Modified humans known as Ousters live in space stations between stars and are engaged in conflict with the Hegemony.

After death, the cruciform rebuilds the physical body and resurrects its host, but only as a living vessel that can support the parasite.

From this Duré deduces that the Bikura are actually original settlers of Hyperion that live forever but have been transformed into bald, sexless eunuchs with limited mental capabilities.

Severe pain prevents Duré from either cutting out the cruciform or leaving the Bikura; his journal entries end.

This reveals Father Hoyt's motivation for returning to Hyperion is being relieved from the constant pain the cruciform inflicts on him for being too far from the colony.

Colonel Fedmahn Kassad's tale begins with a flashback to his days training in the FORCE military academy on Mars.

Kassad has repeated encounters with this woman inside these simulated battles, and he spends his days in the academy and after searching for her, as he believes that she is real.

When the Ousters attack a Hegemony colony world, Kassad uses brutal guerrilla warfare tactics to push them back.

Recovering from injuries on his way back to the web, Ousters attempt to raid the hospital ship that carries Kassad.

While making love after the battle, Kassad realizes that Moneta is working with the Shrike and it has been manipulating him, using him to spark an interstellar war in which billions of people will die.

This reveals Kassad's motivation for returning to Hyperion: he wishes to kill the Shrike in order to prevent the interstellar war it is planning.

In the centuries since, reliant on life-extending treatments, Silenus has been waiting to return to Hyperion to finish the poem.

Weintraub wrestles for years with dreams in which he is ordered to go to Hyperion and sacrifice Rachel in a replay of the Binding of Isaac.

Aspic engages in several voyages aboard a spaceship to build a farcaster portal on Maui-Covenant, connecting it to the Hegemony and its waiting hordes of tourists.

This difference grows more pronounced until the eighth visit, in which Merin returns to find Siri dead of old age and the farcaster ready to be activated.

The Consul reveals that he triggered an Ouster device which led to the emptying of the Time Tombs and the release of the Shrike, knowing that doing so would likely cause the destruction of humanity.

The narrative abruptly ends as they approach the Time Tombs, which now emit an unusual glow, across the desert plain.

[9] The novel was featured in several episodes of the television series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya where a Japanese translation was given to one of the characters.

[14] On June 10, 2015 it was announced that TV channel Syfy would be producing a mini-series based on the Hyperion Cantos with the involvement of Cooper and King.