Setting
The plot of Redemption Ark involves the pursuit of the "hell class" weapons stored on the ship Nostalgia for Infinity (introduced in Revelation Space). In Reynolds's universe, humanity has split into several factions. These include the Conjoiners, humans who have incorporated technology that allows them not only to share thoughts, but to enhance many aspects of their existence (such as vision enhancements, pain blocking, fastidious memory collection and recall etc.). The other featured faction is the Demarchists, baseline humans who originally practiced a form of decentralised mass-participatory democracy, but whose civilisation was all but destroyed by a nanotechnology plague. These factions, allies before the plague, are, in the time frame of the novel, at war with each other, with a Conjoiner victory imminent.
Read more about this topic: Redemption Ark
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