When humans ascended into space, they came into first contact in the midst of a civil war between two alien factions. Both factions saw humans as an enemy on the side of the other, and humans were temporarily at war. However, one faction- the Collective- realised their mistake, and offered to help the new empire at a cost; humans assisted in repelling the other, and became a military power, with many more resources to compensate for weaker technology. Gradually, they gained influence over many aspects of the Collective eventually restructuring into the Imperium. However, many xenophobic attitudes remained from the brief skirmishes, and the Imperium's laws gradually became more and more pro-human, making many leave Imperial space to form militias and guerilla armies. With an increasing amount of these sentiments, the Imperial Parliament realised that an uprising was inevitable, so a contingency was devised. Exodus was a system on the edge of known space, and had two habitable worlds and many ore-rich bodies. It was built up and classified, being a 'nuclear bunker' system in case of a major rebellion. However, rebellion never came, due to a series of anomalies in space created from mining of elements from an alternate dimension known as the Arva, with properties that could bend and completely ignore known physics. Such anomalies could be simple cracks in a planet or complete mysteries the size of entire star systems; two of the largest being one that separated known space from unexplored Rogue Territory, the other surrounding the Sol System, both of which hampering space travel and bending light. In 2654, these anomalies would be used as wormholes by a new empire; The S'pher, exterminating humans to stop the practice of this mining by making a swift blow at Earth in 2654. In the ensuing 20 years, all human territory would be taken apart from the Exodus and a handul of other systems. Here, humans would build and prepare for retaking their planets. In 2684 they would launch a reclamation campaign into the first territories, soon growing into a huge multi frontal assault across hundreds of worlds. In 2702, the final battle would dawn as thousands of ships and milions of personnel would begin the invasion of Earth and decide the endgame. One squad would find out the reason why the S'pher were doing and (This is the pplot of the book) decide between the fate of humans and the entire universe.