(Here is another piece of backstory for Shadow Captain and its sequels).

The Egyptian port city of Yamu or Imu was snatched by demonlike noncorporeal beings, usually called the Duat, around 2600 BC, and the site back in Egypt later was resettled under the same name around 2500 BC. The reasons for the Great Abduction are not clear, but experts believe that the Duat experimented on their captive humans, trying to genetically enhance humanity’s limited psychic abilities. Whatever the Duat wanted the humans to do for them with these newly enhanced powers, it was nothing good.

Yamu had a significant presence of South Mediterranean people, Nubians and Ethiopians on the one hand, and “northerners” (light-skinned, light-eyed barbarians related to the later Sea Peoples) on the other. The majority of the descendants of the Great Abduction would look Mediterranean or Middle Eastern to the eyes of their modern earthling cousins.

The Akh are benevolent, noncorporeal beings who manifest at the centers of active stars. They rescued and civilized most of the abducted humans. They gave humans technology, a basic monotheistic religion emphasizing prayer and personal responsibility, and guided them towards the emancipation of slaves and a representative form of government.

The Akh were extremely opposed to the old-style king-worship of ancient Egypt, and the associated power of the priesthood. They did their best to break the one and redirect the other. The old priestly families are now banking families (in ancient Egypt they would have controlled the granaries that stored the grain which was both Egypt’s food and its chief medium of exchange).

The Akh gradually withdrew from active interference in human events, willing to talk when approached, but feeling that humanity needed to manage its own affairs. Today, more than four thousand years after the Great Abduction, the society the Akh helped build has grown corrupt, and a new leader, Tylia, claims the blasphemous title of Pharaoh. The old Star Master, Samar, opposes her, and soon a new Star Master will appear, to fight against her minions….