One of the most interesting parts to me of Pham Nuwen's character was his relationship to his distant descendants.

Humans just aren't wired to consider family members beyond 3 or 4 generations up and down.

Perhaps I'd feel the same general apathy as Pham Nuwen 20 generations down. Then again, he had other familial issues that played a part.

One started with him hiding in a nursing home, after faking his death. I don't recall specifics, but I suppose that it's possible that all of the other characters are his descendants. And they had spent a long time looking for him.

In the other, he'd been resurrected by some godlike AI as a meatspace agent. Millennia after the Qeng Ho era, I think.

I absolutely recommend all of these. And of course Reynolds's "House of Suns", which sort of takes the "lighthugger" concept up to eleven.

I have yet to read Vinge's books, but Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is an excellent book that also makes good use of this effect.