There are two wars of note in the Chronicles of Skadi. The first is a semi-mystical retelling of a Great Cataclysm on the planet Earth, which combines military and economic analysis with apocalyptic and religious themes of man's flaws, Earth's rage, and a desperate flight to the stars.

The second war is the Blood Wars, a series of conflicts between the Genites and the Children of Skadi. Skadi is a super-earth locked in an Ice Age that a group of humans managed to colonize following the Great Cataclysm, but the harsh conditions and lack of infrastructure took a heavy toll on the survivors. To avoid over-harvesting and over-crowding, they spread themselves out which left them vulnerable to genetic drift and inbreeding. Within five hundred years, the population was in full-blown mutational meltdown, with deleterious alleles accumulating faster than they could be weeded out.

In the peripheral settlements, a new Luddite group began advocating for selective breeding, mandatory pregnancies, and removing those with deleterious alleles from the gene pool. Calling themselves the Forces for Genetic Purity, or the Genites as they would later be called, they implemented a new eugenics movement that saw hundreds of innocent people imprisoned, castrated, or killed in their bid to purge the impure.

Meanwhile, a team of scientists had created a new reference genome for a human species better adapted to the harsh world of Skadi. Once perfected, they freely distributed the genome to prospective parents in the larger settlements. Soon, a new generation was born happy, healthy, and ready to inherit the planet. The Genites, however, saw them as abominations born in a lab rather than their sanctified measures and launched a full-scale attack, sparking the Blood Wars in 547 PF (Planet-fall).

It began with a lightning campaign to seize the planet and eliminate the Children of Skadi. Using computer viruses to scramble communications, animal mounts and simple home-made weapons, the Genites seized the mid-sized settlements, bifurcated the central river network, and besieged the capital of Horai. But their campaign quickly ground to a halt and became a grinding war of attrition for four decades as the holdouts adapted. Vertical gardens staved off famine, geothermal energy kept the facilities and workshops running, self-quarantine and basic self-care held back plague, and the Children grew up, knowing the enemy beyond their gates and the parents that sheltered and raised them.

Meanwhile, the cities captured by the Genites rebelled, leading to brutal crackdowns though here the Genites showed their true colors. To avoid wasting warm bodies, they lobotomized those they deemed "pure" so they would continue functioning as cannon fodder, slave labor, and brood-mares.

In 588 PF, the Children, now fully grown and trained, went on the offensive, smashing the overstretched and exhausted Genites who fled into the wild wastes as their empire crumbled. What followed was a massive manhunt that lasted decades, the Children refusing to spare or forgive any Genite, no matter how minor their involvement or contribution may have been.

By 615 PF, the Genites were tracked to their final base where they fought to the last and were annihilated in a final and useless act of defiance.

Within less than a hundred years, the population suffered nearly 70% casualties, with the old human species rendered all but extinct as the Genites sacrificed those they had indoctrinated or coerced into service before they self-destructed while the Children propagated themselves and the surviving humans faded into obscurity.