Year 4111 in the Cosmopolitan Cosmos, the war waged between the Technocratic Triumvirate of Geisthrum against the resurgent Parisian Empire under Gheruna Azygos and the former Neo-Buddhist Collective, reforged into the Shield of Shin, after the destruction of their homeworld, has ravaged the galaxies with innovations of technological and biological warfare, the two becoming practically synonymous.
On the planet Adylveissa in the Felvos Cluster, a biological plague called Flux has been unleashed on a battleground planet, contested by the overarching military powers. Imlae can barely remember when everyone didn't look as she does now, soft pink flesh, rather than the mottled and hard caparace they've become, somewhere between mutated dna and nanite infiltration, like a sentient carcinogen.
Her family is a dim memory, as few survive to adulthood and few adults last through middle age, those who do become something else entirely, something ravaged and psychotic.