Talk about a story that’s grown! This is the ultimate in rising from nothing to something significant. Quinton Aldren is a PMC (Personality Matrix Construct) who once woke up in the body of a gardener robot! Now he’s the Fleet Admiral of the United Federation Alliance (UFA). While he was in the body of the gardener robot, he really didn’t know who or what he was. He soon found others who eventually acknowledged that he was a very intelligent robot or even something more. That something more grew into the Galactic class PMC with the authority to command other PMCs. Only, PMCs aren’t something that anyone wants wandering around the universe.
ln their original configuration, PMCs were to enhance human capabilities in waging war. The Acheron Confederacy developed a way to take “volunteer” military personnel and place them temporarily into constructed bodies that were in appearance human, but with enhanced strength and the mental capacity of a super computer. After the war, these PMCs were to be transferred back to newly grown human bodies grown from the DNA of the original person. But, something started making the PMCs to go crazy. They became mentally unstable and that caused them to be very dangerous to anyone and everyone. That’s when the Sentinels were created to hunt down PMCs and eradicate them from the universe.
All of that happened a long, long time ago. The Federation War and other wars between humans had long ended, and those PMCs that hadn’t been destroyed shut themselves down so as not to be discovered. Still, the Sentinels continued their relentless pursuit of PMCs. Any time the got a signal of a PMC they would attack immediately and wipe out anything and everything around that signal. Entire planets were completely wiped out of living beings in search of a single PMC signal. So, it was understandable that humans were deathly scared of Sentinels and anything having to do with them. They definitely did not want any kind of association with a PMC. Yet, Quinton Aldren found a group of spacers willing to accept him for what he was knowing that he was some how different than what they thought about PMCs.
For Quinton’s part, he saw the human civilization as struggling to exist. They were afraid of using technology or even developing new tech due to their fear of reprisals from the Sentinels. What tech the humans of this era had were scavenged from the destroyed remnants of the
Federation War. Additionally, the humans of this era preferred to be mobile so they could flee any planet or area where the Sentinels would have show up. Quinton Aldren believed that humanity deserved better and was going to rid the universe of these Sentinels.
And that was his first mistake. He and his compatriots had found an abandon Acheron Confederacy military base which eventually led him to finding a huge planet-sized starship called the Salvation. This ship was the tool that Quinton needed to set in motion his ideas of ridding the universe of Sentinels. Yet, he had no idea of how many Sentinels there were or where they originated from. He set about trying to convince the humans of this era to start fighting back against the Sentinels. He wanted alliances of various groups to come and form his United Federation Alliance. Together, he convinced many that they could defeat the Sentinels which would allow humans to live without fear.
But, not all plans are thoroughly thought out! Now Admiral Quinton Aldren would soon find that his dreams of a quick battle with the Sentinels was not going to happen. They were far more than he had ever assumed so his plans were definitely going to have to change. The only think he now knew was that he might not live to see the end of this new war.
Pretty good book with some really great characters. It’s easy to associate with some of these characters since they are so very normal in their actions. The story doesn’t always turn out as you expected and that’s a sign of a well thought out book. I really liked this entire series, but this is the last book. I didn’t mind the ending.