Earth and countless other planets were established by families of transhuman and alien royalty for the purpose of later "harvesting" the resulting organisms to produce a type of youth serum for the elites on other planets. After the death of the matriarch of the House of Abrasax, the most powerful of the alien dynasties, her children, Balem, Kalique, and Titus, quarrel over the inheritance, with Balem inheriting an enormous refinery on Jupiter and Titus spending his inheritance on a lavish spaceship.