This is our Warhammer journey

Chapter 166: It’s essentially a human problem (4k)

The Dawn is quietly anchored in the low-Earth orbit of the blog and home world.

As the flagship of the entire fleet, it maintains a perfect distance from the surface of the planet, allowing shipborne observation equipment to clearly capture surface dynamics while effectively avoiding possible ground-to-air fire counterattacks.

The main force of the fleet is carrying out saturation bombing on starports and important industrial areas, and the flames produced by orbital strikes are clearly visible in space.

At the same time, dozens of Astartes assault teams have broken through the atmosphere, and Stormbirds have landed accurately at key strategic nodes despite the relatively weak anti-aircraft firepower at low altitude.

Planetary archives, advanced science academies, military data centers... these facilities will all suffer devastating blows, but before that, all valuable Titanium technology data will be systematically scanned and copied.

Thanks to the Tau's meticulous planning of their planet, at least the Space Marines don't have to face the desperate environment of a hive city.

Romulus stood on the observation deck, gazing at the planet below through the reinforced glass.

Blog·Anjiamen is a beautiful planet.

The atmosphere is a dreamy lavender color, the land is covered with vast emerald green vegetation, and even the polar regions are covered with cold-resistant crystalline lichens. The most eye-catching are the honeycomb-shaped hexagonal buildings, which are stacked and staggered like naturally grown crystals, blending perfectly with the mountains and rivers.

The scattered remains of the Pictons present a completely different aesthetic style, with twisted spiral towers and fractal domes silently telling the past of this extinct race.

"The attacking force's advancement speed exceeded expectations. Your tactical prediction was quite accurate."

A sudden voice broke my thoughts.

Romulus turned his head slightly and saw that the great sage Kaul had stood in the shadow of the corridor without him knowing when.

The Mechanicus representative held a finely crafted scepter in his left hand, casting a long, thin shadow on the ground. The data pad in his right hand displayed a 8D anatomical diagram of the XV3 battle suit.

"This is the inevitable result."

Romulus turned his gaze back to the planet, and the bridge's lighting system cast flickering light and shadow on his well-defined profile.

"Of course, the Tau have an excellent population evacuation mechanism. As long as we deliberately open up some areas, they will conduct a concentrated population transfer. A large amount of manpower will be consumed in this process, and the armed forces to resist the attack will naturally be reduced."

The Tau's social system is based on strict collectivism, and they always prioritize humanitarian aid when dealing with their own members.

A vivid example of this was during the Damocles Gulf War.

When the Empire launched a punitive campaign against the Tau colony in the Silkel system, the Fire Caste warriors, even at the height of the fighting, prioritized the evacuation of Earth and Water Caste scientists and administrative personnel.

This seemingly stubborn rescue process often gave the Imperial Army a significant advantage in the early stages of the war.

What's funny is that the Empire even made a tactical joke in the Second Damocles Gulf War by "trying to attack human colonies that had surrendered to the Tau Empire in order to force them to return to defend", which confused the opposing commanders.

When Romulus thought about this, he felt like he was going to laugh again.

This battlefield commander's train of thought is quite strange.

It has to be admitted that the Tau Empire was far more advanced than the current Empire in terms of planetary governance. Not to mention those hive worlds struggling in misery, the scene of "vibrant vitality and all things competing to develop" in the imperial capital Terra alone is enough to suffocate people.

This wasn't due to a lack of technology or talent on the part of the Empire, but rather sheer indifference.

The high and mighty noble lords do not care about the conditions of the planets under their rule. As long as taxes are paid on time and the people at the bottom obey the empire's rule, it does not matter to them whether the people at the bottom live like human beings or not.

Of course there are exceptions.

For example, the second one - the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.

Even under the high-pressure environment of war, Ultramar during the Great Crusade still maintained an astonishing development speed.

Unlike other Legions, in Ultramar, candidates who fail the Astartes transformation surgery are not executed or demoted to Chapter servants, but are given the opportunity to enter core positions in government.

Countless Astartes who were not wearing armor or had failed operations entered the government, and with their assistance, the governments of various planets maintained extremely high efficiency.

The country is prosperous and the people are stable.

These superhuman warriors may have shortcomings of one kind or another, but bloat and corruption are definitely not among them.

The Invincible Iron Guard regent team headed by Dracula has refreshed their knowledge more than once while helping Romulus deal with affairs on various planets along the way.

The more I compare the present empire with the past, the more disappointed I am with it.

Romulus tapped his fingers lightly on the railing of the observation deck, his eyes fixed on the Tau city in the distance where sporadic sparks were bursting out. The dancing flames reflected tiny golden rays in his deep red pupils.

He suddenly said:

"I do understand why the Emperor issued a clear order to restrict AI and extremely hostile aliens."

"Neither AI nor aliens are a problem."

Kohl's mechanical prosthetic eye flickered slightly, and data streams passed quickly across the lens. It was obvious that he had his own understanding of this decision.

“It’s essentially a people problem.”

There was a rare hint of emotion in his voice.

If their conversation was monitored by the Inquisition, it would be enough to have them burned at the stake for three days and three nights, but at this moment, in this cabin shrouded in silence, they exchanged tacit glances.

In fact, the so-called AI is not prone to problems, and traveling merchants have often dealt with various aliens.

The Mechanicus constantly claims that the entities contained within certain facilities are Machine Souls, but are they truly Machine Souls? Rogue Traders constantly claim that the goods transported by their caravans are Dynasty specialties, but are they truly "specialties"?

Kaul has emphasized more than once that with the power of AI, it is extremely difficult for Chaos to corrupt it. Even planetary-level sacrifices may not be able to break the algorithms that AI is constantly updating.

It is actually people who are prone to problems.

"There's a very vivid example right here."

Kaur seemed to be infected and started to talk.

Or perhaps this great sage has already had his own views on this, but unfortunately there has been no one to chat with him.

"They're both integrated fleets, and the Ultramar naval power is even more powerful. Why is their performance so 'unsatisfactory' while the expeditionary fleet consistently triumphs?"

One side used its fleet to liberate hundreds of worlds, restore order, and improve people's livelihood, and it is still bringing prosperity to the star regions it passes through.

One side made a big sacrifice with its fleet, sacrificing hundreds of Imperial Worlds for the Empire.

The great sage raised a question and then continued:

"Do you know about the Terran Unification War?"

"Of course." Romulus nodded.

"From 990-M29, when the Emperor established his armed forces at the original Sigillite base beneath the Himalayas, to 712-M30, when he recaptured Pluto, the Emperor consolidated his control over Terra and officially declared victory in the Unification Wars, a period of 722 years."

In 798-M30, the Emperor completed the ideological and military unification of all forces in the Solar System, and the Great Crusade officially began.

Kohl's processor hummed slightly, and the aperture of his mechanical eye contracted, silently storing this history in his memory core.

The great sage's mechanical visor revealed a rare hint of human confusion.

What did these four adults do in the past?

"The Emperor has unified Terra for far longer than He conquered the Galaxy."

Cawl's voice box hummed softly, and mechanical fingers tapped the edge of the datapad in a suggestive tone.

The emperor who swept across the galaxy like a hurricane in two hundred years and recovered millions of worlds actually spent eight hundred years on his own home planet.

"Because of the Terran warlords' endless abuse of all kinds of forbidden technologies, the most dangerous of which was AI, the Battle of Storm Corridor, in which the 18th Legion participated, was against the extinction machine sent by a warlord. They won the war at the cost of near annihilation."

Powerful self-evolution capabilities, one-click line-drawing fool-style operation, even if you are a pig, you can become a warlord if you have an AI. In the Old Night Era, these Terran warlords used bloody facts to show all mankind what "the shining moment of the human crowd" is.

Why did the Emperor always guard against aliens and AI? Why was he so wary of powers beyond mortals?
Romulus stared at the battlefield markings flashing on the tactical hologram in his vision, and he had been commanding his troops.

It was just that thousands of Astartes had almost completed the control of the important facilities on the planet during their brief chat. The scars left over from the long battle were now telling a certain warning.

Because of these existences, the impact of individuals on the collective can increase exponentially. When power and virtue cannot match, it will only bring endless disasters.

After all, humans have been pushed to the point of desperation and have even drained the last bit of Terra's ocean. If you give them an open choice, who knows what they will do.

If this is released, who knows what big things humans will do to him.

So in order to save time, you can only be extreme and take a one-size-fits-all approach. You can slowly solve the remaining problems through civil war after everything is done.

Unfortunately, the Emperor's gamble failed, and the human empire, which was originally a temporary structure, spent ten thousand years in a very abstract situation in the storm.

Romulus's eyes swept over the busy servitors on the bridge. Those transformed half-human, half-machine beings were the most typical manifestation of the empire's contradictory attitude towards technology.

Their current mechanical servants were made from hand-kneaded flesh-men, but what about the others? What about the slave laborers who were punished?

"I think the example of the Great Sage is more appropriate."

After clarifying his thoughts and gaining a new understanding of why the Emperor had always avoided certain things, Romulus spoke:

"Few can be like the great sage, who, after thousands of years and possessing endless wealth, still maintains his original aspirations."

The time traveler still has self-awareness.

If they hadn't been lucky enough to have special abilities after traveling through time, and were able to do things according to their predetermined ideas, they would now be watching all kinds of disasters falling from the sky and saying "I can't do anything!" and then pounding the ground and crying.

If you are unfortunate enough to be reborn into the lowest nest, then you will have it in this life.

"Excessive praise."

The optical lenses on Kohl's visor shrank slightly, showing a data fluctuation that was almost joyful, but his voice remained calm.

He accepted the praise, but maintained the scholarly restraint in his robotic voice.

The conversational styles of the Primarchs were indeed comforting; they abandoned the arrogance common among the Imperial high command and preferred to discuss based on facts and logic.

When faced with difficulties, the first thing they think about is the "root cause of the problem" and "solution" rather than selectively ignoring the contradictions.

It's this rare empathy
"Lord Romulus, in my opinion, I'm afraid these aliens are not the ones you can unite with."

Kaur said cautiously.

"Why do you think so?"

Romulus couldn't help but look surprised. He was indeed deeply dissatisfied with the current state of the empire. He also admired the efficient governance model of the Tau people. The jokes about the empire were told every day.

But this does not mean that he would be so naive as to abandon the human camp and unite the aliens.

Besides, the Tau Empire is indeed not an object worth uniting with.

His eyes swept over the Tau strongholds marked on the tactical hologram. Surrounding those seemingly harmonious hexagonal buildings, the remains of another alien building still stood.

The fact that the Tau Empire is able to clearly recognize its own weakness and seek more allies shows that they have a clear definition of themselves, but the expansion of the Tau Empire has never been as gentle and harmless as it seems.

They also want to eat people.

In the First Damocles Gulf War, the Tau Empire deserved to be beaten by the Empire.

Decades have passed since humanity and the Tau first made contact.

Over the decades of trade, a large amount of alien goods have flooded into the imperial border like a tide, and even the most obtuse star governor should have noticed something unusual.

But over the years, successive governors have tacitly chosen to turn a blind eye.

After all, in the vast expansion star zone, there are countless worlds that secretly communicate with the aliens. Even the throne coin has become hard currency in Comoros, the nest of the Dark Eldar. What does one more Tau tribe matter?
Moreover, due to the assisted production of the AI system, the products of the Titanium Clan are of high quality and low price, and are quite competitive in various imperial worlds. A single resale can make the nobles of various star regions earn a fortune.

Originally, things should just be like this, you sell your products and I provide my resources.

The warp storms surrounding the core worlds of the Tau Empire had kept the Imperial Rogue Traders from exploring for thousands of years, not to mention the High Lords who had already been tormented by the Macharius Expedition.

Look at what the Tau Empire did.

While engaging in diplomacy and trade, the Water Caste also worked as spies, investigating local social conditions, arming rebels, and instigating local residents to revolt, overthrow the planetary government, and join the Tau Empire.

By the time the Damocles War began, more than a dozen human fringe worlds had been incorporated into the Tau Empire, and many planetary governments openly announced their participation in the Tau Empire's "Greater Good."

Not to mention an extreme government like the Human Empire, no sovereign country today would tolerate this.

Then when the Punishment Fleet shows up, you know you need to negotiate, right?

You can't wait until the Imperial Fleet's cannons have been fired and the war of aggression has turned into a war of national defense before you remember to send the Water Clan to negotiate with the Imperial authorities.

No matter how beautifully it is packaged, the Tau Empire is ultimately an expansionist regime in its ascendancy with a natural need for expansion, and is destined to be incompatible with the extremely conservative Empire.

The Human Empire is a typical existence that is both internally and externally devastated. After this wave, not only the Titanium, but also its own people will suffer.

(End of this chapter)