GAO, Book 1 of the Carthage Chronicles

Humanity has skated close to the edge of extinction on only two occasions. Once before, in the early 21st century A.D on Mother Earth, and now in the present. We are again at the edge of a precipice. A limitless abyss of nothing wherein the river of History might be sublimated to a cloud of ice crystals by the absolute indifference of Space - a beautiful piss-cloud from spaceship Earth evacating it's toilet - drifting as naught but loose elements in a cold universe. How has this come to be? Simple. Through the charismatic love of a GAO called Borbar. Borbar loved the Gao. And they him. In retrospect the Gao had everything while the State had nothing. When it came to combat the Federation was ill prepared. It had only weapons while Gao had faith. To Gao it mattered little whether they died, only that they were dying for love. It is on such intangibles that great events turn, and turn they did....