It has been more than 70 years since the end of the Race Wars.  During the unstable non-aggression that followed, the three empires: the Federated Alliance of Sol, the Ascendancy, and Horizon, have attempted to address lingering racial tension within their own borders with varying degrees of success.  Border skirmishes continue to flare up as the empires fight over disputed territory.  Unification of the galaxy is, for some, a dream of lasting peace and an end to conflict; for others, the ambition to dominate.  A technology exists that was too time-consuming, too costly to implement in the heat of war, and only now, it has begun to bear fruit.  A technology that is an uncanny merger of mind and machine, a technology capable of finding unprecedented ways to implement existing science to create novel weapons, a technology that is touted by some to be, "the final evolution of conflict".

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"Will Mr. Eihon, Israfil, please report to Gate B5?" came the monotonous voice over the PA, "Your shuttle is waiting for you to depart.  I repeat, will Mr. Eihon, Israfil, please..."

Israfil dropped his shoulder bag nervously, as the other passengers in the space elevator train turned to look at him quizzically.  A few months ago, he was notified that he had been selected to be one of the first generation of cog pilots.  This came as something of a surprise, as he was sure he had failed in his pilot assessment.  He was nervous and excited, yet despite that, he had overslept and now he was waiting for the long train ride to take him all the way from the surface of the planet to the attached spaceport, from where he would be shuttled to the carrier upon which he would serve.  He hadn't yet seen his cog and wondered what it looked like and how it operated.  He expected to find something defective and deformed, expected that some terrible mistake had occurred and that he'd get blamed for costing the Ascendancy innumerable sums of money that he'd never be able to repay.  He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.  he had to tell himself that maybe this was his chance to shine, maybe this was the niche he had been looking for all his life.

The train began to slow, and when it finally came to a complete stop, indicators gave the passengers permission to unlatch themselves from their seats.  In zero-gravity, Israfil floated forward, guiding himself along with handrails and automated ziphandles that would take him to where he needed to go.