Galactic Civilization

For thousands of years, human beings have known how to control the great basic cosmic forces with a small amount of energy;

by artificial mutation, they have grown a part of the brain that can generate such controlling forces, enabling them to fly between stars;

human beings and their allies have migrated to the great clusters of the Galactic center, leaving the periphery to the inhabitants of gas giants;

the periphery includes the Sirius Sector which includes the Solar System;

that Sector has in any case been isolated and backward since the First Empire fell fifty thousand years previously;

that Empire, anachronistically, had slaves and was sacked by barbarians;

some planetary skies have been made luminous;

few planets still have cities;

individuals each controlling cosmic energies can live far apart;

Jorun's planet, Fulkhis, has hills, tundras, moors, great seas and dark nights;

he cannot see any other dwellings from his own;

other planets include the oceanic Loa with its many islands and Yunith which does retain soaring cities;

human beings have been artificially adapted to many planets and some would no longer be comfortable on Earth, which is evacuated.