I feel like this book would have been better served if it tried to be a little less? There is a galactic empire and a rebellion. There are also inhabitants of a world caught in the crossfire, an AI that defected from the empire, and a commune of people trying to avoid the conflict. The threat of the empire is underdeveloped, the locals are a plot device, the AI is exposition-dumped at the end, and the rebels are all over the place. ⤵️