Qadi is a remote outpost world in a vast and diverse federation of human-colonized planets. This one in particular is extremely harsh and unforgiving of environment, possessing no lakes, rivers, or oceans aboveground and almost no animal or plant life. It was colonized several thousand years ago by a matriarchal group of religious fanatics who followed something broadly akin to a variant of Islam (if one can be said to do so given the gender reversal). Owing to the harshness of the environment and the dire need to enforce mining to have anything to trade with, approximately 99% of the male population lost all social and civil rights, becoming slaves.