Mankind is such a stupid beast. After starting World War III, Earth has managed to climb back to where it was. Trillionaires still rule the world. There's a world government, but for no good reason, it has a military-intelligence complex that is out of control. A mining project in the Magaden Peninsula threatens an intergalactic communications network that insures the integrity of the entire Milky Way galaxy. A group of aliens was sent to Earth to repair a transponder that is a vital link in the network, but their galactic overlords discover the threat from the mining project. They think that maybe mankind should be eliminated. In Los Angeles, two people fall in love. Clem Reader is the LA News Chief of ABN, and Saroyan Pashogi is the world's most famous and beautiful movie star. For some reason, the mysterious conglomerate, Lodestar starts feeding Clem information that the government is suppressing evidence of what it knows about space aliens. And the national security state starts taking action to silence Clem and eliminate everyone who has any knowledge of its secret information. By sheer luck, Clem gets in a position to meet Attu - a space alien assigned to fix the transponder. By what he says to Attu - Clem manages to save the world The Story of the Century is a story about how two ordinary people can have an influence on the world far beyond what anyone could possibly imagine.