By the late twenty-first century, a convergence of catastrophes has plunged the world into a nightmare conflict of ethnic nationalism.  China is buckling under the weight of brutally ruling an Africa with a population of over six billion. America has dissolved into the breakaway ethnic Hispanic, black, Mormon, and Christian and Islamic Fundamentalist states.  Europe has been overrun by Islamic fundamentalists in the wake of decades of guerilla and civil war.

As devastating storms and environmental chaos ravage much of the former First World, in far North an association of former European, North American, and neo-Soviet states have formed the Rim — the most technologically advanced remaining political entity, despite external threats and internal conspiracy that threaten to bring civilization’s last outpost down.

But that very technological advance has produced a Singularity: an artificial intelligence of miraculous power and cryptic, more than human intellectual capacity.  And it has opened the door to Heaven — as aliens from Proxima Centauri arrive with a gift from stars:  a gift of new pasts…