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.