Warhammer: Angron Training Manual

Chapter 345: Mortals and Supermen

……

One day after the Golden Human's awakening incident.

Angron looked at his adoptive father who had just returned from the colony ship. He saw him sitting cross-legged on the ground as he had done before, closing his eyes and sending out messages in astropathic language.

Three Federation human tourists from the Golden Age committed suicide, an archaeologist and an engineer, leaving a total of two survivors.

The latter was left in the colony ship renamed the Forge Engine to do engineering work, while the archaeologist was taken to Nuceria by Qin Xia and could be sent out of the star zone at any time. The archaeologist was also happy to go to Terra, and her degree of adaptation to this era was beyond Qin Xia's imagination.

The archaeologist is eager to explore this dark era of mankind. Even though she feels fear and despair about this era like her companions, she just wants to explore and witness it. Perhaps this is due to her personality or professional characteristics.

All this information was conveyed by Qin Xia without any reservation.

Qin Xia didn't want to hide it, because the Emperor must have a way to find out about the awakening of the golden humans, how many golden humans have awakened, what happened to the forging engine, and what happened to the Codico Empire that was strangled in its infancy...

The Emperor would know all this, even if no one told him.

It is not without reason that Curze believes the Emperor to be omniscient and omnipotent.

"I have already delivered the message." Qin Xia opened his eyes and looked at Angron. "Now we just need to wait for the Emperor's response."

Angron was about to nod, but then he felt a familiar feeling well up in his heart.

That was the feeling the Emperor had when he used him as an anchor to communicate with Qin Xia during the incident in which Kelbohar was captured.

Then everything in the office changed. The scene around Qin Xia and the Primarch gradually disappeared like a painting that was gradually burned to ashes, and was replaced by the environment of the command deck of the Emperor's Vision, the flagship of the Lord of Humanity, where they had personally visited.

Just like before, people were doing what they were supposed to do, and no one noticed that their Majesty was using his psychic powers to conduct an ultra-long-distance subspace video call that ordinary psychics would not even dare to think about.

"I just dealt with something and am now heading towards Terra with Kelbohar."

"We will pass through Nuceria, and you will send the archaeologist and the engineer to me."

The emperor's speech was straightforward and clear. He did not introduce himself with any noble title like an emperor of an empire. He simply stated his demands in a simple and straightforward manner.

This was not the first time they had this conversation, and Angron and Qin Xia had gotten used to it.

"The engineer must stay. He is needed to forge the engine." Angron shook his head.

"Then send the forging engine as well." The Emperor's voice sounded emotionless, but without a trace of majesty.

“My Legion needs engines to be forged.” Angron shook his head again.

"The Empire needs the Forge Engine more than you do. The Forge Engine in the hands of the Empire can bring more benefits to the cause of revitalizing the human race than in your hands." The Emperor said, "Focus on the overall situation and think rationally. This is what I have always asked you to learn."

Angron shrugged.

As if to say, you know I've never been a rational person.

The emperor said nothing more and his eyes fell on Qin Xia.

Qin Xia was silent.

Seeing that he didn't speak, the Emperor calmly judged the possibility of obtaining the Forge Engine, and then stopped talking about the Forge Engine: "Then leave the Forge Engine and the engineer, and bring the archaeologist to me. Let the Mechanicus named Quadrant bring the woman."

"Why can't you go into Nuceria and take the man away yourself?" Angron asked. "Why let the Quadrant go?"

The Emperor once again answered simply, without explaining why he asked the Quadrant to bring people here, only explaining why he did not want to enter Nuceria.

"Because you established a country where superhumans rule over mortals. You made the Astartes, who should have been fighting on the battlefield, become rulers above mortals. Their long lives made it impossible for the ruled to even 'survive until the rulers die'. I don't want to set foot in such a country."

Angron snorted at this answer.

The Emperor is very resistant to the idea of ​​superhumans managing mortals. What he wants is for mortals to manage themselves, and for mortals to manage superhumans.

Angron simply did not understand this inexplicable persistence, especially since the Emperor always talked about the overall situation and calmness...Mortals grow old and pursue pleasure, and this was clearly reflected in the current Archon of Nuceria.

The consul at that time was the person who was appointed to manage the city of Mach during the uprising war. At that time, he was full of enthusiasm and energy and hated all the injustice in the world. At the same time, he was forced by the difficult life in his childhood to be worldly-wise and tactful, and therefore knew how to use people with different personalities.

But he would age, and his mind, which had once been so sharp that it had impressed the Primarch, would slowly become dull and stubborn. Angron could sense the changes in the Archon every time he saw him.

Even the Archon of Nuceria became afraid as he aged, fearing that the Space Marine transformation surgery would fail and refused to become a Space Marine, choosing to prepare a letter of resignation and submit it when he made a mistake due to his slow mind, and then resigned directly. But the Space Marines would not be like this, they have a longer lifespan, and because of genetic modification, they have reduced their pursuit of enjoyment, and even if they age after thousands of years, they are just not as good at fighting as when they were young, but their minds are still clear.

Even Space Marines can keep their eyes open for 24 hours, acting as a living ruling machine. Even those mortals with extremely strong energy cannot compete with the laziest Space Marine in terms of energy.

Some planets in the Nuceria sector that were originally in trouble under the management of the previous rulers began to prosper after the Space Marine civil servants took over. This was certainly due to the factor of resources being tilted towards the troubled worlds, but the management ability of the Space Marine civil servants also played an important role.

"If you ask me, the real rationality is to let the right space warriors be the managers." Angron said after some thought, "This is my judgment and decision based on objective factors. It is not appropriate to insist on letting ordinary people manage a huge interstellar empire spanning dozens, hundreds or even thousands of light years based on the existing material foundation."

The Emperor had a blank expression on his face. He did not rush to preach his own doctrine that everything must be attributed to mortals. Instead, he spoke after a brief thought: "I do have a less rational side. Your irrationality and lack of overall perspective are inherited from me. They are weaknesses in my human nature."

"Don't be so quick to judge me, Angron. When you find your weakness one day and it jumps out of you to use against you, you will understand how I feel."

With that, the Emperor raised his right hand, signaling Angron to end the discussion of whether it was appropriate for Space Marines to rule over mortals or for mortals to rule over mortals and Space Marines.

Angron did not say anything more, but felt that what the Emperor said made sense. Brother No. 11 who was staying in the sector now was like the embodiment of the Emperor's overall view and rationality, which proved the theory that every Primarch inherited something from the Emperor, so it was possible that what he inherited was indeed the irrational side.

"Is this golden human of great use?" Qin Xia, who had remained silent during the conversation, suddenly asked.

The Emperor was silent for two seconds before asking, "What use are you talking about? Using her as a genetic sample, using your Nuceria's magical biological technology to inject genetic drugs into humans, so that human genes can return to their ancestral state?"

"It's not a throwback, it's a return to the genes of the golden humans... It's almost the same, let's just say it's a throwback." Qin Xia nodded.

The Emperor said coldly: "If there is a virus sweeping the Empire now, and the Empire develops a vaccine, I will order everyone in the Empire to be vaccinated. In the end, after a hundred years, it would be good if the vaccination rate can reach 10%. Do you know why I chose to expand rapidly instead of establishing rule steadily? Today's Empire has no time and ability to promote something that needs to be promoted to the entire race."

"Okay." Qin Xia nodded.

"Besides, except for a small number of humans who have been contaminated by aliens or mutated for some reason, humans today have evolved rather than degenerated." The Emperor continued, "There is no such thing as strong or weak, beautiful or ugly in biological evolution, only whether it is suitable for the living environment."

"When the subspace storm that ravaged the galaxy roared, who didn't have the same genes as the ancient people you found? But they still chose to actively or passively adjust their genes in order to adapt to the living environment... while they still had the ability to adjust their genes."

"The performances of those ancient people you saw were quite amazing, but they had to maintain their bodies' ability to recover quickly, their brains' ability to stay awake, their hormones' ability to stay in balance, their metabolism's ability to maintain speed... To maintain all the advantages they had, they couldn't just eat food grown from the soil or even synthetic starch. The most basic living conditions they needed far exceeded the best material conditions that a world governor of an empire could enjoy today."

"Even if I can find a way to restore the genes of the Nukerians to more than 10,000 years ago, you can't even feed one-tenth of the current population even if you use up all the resources of an entire star region."

"Ancient people plus the ancient material foundation, this is the golden human race. At that time, an engineer could manage a huge ship, but that was with the blessing of various engineer equipment. If not, do you think he could manage a ship by himself?"

At this point, the Emperor glanced at Angron and said something that was clearly pointed.

"The most glorious era of mankind was created by the most mediocre and numerous individuals. When mankind was about to enter the space age, they didn't even know what the warp was. They relied on those warp scientists to study the warp like lemmings committing suicide in droves."

"Those crew members who participated in the experiment in an era without Geller's position would literally see ghosts, and even see characters and scenes that appeared in classic horror movies in human history. However, that could not scare the primitive humans who were not even used to the low-gravity environment at that time. They carried weapons and things they thought were useful deep into the subspace, and when they left the subspace, they left behind a horrifying ghost ship and a log with horrifying content."

"From the Warp Drive to the Geller Stand, to the various creations you saw on that colony ship that are beyond the limits of your imagination, all of them originated from mortals. Those stone men and iron men can slaughter my army in this era, but they are also created by mortals."

Angron and Qin Xia heard the emperor's teachings. They looked at each other and felt that what the emperor said made sense.

No matter how great the achievements and glory of mankind are in the interstellar age, there was a time when mankind could not even build an intra-atmospheric aircraft on Earth and could only sit in trees and look at the stars.

But this is the truth, and Angron and Qin Xia have no intention of changing their idea of ​​letting Space Marine civilians be the rulers.

No matter how reasonable the emperor's words are, ordinary people cannot compare with superhumans like the Astartes or the Imperial Guards in terms of ruling. This is an objective condition. Now that human technology has been faulted, all the technologies that were used to maintain the normal operation of a huge interstellar civilization are gone. This is the material basis.

The Emperor also realized this, so he gradually fell silent and stopped talking about mortals and superhumans. Instead, he told Qin Xia about the arrangement he had just thought of for the ancient archaeologist: "After the success of the Webway Project, humans will be able to start recovering everything they have lost. At that time, the genes of the ancients will be of great use. What we should ensure now is the survival and continuation of our race."

Qin Xia nodded silently.

At this moment, he suddenly thought that the emperor was still a humane person.

If it were ten thousand years later, the Emperor would not care what Angron thought and would not explain so much.

After all, the Emperor today is not the human God who would call Guilliman a thief and a tool and make him work overtime to clean up his mess ten thousand years later.

Fortunately, it is not.

Otherwise, if the Emperor had treated Angron the same way he treated Guilliman after he took the Golden Throne, Angron would have probably just cursed at him and quit...

Do not……

Thinking of this, Qin Xia suddenly felt that it would not happen. Angron would still work hard, because he inherited the irrationality and sympathy of the emperor's humanity.

(End of this chapter)