Plot
In the years leading up to 2063, humanity has begun to colonize other planets. Lacking FTL technology, this is accomplished by taking advantage of transient but predictable naturally occurring wormholes. Without warning, a previously unknown alien species, the "Chigs", attack and destroy Earth's first extra-solar colony and then destroy a second colony ship. The bulk of the Earth military forces sent to confront the Chigs are destroyed or outflanked, in part because the Chigs have some form of FTL, affording them greater freedom of movement (although this technology appears limited, and the Chigs also primarily utilize natural wormholes). In desperation, unproven and under-trained outfits like the 58th "Wildcards" are thrown against the Chigs. The Wildcards are the central focus of the series, which follows them as they grow from untried cadets into veterans. Although the unified Earth forces come under the control of a reformed United Nations, the UN has no armed forces of its own and therefore navies such as the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy operate interstellar starships.
The Space: Above and Beyond milieu includes an underclass race of genetically engineered and artificially gestated humans who are born at the physical age of 18, and are collectively known as In Vitroes or sometimes, derogatorily, "tanks" or "nipple-necks". The In Vitroes have replaced the previous underclass, the artificial intelligences known as Silicates. These human-looking androids, referred to as "walking personal computers", have rebelled, formed their own societies, and wage a guerrilla war against human society. The Silicates are also suspected of having some involvement with the Chigs.
Read more about this topic: Space: Above And Beyond
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“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)