What is "breakaways"

Usage examples of "breakaways".

Colonies faced with this had suffered breakaways and mass defections, in which thousands fled to frontiers of deeper space.

The Zaibatsu's smallest domes were held by a profusion of pirates and privateers: the Hermes Breakaways, the Gray Torus Radicals, the Grand Megalics, the Soyuz Eclectics, and others, who changed names and personnel as easily as they cut a throat.

Even the breakaways from Rus­sia and the Orient have agreed to send delegates for one last meeting.