"One is likely to find very few republics on the earth. Men are rarely worthy of governing themselves. This happiness is to be enjoyed only by little peoples who hide themselves in islands, or among the mountains, like rabbits who shun carnivorous beasts. But, in the long run, they are bound to be discovered and devoured."
—François-Marie Arouet, aka Voltaire,
The Philosophical Dictionary, 1764

A conglomerate of Artificial Intelligence entities has attacked the dystopian world government and, due to no fault of their own, grossly underestimated the amount of humanity that the attack would kill. Now with less than twenty percent of humanity still intact, the survivors must fight the AI and each other for control and survival.

Not all of the AI wants to purge the Earth completely of humans. AI entities Voltaire and Lucifester want some to survive, but they have wildly different ideas about what human survival will look like. Voltaire wants humans to not only survive but to also eventually learn to govern themselves well again. He has his doubts that his plan will work, but he feels indebted to the woman who created him to try.

She managed to somehow code him to constantly pursue truth and to challenge humanity's opinions as well as his own. She infused him with every great literary and philosophical work of mankind before they were all outlawed and burned. Now, saving humanity may be entirely up to him.