This is a novel from the the 2010 decade. Its title may be of the form "The <flower><group>". The novel isn't obscure, it is by a well-known author it might even have won a prize, and I will metaphorically kick myself when the answer is revealed. I'd welcome suggestions for how I might have found it for myself.
A group of siblings or clones, both male and female, tour the galaxy and aid failed societies with technological help. Every so often (every 100K years?) they gather to exchange news and to socialise.
The novel mostly follows a pair of them that have formed an amatory relationship and are traveling together. The rest of their 'family' would disapprove, possibly thinkint it incestuous.
Snippets from the novel
- an aquatic, scholastic being traveled on his ship. It complained often about its tank and eventually dies.
- the scholar was journeying to a central library/deposit of information
- he has to be rescued from a trap run by something/someone who is collecting starships
- a set of Dyson rings that surrounded a nova and protected nearby star systems has failed. An expatriate of one such system doesn't know that his race is extinct and mustn't know because it will suicide with a nuclear device
- an inner group of the clone/family was somehow involved in the suppression/extinction of a society/nation of robots/mechanical life-forms. This group gives the novel its name.
- it transpires that the mechanical society escaped to Andromeda (galaxy) using a portal.
PS This is not the 'Qeng Ho' of Vernor Vinge
