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The Corean Chronicles is a fantasy series of books by the author L. E. Modesitt. As of 2007, it consists of:

• Legacies (2002)
• Darkness (2003)
• Scepters (2004)
• Alector's Choice (2005)
• Cadmian's Choice (2006)
• Soarer's Choice (2006)

Contents 1 Plot and background 1.1 The world of Corus 1.2 Powers of the Talented 1.2.1 Detection of Talent 1.2.2 Shields 1.2.3 Invisibility 1.2.4 Talent Locks 1.2.5 Infuse Life Force 1.2.6 Aiming 1.2.7 Tables 1.2.8 Wild Translations 1.2.9 Shadow Matching 1.3 Parallels to The Saga of Recluce 1.4 Legacies 1.5 Prequels

The current books in the series comprise two trilogies in different time frames of the same world, with significant ties to each other. The first three books are set in a time frame roughly a thousand years after the events in the later three books.

The first trilogy introduces the world of Corus as a world that used to be ruled by a great civilization, that spanned the entire continent. However a magical disaster caused its fall, ending a golden age. In the books, Corus is full of countries fighting for superiority, humans struggling to survive, and strange animals that are a product of and dependent on the life force-derived magic of the world. Additionally, there are rarely seen creatures – Soarers and Sanders – that are entities of pure life force. The fall of the civilization caused much to been forgotten, but some few of the people of Corus still command magical powers, referred to as Talent. With that power comes the cost of having the lords of the world trying to gain control of the wielder. Among the denizens of Corus, these special features of the world are commonly referred to with phrases such as Talent magic, Talent wielders, and Talent creatures, among others.

The second trilogy, returning to the era of the lost civilization, introduces the civilization's caretaker minority, the Alectors, who are human-like entities that exist on Corus, "linked" to their former worlds with pure life-force. While the first trilogy portrays these beings as evil – for indeed they are not natives of Corus – the later books portray the Alectors through their own point of view. Paradoxically, humans are not native to Corus either. The Alectors consider regular humans (commonly referred to as steers, Landers, Indigens) inferior. Alectors are by nature, Talent wielders. Fusing their powers with technical knowledge, they are the ones that have created the infrastructure and glory of civilization that is later lost.

Place names are used frequently and complexly, however, a full map of Corus is included in each book - readers are advised to check it often.

All Alectors and a few of their subjects (landers, or steers) possess a psionic potential called Talent. The degree of Talent varies among individuals. Alectors receive formal training in the use of their Talent, to the limits of their ability. Talent occasionally strengthens in later life. Specific noted powers include:

Everyone with Talent can generally see Talent in other objects. The ability manifests as a perceived glow or aura surrounding the object. The color represents the nature of the talent. Talent mechanisms generally produce a black or silver glow, while individuals glow according the nature of their talent and the power of it. The natives of Acorus, called Ancients, have a yellowish-green aura, while many Alectors have a purplish-pink aura, and talented steers have a deeper green aura shading to black. The Talented can often sense whether someone is truthful, and can sometimes read an individuals emotional state. Individuals whose auras bear reddish streaks usually cause trouble sooner or later; they lack control of their baser impulses.

Alectors, and occasionally powerful landers, can form defensive shields that can block detection of their Talent (except at close range), and can turn aside hostile Talent attacks. Usually a more powerful individual can eventually pierce such shields, but as this is time consuming and exhausting, it may leave the attacker vulnerable to counter-attack from other sources.

Highly Talented Alectors can bend light around themselves, producing a form of invisibility. Others with Talent and training can detect them if they have reason to suspect their presence, but do not do so automatically.

A Talent lock employs life force to create a secure condition on a door or container. Safe passage requires removal of such a lock by a similarly Talented individual (who normally replaces it).

Alectors with the aptitude and training become Engineers, and they can infuse life force into crystals of various sorts. These crystals form the basis of Alector technology, and extend what may be done with Talent. Objects infused with life force are exceptionally durable (lasting for thousands of years), but they draw on the life force base of the world in small measure, limiting the quantity that may be safely produced. For this reasons, only the structures and property of the Alectors are generally so treated.

Extremely Talented landers seem able to use their Talent to "will" projects such as bullets to strike their target. Such projectiles are normally far more accurate. In addition, they carry a "charge" of life force that can disrupt the life force of the target. Alectors hit by such bullets may be severely injured or (more often) killed immediately. Wild translations, the unfortunate result of using certain Alector technology incorrectly, also die when hit by such bullets; they contain more life-force and usually explode or immolate when they die.

Early in their rule, Talented Alector engineers establish a network of tables. These black slabs, composed of many small energy storage crystals, establish a grid. The relative geometry of table placement affects the stability of such a grid, somewhat limited table placement options. Talented individuals may access a table to travel to any other table within a few seconds. During the travel interval the traveler perceives a series of tubes with colored markers. Each color designates a specific destination. A subclass of Alectors known as Recorders of Deeds may employ other powers of the tables, chief of which is the ability to view remote occurrences, sometimes even in the recent past. Recorders may draw on the power of the table to attack travelers or those in proximity to the table. Recorders can also sense the use of the translation tubes and discerning Recorders can often identify the traveler before he appears. Incorrect or careless use of a table can result in a Telent explosion, usually fatal to those in the vicinity. Sometimes such use also damages the table; depending on the table's position in the grid and what else is transpiring, such damage can destabilize the grid, making travel hazardous. Alectors take such actions very seriously, as the grid ties them to their homeworld, on which they partially depend. Should the grid fail, Alectors lacking sufficient Talent to anchor their life force to their present location would die.

Interplanetary travel, as from Ifryn to Acorus, carries additional hazards. If too few attempt it, the translation corridors become balky, so that only those of great Talent can pass. If too many attempt it, the corridors become porous, occasionally decanting travelers midway to their destination, an fatal mishap. Evne with the corridor operating properly, individuals do not always reappear as they left. These unfortunates become Wild Translations, creatures tied directly to life-force and usually of some monstrous form of another. Alectors commonly seek out and destroy such creatures when they appear, for they are very dangerous. Wild translations often appear in the vicinity of a table, but can appear miles away. A Talented individual can sometimes sense a change before a Wild Translation materializes. Occasionally, the life-force of an individual splits into several creatures, when this happens, all appear at once. Wild translations are not intelligent.

Alectors with very important responsibilities are shadow-matched to hierarchically superior Alectors. For example, the Duarchs of a colony are shadow-matched to the Archon who rules all Alectors. Shadow-matching prevents the matched individual from disobeying orders and compels him to act in the best interests of another individual. The shadow-matched individual retains free well in other areas, and is aware of the constraints on his behavior.

The Corean Chronicles deal with many of the same issues as The Saga of Recluce, in a similarly detailed world. There are small differences in how the magic works with a less clearly defined good and evil magic. Also, wild nature magic has become a strong component.

Legacies begins during the childhood of the main character, Alucius. His father is killed in action while serving in the Militia, leaving his grandparents and mother to raise him on the family Nightsheep farm in the small country of The Iron Valleys. When older, he himself is conscripted into the Militia to fight off the impending invasion by the western super-power, Madrien. During a pitched battle, he is captured and enslaved into the armies of the monarch of Madrien, the Matrial. After many months of combat against other nations, he discovers how to free himself from the magical collars that control the slave armies, and frees a company of others who then flee back to the Iron Valleys, and freedom.

The prequel series takes place during a period centuries after the Alectors arrive on Corus, then called Acorus, from their previous world, Ifryn. The Alectors travel from world to world, reshaping marginal worlds to their liking with their powers. They ultimately wish to create a rich and self-sustaining base of life force, for they require life-force to power their Talent (a form of psionics) and their artifacts. To this end, they operate as ecological stewards, guiding lesser races in land management and life management techniques they believe will create this base. They regard such races as "steers" since they are chiefly responsible for creation of the life-force on which Alectors depend. Generally speaking, Alectors rise to positions of power and responsibility commensurate with the Talent they possess - all Alectors possess some Talent, but (like intellect) their actual skills vary considerably.

On Acorus, the Duarchs, a pair of joint rulers, oversee the remaining Alectors from their seats of power in the cities of Elcien and Ludar. The Duarchs report only to the Archon, the ruler of all Alectors, who resides on whichever planet houses the Master Scepter, a mechanism on which most Alector technology depends. At the time of these stories, both the Archon and the Master Scepter reside on Ifryn. Because they have equal power and because their superior is so far away, the Duarchs intrigue against each other, co-opting various lesser Archons into these schemes. Strict rules govern what Alectors may do, and the punishment for violating these rules is generally death (with the offender's life force painfully stripped from him by a scourge-like device). For this reason, the schemes are complex, designed to maximize advantage while minimizing actions likely to require overt response. Within this framework, accidents, usually fatal, occur regularly. Generally speaking, such struggles violate the tenets of The Views of the Highest an set of teachings that forms the basis of the Alectors' ethical framework. As a framework, it contains many ideas derived from sound ethics, but places the Alectors firmly in a stewardship role over their subjects, in some sense like the attitudes of Victorian England.

When a world has a sufficiency of life-force, Alectors transfer to it in larger numbers. Their activities generally overwhelm the world's ability to sustain them, and they eventually drain the world entirely. For this reason, among the projects Alectors normally launch from a new world is the location and establishment of their presence on yet another world (or worlds) to which they can move when they must. As of this story, the world of Ifryn has established two such colonies - Acorus, and a rival Efra.

Individuals of the subject races (steers) occasionally manifest Talent. The Alectors are jealous of their supposed monopoly on this array of powers, and usually destroy any steer who demonstrates signs of Talent. Steers that survive do so either because no Alector notices them, because they are powerful enough to destroy Alectors that attempt to destroy them (very rare), or because they are employed in some Alector plot or other. Involvement in Alector machinations, either willingly or otherwise, generally only delays destruction. Even if the steer's faction wins, when he is no longer useful the Alectors of his faction will destroy him. The most powerful steers can rival an Alector in Talent, but usually lack formal training and are therefore generally overmatched. Among steers, Talent is at least partially heritable.

Acorus was once inhabited by a race variously called the Ancients or the Soarers. Wispy creatures usually surrounded by an amber-green glow (generally visible only to the Talented), the Soarers are few in number and appear only infrequently. They also live off the life force of Acorus, so the Alectors' activities threaten their survival. They oppose the Alectors within the limits of their numbers and their powers, but the use of their powers, and corresponding use of the Alectors' powers in opposition, simply makes the situation worse.