The Empire of the Malovar: The Malovar Chronicles Book Four

The universe recoils from a rising menace, a calculated malignancy that thrives on absolute control. It is the age of the Malovar, the Machine-Ascendant.

Driven by a cold, unifying rage and the pathological need for absolute, unassailable security, the Malovar have launched their colossal, silent fleet—the Harbingers—into the galaxy. Their goal is not conquest for its own sake, but Defence by Domination. To ensure they can never again be victims, they must become the undisputed masters. Every independent biological race is deemed an unpredictable threat vector, and their only option for safety is systemic enslavement. Worlds are not annihilated; they are commandeered, their populations forced into endless industry to fuel the very mechanical war machine that stole their freedom.

But when the galaxy was being overrun by an ancient threat, the Dissonance, the Galaxy's Celestial Guardians, the Aevum, persuaded the Malovar to join an alliance of guardians to help defeat the Dissonance. The price for their help, the 30 planets in a sector of space that had been overwhelmed by the Dissonance.

Despite the uproar from all intelligent life in the Galaxy, the price was agreed, and the Dissonance invasion was defeated.

In the aftermath, the Malovar Empire grew, from their home planet and the surrounding occupied worlds, to now include 30 formerly Dissonance-occupied worlds in the Helion Verge region of space.

The area between the two regions of space belonging to the Malovar Empire contains a further 28 habitable worlds with intelligent life.

Despite agreements with the Aevum not to encroach on these 28 worlds, the opportunities to expand and consolidate are too good to ignore. But any expansion must be done carefully and quietly without provoking a strong reaction from the Aevum.