Imagine a future, hundreds of years from now, in which humankind has solved the problems of space travel. Colony ships go to dozens of worlds. Travel takes months to years, but excitement and opportunity reign. Some of the ships disappear, never reporting back. Most succeed, and humankind no longer has all its eggs in one basket.
But on Earth, international tension continues. Environmental destruction continues. War continues. And then, in one fell day, Earth is no more. Weapons fly across oceans and rain down from space. A barren ecological disaster will take thousands of years to recover, and the people are gone.
The colonies thrive, each one growing and filling its world. As they mature, they send out more colony ships. At one point, humankind resides on fifteen different worlds, keeping in touch with each other by instantaneous sensible.
Gradually, however, each colony follows the same path as Earth. Great hope transitions to a diaspora on each world, differences in ideology leading people to form new countries. Differentiation leads to conflict, conflict to hate, hate to war, and war to destruction. High technology has given humankind the power to destroy itself—and it does, world after world, in an inevitable 400-year cycle.
Only four worlds remain: Branch, Newland, Brightness, and Verdant. Then a crisis call comes from Branch by ansible. One more world is dying. Months of travel away, helping them would impoverish your world of Verdant. And at 400 years since touchdown, you have your own troubles.
Doc Honour Books 