Eighty years have passed since the galactic community cut off humans and exiled them from Earth. Beatrice, brave member of the original Michaelson clan, one of the only Terrans to visit the Kinder home planet of Hilcyon, has finally died. As the now large and world-spanning family gathers to celebrate her life, cracks in the unity of their family, and the human community on Casiti and New Earth begin to show. They break wide open when a lone engineer on Hilcyon reaches out because the Kinder are about to all die of starvation. A new generation of Michaelsons step in to help the Kinder and re-connect the fragments of the human family.