Only a handful of people survived the nuclear holocaust that left earth a poisoned wasteland. Retreating to colonies in orbit high above planes, these last renmants of the human rate created a new homeland, one perpetually looking down on the devastated lands that had once been theirs. In time, a new government was formed. The colonists began to adjust to a new life in space. All was going more smoothly than any could have dreamed. Until, seven years after the great exodus, a scientist’s visionary proposal shattered their new contentment, and plunged their hearts into turmoil. A single, massive, new bomb, immensely powerful yet environmentally clean, could be used to tilt the very axis of the earth, he declared. Climates would be disrupted forever, burying the irradiated northern hemisphere beneath a solid cap of ice and snow, and turning the deserts and seabeds of the southern hemisphere into a new heartland hospitable to human life.
The plan divided the people, splitting the colonists into two bitterly antagonistic camps: THE PROGRESSIVES, eager to use the bomb to launch a new era for humankind on earth. “Epoch,” they called themselves, or simply “E.” And opposing them, THE NEO-CONSERVATIVES, the so-called supporters of “Mother Earth.” or “M.E.” To them, humanity had already had its chance. The mother planet should be scarred no more. The project must be stopped at any price. Radical elements from both camps unleashed a savage campaign of terror. The space colonies were plunged into turmoil and civil war. Government collapsed. Lawlessness reigned. And as chaos spread, the hard-liners of Epoch secretly built their bomb and used it. Now there was even more at stake as the two parties struggled for control of the planet below. It would take at least three more years for the climatic shifts to begin to bring earth back to life. But with the war-ravaged space colonies teetering on the brink of destruction, there was no time to lose. A second exodus of refugees abandoned their homes in the sky, and fled to the hostile world below…