The Pharashian Republic’s psychopathic leader has instigated a catastrophic civil war within the Terran Empire. With the coming collapse of the Republic with the coming of a vindictive Imperial Navy, a group of ships with thousands of refugees led by Marcus Ambrose, Andrew Townsend and several Portal Ship commanders chose to escape the Republic before their worlds were scourged. Their aging Portal Ships failing, they found a world that seemed almost ideal to rebuild a civilization on that was far away from the savage conflict that they escaped from. But the struggle to rebuild is complicated by pirates, internal strife from within, and generations later, a threat from a murderous theocracy called the Mahdi that has spawned from the ashes of a devastated Empire. To survive all of this, the refugees and their descendants must work to make their new home a very Hard Nut to Crack.