Can You See
Fallen (Firstborn, Lastborn, volume 2)
By Melissa Scott
Melissa Scott’s 2023 Fallen is the second book in her Firstborn, Lastborn space opera series. It shares no characters with the first book, Finders, and is set in a different period. More on that second detail later.
The invention of nigh-godlike AIs provided the Ancestors with everything they could have wanted… until they found themselves at war with the AIs. Civilization collapsed. Centuries later, civilization has recovered, although at a lower tech level than the Ancestors enjoyed.
Luckily for the revived civilization, space is littered with Ancestor relics. A few of these relics aren’t existential threats.