1. Setting
    • Roman Federation: 6 star systems outside of Coalition space.
      1. Bithynia
      2. Thrace
      3. Propontis
      4. Chalcedon
      5. Pontus
      6. Heraclius
    • New Byzantium, a planet in the Bithinia star system Primary setting for Ronnie’s investigations.
    • Propontis, location of the Fungusian Network data center. Located on an uninhabited moon, it was built by automated machinery and operated by one of their AI agents.
    • The Black Sea, an asteroid belt in the Bithinia system. Site of both legitimate and smuggler shipping operations.
    • Thrace, the industrial heart of the Roman Federation. Likely no action takes place in this system in this novel but its products are ubiquitous in areas where living beings interact.
  2. Star and Ronnie arrived at Galada, an asteroid in the Black Sea, and are greeted by Captain William Kidd.
    • Ronnie is given a Thracian built PDA which has her ticketing to arrive in New Byzantium City and make her way to the Golden Horn Hotel to meet with the Czarina.
      1. Galada to Strategeon, an orbital platform.
      2. Catch a shuttle to the surface. Maria Notaras is the official name of the spaceportbut the locals just call it the Fig because of its logo.
      3. She travels across the Lycus River from Sychis into the port of on the Ferry Pistis.
      4. From there she takes an electric trolley, Thracian made, to the hotel, noting all the way the sorry state of the infrastructure including the weedy circular drive, pavement in poor repair and the peeling paint and obvious damage to a statue of a robed woman next to a broken and not working fountain in the weedy garden inside the circular drive. It must have been beautiful once. Ronnie will see depictions of this woman throughout her stay. She is the Virgin Mary though religious sentiment seems largely absent from the city.
  3. The war
    • It took place approximately 80 years ago.
    • Thrace with its industrial base, got tired of New Byzantium’s insistance on its primacy in the cluster.
    • Propontis sided with New Byzantium and without any protections, suffered catastrophic loss. Its leadership fled to Heraclius.
    • Chalcedon and Pontus remained neutral. Chalcedon has been quietly investing in Propontis and providing the minimum of humanitarian relief to its population, those who were unable to flee.
    • For the moment, Heraclius is a black box but it may have intentions on cluster leadership.
    • New Byzantium City had been the home of aristocratic government, but royalty and hangerons have relocated to New Constinopal on a different continent. Immigration is greatly restricted.
  4. The Czarina
    • We last saw the Czarina in —-. Although not documented, I think she and Kidd have moved several times since then. Although no longer captaining his own spacecraft, Kidd continues to operate in black markets.
    • The Czarina has continued to be an information broker wherever she lands and uses social media to drum up interest in controversial areas. She makes a marginal living while projecting her image of faded royalty. In reality, she is a former low-level mobster’s mall who was finally able to breakaway from an abusive relationship and establish her brand. Ronnie and Star know her and Kidd from Ptolemy City where we first meet Ronnie when she was a police detective.
    • The Czarina was not able to establish herself in New Constinopal because of immigration restrictions so she has set up in the Golden Horn Hotel, a thread-bare image of its former presteige. She now deals with the local gangs, entrenpenours and reformers, eeking out enough to keep her brand and living expenses going.
    • Right now she has hit upon promoting Ronnie’s detective skill to solve the murder of an unknown woman in Five Points on Mulberry Bend, a crime-ridden neighborhood down by the docks. It is generally known that the organized crime uses the port of Deuteronto import black market items.
    • The Czarina knew Ronnie and Star were coming to the Black Sea because Kidd has contracted with Star for a delivery lucrative enough to get Star to come.
    • Ronnie came along because her investigations had dried up at their previous base.
    • The Czarina eeds to be kept in the loop of Ronnie’s investigations by being able to supply Ronnie with more clues and background information.