The storyline is something of a hybrid of classic Star Trek/Babylon 5-style space opera SF and what fans refer to as "hard SF"; it tries to ride the razor's edge of scientific and technical credibility while still focusing on character and storyline development.
The stories and cultural notes that would become Messenger resulted originally from a childhood game that a friend of mine named Mario Rodriguez and I created. Mario moved away (I live in Massachusetts, he lives in Florida) and what was then known as Time Travelers faded into memory until a couple of years ago. In 1998 I dusted it off and started turning it into a fully worked out story arc, complete with cultures and alien languages.
What I can tell you so far is this: it concerns a planet called Grehon, not far from our solar system, whose inhabitants are very much like us and who are uncomfortably aware that they did not evolve on their homeworld. At the time of Messenger, their level of technology is somewhat on a par with ours c. 1940; some differences exist, though. Medicine is barbaric by our standards; doctors know to wash their hands, but since the Grehonnek biology is wildly different from the native life on their planet, comparative anatomy is almost nonexistent as a discipline of biology. They do have television, at least an early form of it, and radio communication, but the internal combustion engine has not been invented yet (cars are common but are generally steam-powered).
Religious authority is very strong -- most Grehonnek believe in one of several variations on the theme that they are a chosen people, liberated from a dying universe to the one safe place left to them many years ago. The concept of alien life is all but unbelievable to most Grehonnek -- even their ancient benefactors must surely have died out in whatever cataclysm inspired them to move the Grehonnek to Grehon in the first place. There are ancient legends of the original Grehonnek homeworld, though -- a warmer place where the scrubby vegetation and wildly seasonal climate of Grehon did not exist, where food grew willingly and in great variety (much of the plant life on Grehon (such as such strange life forms can be called plants) is either poisonous or simply not nourishing in ways that can't easily be explained); however, it was overtaken by ice and destroyed, and the survivors were plucked off the dying planet and removed to their current world.
see Life on Grehon for more details
I intend to put out one chapter a week if I can manage it. This is to be considered a rough draft; when it's finished I'll go and smooth out the weirdnesses later. In the meantime, please forgive the sloppy pulpishness of the writing; eventually I'll work it all out...