Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The steel must be refined.

Plasma reactors require maintenance.

The rail elevator needs to be restarted.

Ammunition factories, gun barrel factories, armor plate die-casting factories, ship keel welding factories, and machine tool assembly lines all need manpower.

Or a machine servant.

Lawson looked at the star map and tapped the armrest lightly with his right hand.

How much is the gap?

T-001 stood behind him, with eight servo arms connected to data slots.

"Based on the restoration of 60% of pre-war production capacity, the short-term shortage is 2.7 billion aircraft servant units. If the production capacity is restored to 100% of pre-war capacity, and boarding torpedo silos, meteorite belt monitoring arrays, and fleet repair docks are expanded, the total shortage will be close to 4.3 billion."

Er Gou stood on the left, his Iron Cavalry Terminator armor still stained with the blood of the Red Pirates. He frowned.

"Boss, over four billion? How long will it take to catch them?"

San Gou stuck the battle axe at his feet.

"The Red Pirates' hundreds of thousands of boarding slaves are not even enough to fill a gap in our teeth."

Lawson did not speak immediately.

In the Warhammer universe, population is a resource.

The empire used people to fill trenches, to maintain the assembly line of its capital, and to keep planets bound to its system. A forging system like Agrippina had no shortage of steel, but what it lacked most were the hands to make that steel turn.

The way mechanical teaching used to solve this problem was very simple in the past.

Arrest them.

Sentenced.

Transformed into a machine servant.

In dogma, they would say it is punishment, purification, and a way to make sinners serve God the Lord again.

In practice, it's even more direct.

Those who owe taxes, make mistakes, are disliked by nobles, are reported for laziness by foremen, or are injured in war and unable to go to the front lines may all be sent to the servant conversion line.

Lawson did not appreciate this approach.

But he knew even better that every day the 68 mineral planets were shut down, Agrippina would have one less day of ammunition, one less day of ship repair speed, and one less day of defense construction capability.

He is not protecting a city now.

It is an industrial lung on the dark side of the empire that is regaining its heartbeat.

If this thing stops, it won't just be the Agrippina people who die.

Lawson was transferred out of the network of the dispatched company.

The communication nodes deployed along the route by the fleets of Agrippina, Klein, Obolus, and Dante, as well as the anchor points of the suicide soldiers dispatched with each Astartes company, all lit up on the star map.

Lawson's voice reached the swarm of bees.

"Issue the order to all dispatched companies."

"From now on, population resources will be classified as a secondary strategic resource."

"Thugs, pirates, cultists, mutants, members of the Chaos Gang, rebel labor camps, black market slave traders, captured boarding slaves—once captured, they will all be brought back to the Agrippina system."

"Those who can be investigated will be investigated. Those who can be used will be used. Those who are too heavily polluted will be directly converted into mechanized servants. Those with clear evidence will be sent to the mineral planet terraforming line. Those with technical experience will have their basic brain functions preserved and will be incorporated into the technical servant sequence."

"Loyal civilians of the Empire, ordinary refugees, and abducted workers are registered separately, treated, and screened before being released."

The command spreads throughout the swarm network.

In the Klein system, a squad of assassins had just finished clearing out the Nurgle cult's cellar. Upon receiving orders, the captain immediately began to tie up the cult militiamen, who were originally to be executed on the spot, and put them into transport pods in batches.

Anchor point assassins who were fighting alongside the Flesh-Tearers Company uploaded a list of prisoners from a gang's stronghold, along with the note: 7,400 people can be recovered.

A small team escorting an Imperial refugee ship discovered over three hundred Red Pirate slave traders disguised as refugees in the ship's cargo hold. Originally slated for trial by the Ministry of Justice, their case has been remanded.

Agrippina needs them.

Lawson looked at the numbers on the star map.

With a shortage of billions of aircraft servants, it is difficult to make up for the shortfall by relying solely on prisoners of war.

But the significance of this command goes beyond just patching the lines.

In the past, many imperial armies purged cultists by burning them after battles. Afterward, they left behind ashes, bones, and a mountain of corpses. Lawson didn't intend to waste time like that.

Sinners have their uses.

The minions of Chaos can be stripped of their will, stuffed into mines, and become a cog in the empire's industrial recovery.

He doesn't need to pretend to be kind.

There's no need to shed tears for these people.

T-001 spoke again:

"Based on the current size of the deployed units, if each war zone continues to recover prisoners, 200 to 300 million machine servant materials can be replenished within six months. If contact is restored with other star systems in the Agrippina sector, the speed of resolving the gap can be increased."

Lawson looked at the larger star map.

The Agrippina core galaxy is expanding outwards.

Layers of stars, flight paths, old imperial symbols, and broken communication chains emerge.

Chapter 179 A feint to scare you all

The Agrippina Galaxy belongs to the Agrippina Sector.

According to Imperial standards, a star sector should be a cube with sides of 200 light-years.

Two hundred light-years.

It sounds like just an administrative figure.

Placed on the dark side of the galaxy, it would mean countless stars, transport routes, mining outposts, outposts, agricultural worlds, hive cities, monastic fortresses, abandoned monasteries, rebellious planets, and isolated islands still sending out their last distress signals.

Lawson's finger glided across the star map.

Before the Great Rift, the Agrippina Sector had thirteen major star systems registered.

The Agrippina Galaxy is a core-forged galaxy.

Its role is similar to that of a steel heart, responsible for transforming ore, slave labor, faith, and technology into warships, shells, armor, servants, and war machines.

In addition, there are the Nest City and the Conscription System.

The Lelisa Recruiting System.

Albitel Nest City System.

Tabor Sentinel Galaxy.

These places were once Agrippina's blood bank and manpower pool. Many of the Imperial Star Force, the Ministry of Justice's auxiliary forces, fleet sailors, and mining security troops were drawn from there.

There is also an agricultural galaxy cluster.

Klein Galaxy.

Fenrir Orchard Galaxy.

Albilongodu Galaxy.

Scorched Earth Agriculture Galaxy.

These areas are responsible for supplying food, algae, starch blocks, alcohol fuel, and livestock protein.

The Klein system has already been flagged by Lawson, but the situation in other agricultural worlds is unknown. After the Galactic Rift, with food routes severed, many hive worlds will begin to cannibalize each other without Chaos even needing to fight them.

Mining galaxies are equally important.

Danto Mining Galaxy.

Ship of Marin Mining Galaxy.

Barissa Punishment Mining Galaxy.

The mineral veins in these areas were extremely crucial to Agrippina's casting system.

The Barissa punitive mining system, in particular, has a history of extensive use of convict laborers, and its imperial records have long been marked with a risk of rebellion.

There are also outpost frontier galaxies.

Azure Thunder Frontier Galaxy.

And disease isolation zones.

The Northern Frontier, a place of fear and death, guards the borders threatened by disease.

In addition to numerous miniature star systems like the Triads, wandering mining stations, monastic lighthouses, fleet resupply points, and semi-independent colonies, the entire Agrippina Sector had approximately five hundred human worlds registered before the Great Rift.

Five hundred human worlds.

Some may be nested planets, inhabited by billions or even tens of billions of people.

Some may simply be frozen mining sites, with hundreds of thousands of people huddled beneath the earth's crust.

Some may have already been sacrificed by Chaos.

Some may have their imperial symbols severed by the local governor, who then declared himself king.

Some may still persist, sending distress signals to the storm every day through the Star Speakers, until their souls are burned dry.

After the Great Rift in the Milky Way, communication was cut off.

The starlight dimmed.

The traditional Star Speaker system is constantly collapsing in the warp storms.

For the dark side of the empire, many worlds were not destroyed in a single day.

They lost contact first.

Then they lost their supplies.