Story thus far...

The story of Jinn takes place in Pelloride System, a small, isolated solar system in a post-colonization universe. Pelloride's sun is orbited by three planets, of which only Tiara is populated. Tiara has a moon, Naas, which sustains a substantial scientific outpost. Beyond Tiara, outermost of the three planets, lies the Belt, a vast cloud of asteroids extending deep into space, sparsely populated by miners and researchers. Pelloride System has been separated from the rest of mankind for so long that its inhabitants no longer think of themselves as part of a larger race.

On Tiara, technological stagnation has set in, and its population is becoming more ignorant and superstitious with each generation. Meanwhile, the denizens of the Outer Settlements maintain some technological savvy, but their lack of resources and diminishing population have halted technological advancement. The cultural split between Tiara and the settlements is most apparent in their peoples' religious beliefs - the Tiarans are mostly practitioners of the Jinn faith, while the people of the Belt and Naas are primarily atheists.

At the time of the story, hostilities are growing between Tiara and the Outer Colonies. Religious and societal differences have created a culture gap over the generations, and now only the necessity of trade has prevented war. Tiara provides raw materials to the settlements, which in turn provide technologies and sophisticated manufactured goods to Tiara. However, an imbalance is developing as the increasingly ascetic Tiarans have started to question the value of their trade with the atheists. The Jinn priests have already started plotting the downfall of the Outer Colonies as part of their plan to assume total control of Pelloride system. Concurrently, the people of the Colonies and the atheist minority population of Tiara are striving to salvage the relationship between the two groups and prevent war.

The story opens with an elite group of Naasian scientists coming to Tiara to investigate a strange artifact and to prevent a potential conflict with the Jinn. They find that they are too late; the Jinn have started a war with an act of sabotage that threatens to cut the Colonies off from Tiara. As the atheist forces are being mercilessly destroyed, it is up to the Naas party to use the information revealed to them by the artifact to eliminate the mysterious source of Jinn aggression and stop the war.