Fantastic Story, I love the characters, the world building, the conflict, the arcs, everything.  I love the multiple stories, and the romance doesn't feel forced.

@Greenanon Some more content fleshing out Warren and Deandra’s relationship will be great to see. Loved the dynamic between those two in their brief appearances in One Year Lease.

Chapters featuring Amber or Charles and his wife would also be great to see 

Oh, and a possible and interesting side story is, due to the Cephalos incursion ruining all the hyper-lanes, some cruse ship got stranded after a bad or emergency jump, so the crew and passengers shrunk to save on food and air. And for the years of drifting, or actual travel time to get back to known space to be saves, the made a town or two within the ship, like all my easier talk of using a full ecosystem in a cargo hold and having a micro colony. Only maybe a little bigger, could totally depend. 

Or some other civilization shrunk themselves to the mansion’s size or smaller so they could hid from the Cephalos in an ultra shielded container or facility, or even so re terraformed their planet with the shrunk life. Fun offshoot potential stories, and hopefully with enough erotica potential.  

With your answer to Kessler’s questions on the shrink rays, why not have a shrink ray shrink a box of shrink rays, one is removed from the box to shrink the box, then don agains all the way down. I can guess its the whole process that make its hard to use this method for more efficiency, since a step smaller should be the normal amount of energy. Unless there are setups like this somewhere for something. 

Actually comes back to thinking that someone would shrink a shrink ray so they could have it, or multiple, in a gauntlet or gloves, for hiding and to make things even smaller. 

Maybe some theorized or ultra experimental one have several ‘pulses’ of shrinking in it, ones that only activate after being use, meaning also having been shrunk, so make the step-down process in one firing of sone ray. At best probably in a lab somewhere. 

And what about shrink pads/booths/chambers? Put the thing in the machine  and its shrunk. 

Anyway, your doing great, then its the finally and epilogue!

It's been 40 years since the alliance and there are translation implants common enough that humans who want nothing to do with the Zetans have them. So why isn't anyone selling implants that just have the regrowth function from a shrink ray but installed into the body so they can just regrow themselves immediately if shrunk? That seems like an obvious money maker and an extremely helpful safety precaution for humans who either like or hate the Zetrans to avoid accidental or intentional crushing respectively. 

Makes sense about the mass usage (besides the expense) of shrinking to decrease resources would not be popular idea. The robot tabletop farm could still go, needs only some simpler terraforming shelf/table terraforming to make work and get a good amount of shrunken seeds without needing more shrink ray. Then unshrink  the food. So there probably some labs working on that specific thing in the background, and when everyone’s the tech will be there. And maybe shrink ray tech in general, for science and tech’s sake and no other reason. Maybe there some proposed plan somewhere for an emergency shrink storage to save the civilization, not that implementing it would have been a priority or method liked. 

Fair about the armour compensating itself for the balance and posture. What kinds of things would Jolene want but hasn’t been able to get so far, both for practical and fashion. 

Wonder what would be considered truly ridiculous for the power armour fashion circles. 

And I probably should have said it in an earlier review, but you did a great job giving Jolene a cowgirl/old-west ascent without even accessing the spelling and grammar, somehow. Thats just an achievement. 

Other shrunken comparison, since the crumbs worked (this shrink tech does break so many bits of reality) for eating at that size, would shrunken seeds and plats use normal dirt. Then a whole biosphere could be made in a room at the scale of the mansion (or terrarium), use normal nano or microdots to harvest and process (like wood for lumber), and use some other nanites that or some other performing tech (possibly also shrunk) to accelerate growth. 

And why stop at table top or a small room. Cargo ships are cheep, relatively. similar maybe abandoned station or asteroid outposts. 

Or otherwise just use to make food. Kiloacres of land from selves, smaller water usage, just a few bags of fertilizer, more controlled environment, all in a small warehouse, feed tens of thousands at the bare minimum. Have animals and insects too, like bees. It has to at least be used by some preper or ultra isolated types, or was at least considered by the gov to feed everyone. Whatever reasons for not if its didn’t. 

Unity, unity must be our watchword. You know that you cannot be free and slave at the same time. Simon Bolivar.

Zeta Forever... they are too crazy. If they achieve their goal, the Cephalos will destroy them. They will be like the unwitting avengers of the human race. It is a good example of what fanaticism can entail

Some Zetan had to have gotten an enter town or village and made them rebuild (unless they actually got the whole town). And the whole owning-an-ant-hill like situation. So Jolene probably can find one of those and all accessories. 

She’ll get an tier up in devotion from her Zetans from that, won’t she. 

And also, this island party will probably net her tons if fancy cloths from the leftovers. She already took an expensive ship, why stop there. 

Oh this is so amazingly great!!! I'm completely in love with it and hooked on the story and characters. And what fantastic worldbuilding! You've got the Ursula le Guin touch. :)