Throughout human history, most significant events would have happened through movement of peoples, food and economic pressures, or fundamental religious or political differences. In a few cases, individuals have played starring roles, and their presence or absence made a fundamental change to the flow of history. Defence of Hope combines two storylines in a science fiction format, one of which uses the backdrop of real events and people in the past combined with a fictional narrative to describe some key divertants. The other storyline moves into the far future, and the two threads regularly intersect. While it is a standalone novel, it uses characters and some of the events of the Rejuvenation Trilogy as a starting point.