The Starchild Compact is divided into two parts. Part one, On the wings of eagles, takes place in a near future world dominated by NATO, the Eastern Block, and the Persian Caliphate. Jon Stock leads a multinational exploration team, consisting of five men and four women, on an expedition to Saturn's moon, Iapetus – which they believe may be an artifact. They voyage to Iapetus aboard Cassini II, a spacecraft constructed of futuristic polymers that is driven by VASIMR engines powered by a gas-core reactor. Cassini II has three sections, so that two can extend on tethers and rotate to create artificial gravity. During the voyage, they experience a major solar storm. While transiting the asteroid belt, they survive an asteroid strike on one of the tethers. They discover a stowaway, Saeed Ismail, an Islamic Jihadist who is deathly ill from the solar storm radiation, and save his life. Despite this, he vows to continue his Jihad. Following a sling-shot boost around Jupiter, they arrive at Iapetus, where they discover that it is a derelict starship.In part two, Starchildren, the crew finds a way into the interior of Iapetus, where they discover an Earth-normal artificial environment. They are "guided" by automatic systems that teach them a sophisticated precursor to modern Hebrew. They learn about a civilization from Ectaris, 500 light years distant, that determined their sun was about to nova. The Ectarians focused on creating a generational starship, and left their solar system before the nova. They arrived in our solar system long ago and reestablished their civilization on Earth. Unfortunately, a subsequent bio-ecological disaster destroyed their civilization. A small cadre of scientists, engineers, and did not settle on Earth, but returned to Ectaris in a vastly improved, relativistic spacecraft, to see the results of the nova. When they returned to Earth a thousand years later, they found the civilization they had left behind was gone. Taking advantage of relativistic time compression, they hop-skipped their way forward from the ancient past, looking for the reestablishment of an advanced civilization on Earth. The Founders, as the explorers came to call them, played identifiable roles throughout human history, finally meeting the explorers when they return to their ancient starship.The amazing discovery of the Founders and their historic role in Earth's history profoundly affects the peoples of Earth. The Persian Caliphate uses their presence as an excuse to launch a nuclear attack against Israel, and then the rest of Western Civilization. The Founders intervene with their advanced technology, stopping the Caliphate. Saeed attempts to destroy the Founders during their intervention, but is stopped when a Founder severs his right hand. He is eventually let loose in the backstreets of old Dubai.The Founders and the Cassini II crew establish the Starchild Institute on Iapetus, governed by the Starchild Compact, chartered to introduce Founder technology to the peoples of Earth. The Founders, in cooperation with the explorers and farsighted citizens of several countries, establish the Iapetus Federation, a loose-knit federation of off-world communities, governed by an updated version of the U.S. Constitution.Several Founders and explorers build a large relativistic starship, the Starchild, and ready a 200-year (Earth observer time) voyage of exploration.Saeed gathers a group of Islamic fanatics, and prepares to reestablish the Caliphate.The story remains true to modern physics, projects reasonable scientific and social advances over several decades, and speculates on how a civilization might develop traveling between the stars on a generational starship. It blends futuristic science...