The empire of the Shaa lasted 10,000 years. Years of terror, infinite violence and oppressive, brutal order. Now the Shaa are no more, but the terror and violence are only beginning...The Shaa, rulers of the universe, began to commit ritual suicide when it became clear that their minds - profoundly intelligent but limited - would accept no further information. Near immortality was their one, great mistake. And so began the war between the Naxids, oldest client race of the Shaa, who believed themselves inheritors of the empire, and a frail alliance of other races, including humanity. Humanity had both suffered and thrived during the millennia in which the Shaa tried to compel the universe to conform to their notions of propriety - suffered because they were one of the first species to fall beneath the Shaa's yoke; thrived because the Shaa found humanity useful, and spread them throughout their empire, in positions of trust. As the empire expanded, through wormholes which crossed both space and time, the Shaa formulated The Praxis, a harsh ethic which they imposed on those they conquered. But it could also serve as a cloak for insurrection...