Editing The Salvage of the Kaine (section)

== Introduction and Background ==
Cheap, powerful ion drives opened up the solar system, bringing in ores from the asteroid belt and scattering mankind across the system.
Better yet, it looked as if Kemmler Compression would open up the stars, but crews sent on the longer jumps never returned, though some probes did.

Whether something about the drive caused the rash of emerging psy talents that followed the first tests or it whether it was just happenstance was never clear. The Ascendents were brilliant and almost all of them meant well, wanted to make the world better but their plans and the shock of their sudden emergence caused chaos.

The revolt against Psy Ascendancy almost trashed the planet. Ruthless and indiscriminate nano-tech attacks wiped out the Ascendants, anyone holding those genes and many other genetic heritages.

You cannot go home. So you work in space.

The “Compass Rose” is a sturdy, ugly ion-drive tug, hand-to-mouthing it around the outer system. Following a lead you have come upon the haul of a lifetime: a huge, state-of-the-art science vessel, tumbling silently in the blackness far beyond the orbit of Jupiter….