Steven L. Kent
The Clone Elite
This novel is dedicated to my friend Kevin. I wish you had had the chance to read this book, and I had had the chance to read the books that you took with you.
I am determined to sustain myself for as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country.
FIVE EVENTS THAT SHAPED HISTORY: A Unified Authority Time Line
Following the examples of Chevrolet, Oracle, IBM, and ConAgra Foods, Microsoft moves its headquarters from the United States to Shanghai. Microsoft executives maintain that their company has always been a global corporation and remains dedicated to the United States; but with its burgeoning economy, China has become Microsoft’s most important market.
Even though Toyota and Hyundai increase manufacturing activities in the United States—because of the favorable cheap labor conditions—the U.S. economy becomes dependent on the shipping of raw materials and farm goods.
Bottoming out as the world’s twelfth largest economy behind China, Korea, India, Cuba, the European Economic Community, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Israel, and Unincorporated France, the United States government focuses on maintaining its position as the world’s only remaining military superpower.
Armadillo Aerospace announces the discovery of broadcast physics, a new technology capable of translating matter into data waves that can be transmitted to any location instantaneously. This technology will open the way for pangalactic exploration without time dilation and the dangers of light-speed travel.
By the end of 2030, the United States creates the first-ever fleet of self-broadcasting ships, a scientific fleet designed to locate planets for colonization. When initial scouting reports suggest that the rest of the galaxy is uninhabited, politicians fire up public sentiment with talk about “manifest destiny” and spreading humanity across space.
The discovery of broadcast physics eventually leads to the creation of the Broadcast Network—a galactic superhighway consisting of satellite dishes that send and receive ships across the galaxy. The Broadcast Network ushers in the age of galactic expansion.
With the growth of its space-based economy, the United States reclaims its spot as the wealthiest nation on Earth. Russia and Korea become the first nations to sign the IGTA (Intergalactic Trade Accord), a treaty created by the United States inviting other nations to become tribute-paying partners in the space-based economy.
In an effort to create a competing alliance, France unveils its Cousteau Oceanic Exploration program and announces plans to create undersea colonies. Only Tahiti joins the French partnership program.
After the European Economic Community, Japan, and all of Africa sign to become members of the IGTA, France dissolves its undersea exploration program and joins.
Several nations, most notably China and Afghanistan, refuse to sign the IGTA. China threatens to attack the United States and its partners if they do not share a percentage of space-earned profits, leading to a minor world war in which the final holdouts are coerced into signing the trade accord.
More than 80 percent of the world’s population is eventually sent to establish colonies throughout the galaxy.
Having already expanded beyond a treaty of commerce, the members of the IGTA agree to form themselves into a single nation based on U.S. law. In an effort to demonstrate that the IGTA is a unilateral organization rather than an extension of the United States, the governing body adopts the name “The Unified Authority.”
Deemed inadequate for governing the galactic expansion, the U.S. Constitution is replaced by a new manifesto merging principles from the Constitution with concepts from Plato’s Republic . In accordance with Plato’s ideals, society is broken into three strata—citizenry, defense, and governance.
With forty self-sustaining colonies across the galaxy, Earth becomes the political center of the republic. The eastern seaboard of the United States becomes an ever-growing capital city populated by a political class—families appointed to run the government in perpetuity.
Earth also becomes home to the military class. After some experimentation, the Unified Authority adopts an all-clone conscription model to fulfill its growing need for soldiers. Clone farms, euphemistically known as “orphanages,” are established around Earth. These orphanages produce more than one million cloned recruits per year.
Officers are drafted from the ruling class. When the children of politicians are drummed out of school or deemed unsuitable for political responsibilities, they are sent to an officer-candidate school in Australia.
On October 29, 2452, a date later known as “the new Black Tuesday,” a fleet of scientific exploration ships vanishes without a trace in the inner curve of the Norma Arm—the Galactic Eye region of the Milky Way.
Fearing that the missing fleet encountered an “unknown intelligence,” the U.A. Senate calls for the creation of a self-broadcasting battle fleet to enter the Norma Arm and investigate any threat to Unified Authority sovereignty.
Work on the Galactic Central Fleet is completed in 2455, and the fleet travels to the Inner Curve, where it vanishes as well.
Having authorized the development of a top secret line of cloned soldiers called “Liberators,” the Linear Committee—the executive branch of the U.A. government—approves sending an invasion force into the Galactic Eye to attack all hostile threats. The Liberators discover a human colony led by Morgan Atkins, the Senate majority leader who had originally called for the creation of the Galactic Central Fleet.
The Liberators overthrow Atkins’s colony, but Atkins and many of his followers escape in G.C. Fleet ships.
Over the next fifty years, a religious cult known as the Morgan Atkins Believers—“Mogats”—spreads across the 180 colonized planets, preaching independence from the Unified Authority government.
In 2510, spurred on by the growing Morgan Atkins movement, four of the six galactic arms declare independence from Unified Authority governance.
On March 28, 2512, the combined forces of the Confederate Arms Treaty Organization and the Morgan Atkins Believers defeat the Earth Fleet and destroy the Broadcast Network, effectively cutting the government off from its loyal colonies and Navy.
Believing they have crippled the Unified Authority, the Mogats then turn on their Confederate Arms allies in an attempt to take control of the rebuilt Galactic Central Fleet. While the Confederates manage to hold on to approximately fifty ships, the Mogats take control of over four hundred ships, giving them the most powerful self-broadcasting attack force in the galaxy.
Fighting for its survival, the Confederate Arms forms an alliance with the Unified Authority. Under U.A. leadership, the combined forces stage a counterattack on the Mogat home world, destroying the entire Mogat Navy and leaving no survivors on the planet.
PROLOGUE