Earth is no longer its own. It has become a distant periphery of a vast stellar Empire controlled by the Star Gods—a backwater with a corrupt government, a brainwashed population, and plenty of crime. Among the mutants and outcasts who do not fit the Empire's order, this has produced a philosophy: better to die free than to live for others. Those who hold it have chosen infamy over submission, piracy over obedience. They call themselves criminals. They call it freedom.