Getting back to a quasi-religious war-fighting scene. In these books, there is a contingent of Marines or soldiers, I’m not sure which category they fit into, that fight for some kind of saint, Saint Kallen, to be exact. She is some kind of mystical war hero who used to be armor. Now when I say armor, this isn’t the tanks of today. No, it’s heavy armor that encases a soldier and makes them almost invincible. They are actually in a womb of amniosis fluid with nerve connected attachments all over their bodies. They become one with the armor. Our main character, Roland Shaw, is part of the Terran Union, the Armored Corps. He’s also taken the vows of the Templar, a group of Armored personnel who fight for all humans and Earth. These are the religious warriors I mentioned.
Roland is in a difficult situation in that he was captured by the rogue humans called the Ibrarrans. They have gone off on their own since they could not agree to the terms of the Hale Treaty, which Earth signed by a bunch of other alien civilizations. This treaty was to stop on-going wars with different alien factions, a war that Earth was close to losing!
One of the primary stipulations of the treaty was that Earth could no longer create proxies. Those are processed humans, grown in the lab and created in about thirty days to full adulthood with a full set of false memories. These proccies were necessary in helping Earth fight the previous wars since Earth was running out of natural born humans very rapidly. Stacy Ibarra and her Father, Mark, didn’t agree with the outlawing of the process so they abandoned Earth and set up their own nation, the Ibarran Nation. A lot of the Earth forces felt the same as the Ibarras and they also defected. This included Armored Corps personnel and Templars.
Roland was seen fighting for the Ibarrans against the Kesaht, an alien civilization that wants to eradicate all humans. While the Union considers the Ibarrans as traitors and will fight them when necessary, they are not at war with the Ibarrans as they definitely are with the Kesaht. So, Roland isn’t necessarily trusted by his own Union people. That trust is completely negated when he’s taken to prison along with a captured Iberran carrier crew. He’s ran through a sham trial and expects to be executed as soon as they get around to it. In the meantime, the Iberran carrier crew are found to be proccies created after the signing of the Hale Treaty. Under the Omega Provisions of that treaty, all captured proccies must be immediately terminated by the capturing party. The President of the Union doesn’t want to do this, but really has no choice. No matter how these proccies were born or created, they are still humans. He gives the order to his senior military commander expecting it to be carried out. The only thing is, the military leadership just below the senior Admiral do not want to carry out the order. The Templar all refuse and are arrested and sent to the same prison as the Ibarran carrier crew and Roland Shaw.
This just makes it easier for the Ibarrans to make a rescue effort to free its people and possibly enlist the help of the Templar Armored personnel in their fight. It sounds like Earth has made a big mistake in attempting to fulfill their treaty obligations; something they should never have signed up to in the first place. It also appears that the aliens on the other side of the treaty are planning something that will be far worse than Earth not following the Omega Protocols.
This is becoming a pretty interesting story. The book seemed short and not everything has been wrapped up. In fact, this could go on for quite awhile. The next book, “The Lase Aeon”, is out and I have it. I’ll be writing a review about it very soon.