The Mandate of Heaven Read Online Free PDF

prototype, but unable to take it to the next level, Alcubierre approached Edward Hadley, a pioneer in early, deep space, propulsion.  The proposal was idealistic—a joint venture to develop the drive, for the betterment of humanity.
    Edward Hadley, CEO of Hadley Industries was a visionary and immediately recognised the awesome potential for the new drive.  The answer to over-population and the lack of resources; humanity could now escape to the stars!  He quickly agreed to the proposal by Alcubierre and soon a working production engine was developed, proving beyond any doubt that the technology worked.
    Hadley then murdered Alcubierre, forever ensuring that the invention remained his secret, alone.
    Hadley Industries proceeded to market and sell the only faster-than-light engine, to any and all that could afford one.  For Hadley was a visionary and had clearly seen the potential—for vast profits.  With the first batch of Alcubierre drives retailing at a little over one billion dollars, per engine, they were far beyond the reach of ordinary individuals. Indeed all the first batch were purchased by multi-national companies.  What then followed was something akin to the American gold rush of the late nineteen-century, with a frantic scramble to acquire the nearest planets, either rich in mineral resources or with a habitable atmosphere.
    As the only supplier of faster-than-light engines, within a decade Hadley Industries had become the richest corporation on the planet. Meanwhile Edward Hadley, founder and sole proprietor, became the world’s richest man, with a net personal wealth in excess of one trillion.  He was succeeded by his son, the first High-Lord of the Twenty Second Century, but others were soon to follow.
    The multi-national companies that initially purchased the Alcubierre drives were soon able to undercut all their competitors, with access to cheap, limitless resources.  Within the next few decades a massive round of consolidation had taken place, with these companies growing rapidly and acquiring any and all competitors.
    By the end of the Twenty Third Century, only a few dozen mega-corporations remained in existence.  This was a golden age for humanity—and government coffers.  For the drives brought rapidly falling prices, accelerated growth and tax receipts swelled.  However, this was not to last.
    Hadley Industries, for years having been plagued with industrial espionage and an ever-increasing tax bill, were the first to move their entire operation off-planet and the rest soon followed.  Within the first half of the Twenty Fourth Century, corporation tax fell by seventy-five percent and within a decade this was matched by a fall in personal income tax, as the workforce was forced to follow the companies off-planet.  By the end of the Twenty Fourth Century central government had practically ceased to exist, instead replaced by local administrative bodies, run by committees, overseeing local issues only.
    In the two hundred years since the invention of the Alcubierre drive, over three hundred planets had been settled, ninety-nine percent of them run by the mega-corporations.  They controlled every aspect of daily life, they made all the significant decisions and, in effect, they became company planets.  It became known as the Imperium, which roughly translates as ‘power to command’ and the mega-corporations had all the power, especially those who owned and ran them.
    For many of these companies, long plagued by poor succession planning, had learnt from their Chaebol family-controlled cousins, which bred nepotism and cronyism.  Over the years they had all slowly evolved into multi-generational family dynasties.  The owners of these companies had wealth beyond imagination, income that made the combined gross domestic product of Earth look like loose change.  With little ability to expand to new markets, for each mega-corporation guarded their own markets jealously, pleasure became their