On the eve of Earth's first global embassy joining the wider galactic community, disaster strikes. Now Earth must decide if the Society-a vast interstellar civilization comprised of many different hominin species-is the utopia it appears to be.


Dr. Nina Rodriguez, the embassy's lead neuroscientist, believes because of the aliens' medical advances alone, contact is the best thing to ever happen to Earth. But when personally faced with evidence that the Society might not be as benevolent as they claim, Nina is forced to confront her own biases. Not sure who she can trust, Nina struggles alone to solve a mystery that could cost her, and the embassy, their future.


Meanwhile, thousands of light-years from Earth, Marcus Greer, a programmer from Atlanta, studies the Society's advanced technology on board the bioship Fulcrum's Light. During a standard mission, disturbing parallels of Earth's first contact with the Society arise when the planet of another uncontacted, non-space faring, hominin civilization is put in jeopardy. The crew of Fulcrum's Light finds itself racing to prevent genocide while thrust from space battles to the brink of cosmic disaster in a remote star system.