He is augmented with nanites, and is a “pre-select,” or someone whose mental and physical abilities were tuned before birth by DNA manipulation.

He lives in isolation, but after surviving an assassination attempt, he is forced to notice the growing cultural strains around him.

The pre-selects, due to their abilities and thus money, make up 10% of the population, but control over 95% of the resources of the world, and are using that power to shut out the “norms,” or non-augmented humans.

After his family is killed, by assassination in the case of his sister and the plague for his parents and older brother, he finds out that both plagues were non-human in origin, caused by octagonal nanites, reminiscent of the very ancient octagonal jumpgate that had been found in deep space, rather than the round designs of human nanites and jumpgates.

After Nahal is killed, Alwyn takes over his family's company, stopping an attempt by the power elite to merge the largest media corporations, thus controlling all sources of news.