The series focuses on Draka (later The Domination), a totalitarian, expansionist nation founded in Southern Africa by British settlers in the 18th century where an especially cruel manifestation of a slavery-regime plays an increasingly central role.

The world of the Domination diverges when the Dutch Republic joins the American Revolutionary War two years earlier than in our history and is forced to cede the Cape Colony to the British following a resounding defeat.

With their greater numbers, the higher firepower of the Ferguson rifle, and later augmented by German and Confederate expatriates, they overrun and enslave the native population.

Other societal groups include a technocratic subclass of industrialists, a small Boer-dominated navy, and a secret police known as the Security Directorate; controlled by Confederate immigrant families out of “Skull House.” Draka culture draws heavy inspiration from the Mughal Empire as well as classical antiquity.

While originally, serfs were black Africans and citizenship was open to all white individuals, the Draka eventually began to see themselves as the one true Master Race; all non-Draka existed now as threats to be subjugated.

Joining the Allies of World War I, the Draka seize Ottoman and Bulgarian lands and then much of Central Asia from China, Afghanistan, and the collapsing Russian Empire.

The Soviet Union, weakened by civil war and overstretched from reinforcing their borders with the Domination, collapses to the Nazi invasion before a Draka attack falls on the German army in the Caucasus.

Meanwhile, having already subdued what remained of China, Japanese forces are able to concentrate on the United States, seizing its Pacific possessions and raiding North America.

The Draka invade Japanese-occupied China and Korea, and the war ends in 1945 with multiple German and Japanese cities and bases destroyed by nuclear weapons.

The remaining free countries of the world join the Alliance for Democracy, with the United Kingdom inundated with refugees and heavily fortified against any potential Draka attack.

The third book, The Stone Dogs, depicts the cold war between the Draka and the Alliance, known as the Protracted Struggle, which is fought mostly on interplanetary colonies throughout the inner Solar System.

All remaining free humans are enslaved or granted limited Draka citizenship, allowing for their children to eventually vote and join the military.

[4] Smoler noted that series has "produced angry rejections of its plausibility, built on too-confident assertions about the impossibility of economically efficient slavery".