Shepherds of Destiny

In the late 2030s a synthetic human body had been developed. To the untrained eye, the synthetic body was indistinguishable from a human body. The synthetic or cyborg was controlled by a human mind, downloaded to the cyborg electronic brain from a patient irreversibly incapacitated by disease or accident. Kristian Barnett, billionaire through inheritance of his parents' estate, and CEO and Chairman of the Board of Barnett Industries fell ill at the age of thirty-three with amyotrophic...
More Description

In the late 2030s a synthetic human body had been developed. To the untrained eye, the synthetic body was indistinguishable from a human body. The synthetic or cyborg was controlled by a human mind, downloaded to the cyborg electronic brain from a patient irreversibly incapacitated by disease or accident. Kristian Barnett, billionaire through inheritance of his parents' estate, and CEO and Chairman of the Board of Barnett Industries fell ill at the age of thirty-three with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Dr. Savannah Richards, Neurosurgeon and Research Scientist at the Stanford Neuroscience Health Center was developing a means to preserve the brain of a patient whose body had been irrecoverably destroyed but whose brain was unharmed. Concurrently, Dr. Ansley Barnett, wife of Kristian Barnett, was leading the development of a synthetic body indistinguishable from a human body for DARPA. Soon after Kristian's brain was removed and placed in stasis, he was approached by The Guardian. The Guardian was a spiritual being who watched for timelines that were going astray and threatening the existence of humanity. The Guardian needed Kristian's mind, untethered from his corporeal body, to control the actions of key individuals. While in his current spiritual state, Kristian was able to travel to any period in the past or the future with The Guardian to correct a timeline gone astray. Aaron Adams, also suffering from advanced ALS, was approved as a candidate for the brain extraction procedure. But prior to the procedure his mind would be scanned and stored for download to a synthetic body. In Book One, Kristian and Aaron had, with guidance from The Guardian, restored timelines from the U.S. Civil War and World War II, saving the fate of humanity.Book Two, Challenging the Fates, introduces a third cyborg - Commander Erik Richards, who as captain of the Mars spaceship Elon Musk, was severely injured when his ship hit space debris on its final approach to the International Space Station Space Dock. Erik joins Kristian in correcting a timeline from the 1960s that was trending towards nuclear annihilation. Erik also meets his first true love, who is the sister of a technician who was killed in the accident aboard the Elon Musk.At the end of Shepherds of Destiny, Book One, Kristian Barnett and Aaron Adams, under the guidance of The Guardian had traveled forward to the year 2052. The CEO of Find Corporation and two multi-billion-dollar telecommunication moguls had developed a new smartphone supporting an advanced communications technology. This technology enabled the ability to control a user's thoughts and actions without the knowledge or consent of the user. The new smartphone and communications technology were promoted to the military as a means of controlling the actions of an enemy. The intent of the billionaire cabal was to use the technology to ultimately establish a dystopian world in which the billionaire elites and their ruling class government puppets would live in opulence while the masses were enslaved to serve their masters. The demonstration of the technology to senior government officials including the Secretary of Defense was a failure due to the intervention of Kristian and Aaron taking brief control of the test subjects' and SecDef's mindsAlthough successfully stalled, the CEO vowed to correct the cause of the failure and offered to fund whatever amount was necessary. The threat of human domination by evil tyrants is far from over and the eternal battles between good and evil continue.