Science Emergence

A sense of unrest is growing among the descendants of those who survived the asteroid impact. It's been 230 years since it hit earth. Some feel it’s time to leave the retrofitted mine. The mayor enforces the old rules. Only when he feels it's safe will anyone go topside. That’s despite the breakdowns and crop failures. So, the rebellion begins.

What motivates those who commit violence in the name of political beliefs? Terrorism today is not solely the preserve of Islam, nor is it a new phenomenon. It emerges from social processes and conditions common to societies throughout modern history, and the story of its origins spans centuries, encompassing numerous radical and revolutionary movements. Marc Sageman is a forensic psychiatrist and government counter-terrorism consultant whose bestselling books provide a detailed, damning corrective to commonplace yet simplistic notions of Islamist terrorism.

Five years after a bioweapon called the XBU Virus is accidentally released from a Canadian government laboratory and eradicates 99.5 percent of the global population, survivors Astra Fallon and Jude Waverly emerge from her family's underground bunker. Astra's younger sister, Hope, had been taken at the beginning of the outbreak to a government compound known as the Closure because of her possible rare immunity to the supervirus. But Astra and Jude quickly discover the compound is no longer a government-secured scientific sanctuary.

The founder of the Humem State Foundation portends and advocates the next stage in our cultural evolution - the creation of a state for our extended presences - our personal imprint on the world exterior to our bodies. Brook advocates establishing formally recognized citizen-like entities, called humems, each encompassing an individual's digital extended presence, within a dedicated landless state environment - the humem-state. He demonstrates how this revolutionary but imminently feasible system can be incrementally instituted within existing jurisdictions....

Ancient cultures have been looking up at the stars for thousands of years, wondering about their place in the universe. What were those glowing spots in the black cover of night? Just how far away was the moon? These and other questions hounded humanity through the millennia until, finally, relative economic stability allowed for a number of people to examine their world more closely. Slowly, knowledge and understanding accumulated generation by generation until the conditions were ideal enough for a revolution to occur in thinking, experimentation, worldview, and natural philosophy.

Drake’s a very angry and (quite literally) heartless orphan obsessed with avenging his parents. Balt is a sometimes-thief from another world who’s trying to get home and maybe make some friends along the way. Cammie is an agent who just wants to retire. And then there are the hand hats. Together, they confront an evil greater than any of them have imagined.