantined as they evolve - for good or ill. And all wonder if the Salknein, who fled the Milky Way at war's end, will return. Scattered signs suggest something even more alien lurking.   Against the backdrop of the Alliance's decline, along the Alliance's furthest border the Coltonians - a empathic, reptilian race - resist nearly a century of occupation. One lonely space in Coltonian space becomes the focal point of the brewing conflict.