The Parafaith War (1996) is a science fiction novel by American writer L. E. Modesitt, Jr. It is set in a future where humanity has spread to the stars and divided into several factions. Two factions, the Eco-Tech Coalition and the Revenants of the Prophet ("revs") are engaged in a futile war over territory and their competing social philosophies. The ecologically-aware Coalition must hold back the zealous rev hordes constantly seeking new territory for their ever-expanding theocratic society. Overview The protagonist, Trystin Desoll, is a lieutenant in the Service, the military of the Eco-Tech Coalition. He is an elite soldier, a product of the Coalition preference for quality over quantity. He begins as duty officer in East Red Three, a perimeter station at the east border of the planoformed region of the planet Mara, in the Parvati solar system. Mara is currently undergoing extensive planoforming by the Coalition, and as such has become a choice target of the revs. The revs invade through the use of massive asteroid "troid" ships full of soldiers in cryogenic sleep. Troids carry dozens of low-power paragliders, invisible to (otherwise) highly accurate energy-detection scanners, which dump several squads each of rev soldiers in the badlands beyond the borders of planoformed regions. It is the responsibility of the perimeter stations to protect the planoforming machines, and are extensively armed and armored to do so. Trystin faces increasingly powerful assaults by the revs, who almost literally walk into the guns in waves. The difficulties begin when one of the revs he takes captive turns out to have been fashioned into a living bomb, a high explosive that Trystin evades only thanks to the jumped-up reflexes enabled by his neural implant, standard to all Coalition soldiers. The conflict escalates further as the revs begin bringing in rocket launchers and stealth armor, making Trystin's job more and more trying. He is forced to abandon East Red Three temporarily after one attack, and a final assault with hovertanks nearly causes him to lose a leg and the base itself. He discovers only later that his is one of only two bases to survive at all against the rev hovertanks, the other being East Red Four, under Major Ulteena Freyer. Trystin is offered pilot training in the Chevel system and accepts, along with Major Freyer. Pilot training is difficult and the duties of a pilot almost certainly condemn them to isolation