Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Each cavity is a standardized breeding unit, containing a culture tank, a spore control layer, a killing zone, a slaughter line, and a meat processing area.

From feed input to finished product output, the entire process operates in a closed loop.

The security protocol uses Agrippina's mature solution and has been upgraded again.

A planetary defense network is being built simultaneously.

Each junk planet is equipped with basic orbital defense turrets and early warning systems to prevent attacks from Chaos or Orcish raiders.

The construction efficiency of the foundation sequence is on full display at this moment.

The swarm logistics network directly transports engineering equipment and building materials from the Agrippina arsenal to the construction site.

Excavation, pouring, installation, and debugging – tens of millions of people worked simultaneously.

Three months later, the first garbage planet was refurbished and officially put into operation.

This junk planet, designated GW-07, is located on the edge of the Agrippina sector, with an average surface organic layer thickness of 62 meters.

The renovated underground space accommodates 12,000 standard culture tanks, which is forty times the scale of bottom nest culture on the single planet Agrippina.

On the day of production, the first batch of organic waste was poured into the cultivation tank.

Subsequent garbage planets were gradually transformed and put into operation one after another.

Each newly added breeding star adds a node to the swarm logistics network. Industrial waste and biological debris from surrounding star systems are regularly delivered via transport barges, continuously feeding the breeding pools.

The green-skinned creatures multiplied wildly in the garbage, and were harvested in batches by the suicide soldiers, turning them into life points and food.

Garbage goes in, troops and food come out.

This is Lawson's version of a perpetual motion machine.

Thousands of nest worlds, mining worlds, and industrial worlds are generating massive amounts of biological waste every day.

Previously, this garbage was transported to landfills on garbage planets, which was a complete waste.

Now they are transported to breeding planets to be fed with green skin, and have become strategic resources.

Time was thus orderly propelled forward by Lawson.

Time flows erratically in the Dark Side of the Empire, and the interference of warp storms causes timelines in different sectors to become inconsistent.

Three years have passed on some planets, and seven years have passed on others.

But according to Agrippina's standard time, four years passed in the blink of an eye.

Lawson's expansion in the dark side of the empire had reached a very considerable level.

P.S.: Another 1.2 words updated today.

Chapter 229 Four Years of Change: The Master of the Seal Has Upgraded His Guns and Cannons!

Four years...

According to Agrippina's standard calendar, it was 1,461 days and nights.

The three-dimensional star map in front of Lawson was no longer the same as it had been four years ago.

Four years ago, the star map of the Empire's dark side was mostly gray, with golden points of light concentrated only in a few star regions around Agrippina, like a cluster of barely burning flames.

Four years later, the gold spread outwards from the center, covering dozens of star sectors and spanning nearly a third of the Empire's Dark Side territory.

Ten thousand planets.

This number is flashing on the homepage of the Swarm Intelligence blog.

10,317 Imperial Worlds were reintegrated into the Hive system.

Nesting world, agricultural world, conscription world, forging world, mining world...

Almost every day, new planets are relit by the lights of the empire.

Lawson stared at the number for a while, his lips twitching slightly; he wasn't particularly satisfied.

Ten thousand of them, placed in the hands of any mortal ruler, would be enough to leave a significant mark on the annals of the empire.

A lord who can govern dozens of planets in a single sector is considered a capable minister, while one who can govern hundreds is a legend.

Ten thousand—this already surpasses the scale that most imperial governors could achieve in their entire lives.

But Lawson was well aware of the true size of the empire's dark side.

Hundreds of thousands of human-made planets.

Scattered across half the sky of the Milky Way, cut into countless isolated fragments by a great rift.

Ten thousand is not even a fraction of the total.

At this rate, how long would it take to completely eliminate the dark side of the entire empire? Decades?

Lawson leaned back in his chair and opened the complete logbook he had accumulated over the past four years of swarm intelligence.

The data was very detailed, and I felt relieved after reading it.

The first year went the smoothest. The star sectors surrounding Agrippina were the territory that Lawson had operated in the longest, with the highest density of Keystone sequences and the smoothest logistics network.

Once the recapture fleet was deployed, resistance from most of the lost worlds was negligible. Governors either surrendered or were replaced, and the entire administrative system was handed over. One satellite every two weeks, an assembly line operation, and 3,200 satellites were recaptured in the first year.

The second year began to slow down. The further away from Agrippina, the more complicated the situation became. Some planets had been infiltrated by Chaos for more than ten years, and the cleanup work was time-consuming and laborious. The governors of some planets had already declared themselves kings and established independent small courts. Recapturing them was equivalent to rebuilding them. There were also some planets that had been eaten away by the orcs and were left only as ruins. Two thousand eight hundred planets were recaptured in the second year.

The third year saw a continued decline. The pace of recovery caught up, but the pressure of governance increased. The 6,000 planets recovered in the first two years began to show problems. The number of foundational sequences was too thin, administrative coverage was insufficient, and power vacuums appeared in some remote bottom nests. The swarm mentality had to divert resources to fill the gaps. In the third year, 2,400 planets were recovered.

In the fourth year, things stabilized. The management scale of 10,000 planets had approached the reasonable upper limit of the current computing power configuration of Swarm Intelligence. The daily influx of data, including population changes, resource allocation, security incidents, production reports, and military situation, was enough to overwhelm any traditional administrative system. Swarm Intelligence could withstand it, but its processing resources had gone from surplus to tight balance. In the fourth year, it recovered 1,900 planets.

Lawson closed the journal, lost in thought.

The root cause of the slowdown is clear: reclaiming the planet is easy, but the subsequent governance is where the real resources are consumed.

The main body of the planet is humans.

Hundreds of billions of human individuals who can think, make mistakes, be greedy, be fearful, and scheme against each other.

Even with the most powerful swarm intelligence, it's impossible to predict every single decision each person makes every second. Will the workers in the bottom hive harbor resentment because their neighbor received half a portion more? Will the middle managers secretly sabotage the process because their power has been undermined by the foundational hierarchy? Will the replaced old aristocracy collude with external forces to cause sabotage?

Unexpected situations and all sorts of accidents happen simultaneously on ten thousand planets every day.

Lawson's requirements for these planets are extremely demanding, demanding 100% control without compromise.

Every planet must achieve administrative transparency, resource control, military reliability, and public security stability.

If a planet fails to meet this standard, the swarm intelligence will automatically mark it in red and allocate resources to fill the gap. Filling the gap in one planet means that the plan to reclaim another new planet will be postponed.

Recapturing 10,000 Empire Worlds in four years was already the limit for the swarm.

Another key bottleneck is the capacity of the cornerstone sequence.

After four years of expansion of the Green Skin Farm, the forty-seven garbage stars are operating at full capacity. In addition, with the remaining bottom nest breeding lines in the Agrippina star sector, the life point output of the entire system is stable at 3.7 billion per cycle (fourteen days), which is equivalent to 100 million cornerstone sequence exchange points.

Every fourteen days, one hundred million cornerstone assassins are deployed to Losen.

Two hundred million per month, two billion per year.

This number, when laid bare, is enough to suffocate any leader of any faction in the empire.

The foundational sequence of 2.4 billion individuals—absolutely obedient, absolutely efficient, possessing a wide range of top-tier skills, and connected to the swarm network—increases annually.

If Lawson were merely a warlord controlling a star system or sector, this rate of troop production would be enough for him to fill every sewer in his territory with loyal spies and executors.

However, when placed on the scale of the dark side of the empire—half the Milky Way, hundreds of thousands of human-owned planets, and a population in the trillions—this number suddenly seems insignificant.

It's a very simple calculation.

In a standard urban world with a population of around 30 billion, to achieve the "100% control" standard of Lawson, the foundational sequence needs to penetrate every aspect of administration, military, security, production, logistics, and communication.

Based on data from the application of swarm intelligence in Agrippina and Vigilant Star, a planet with 30 billion inhabitants needs to invest 3 million cornerstone sequences to ensure smooth operation, effective control, and virtually no blind spots.

Three million corresponds to a proportion of one ten-thousandth of a population of 30 billion.

It doesn't sound like much, but multiplied by 10,000 planets, that's 30 billion cornerstone sequences.

After deducting the military sequence, fleet sequence, breeding farm sequence, and strategic reserves, the total stock of Lawson currently has only about one million units of the cornerstone sequence that can be allocated to administration. When spread across ten thousand planets, this averages out to only about one million units per planet.

Managing 30 billion people with only one million people is far below the standard of three million for "perfect operation".

Is it enough? Yes, it is.

The synergistic efficiency of swarm intelligence allows 1.2 million cornerstone warriors to handle the workload of 100 million bureaucrats in a traditional imperial administrative system.

But what Lawson ever wanted was never enough.

Therefore, he initiated the talent selection process.

The empire has never lacked talent. With hundreds of thousands of planets and a population base of trillions, the total number of geniuses, capable people, good at their work, and pragmatic individuals is astronomical.

What empires have always lacked is opportunity. Under the rigid class barriers and corrupt bureaucratic system that have been in place for ten thousand years, the vast majority of talented people are stuck in their social positions at birth for their entire lives.

The genius engineer at the bottom level can only tighten screws all his life, while the management genius at the middle level is always suppressed by the nepotism of his superiors.

Lawson smashed the wall.

The order was issued to the cornerstone administrative system of ten thousand planets: to conduct comprehensive competency assessments and talent screening at all levels.

There is only one standard: capability.

Bloodline, class, origin, background—all are irrelevant.

The selected talents are incorporated into the outer layers of the cornerstone administrative system.

They will participate in administrative work under the direct guidance and supervision of the cornerstone nodes.

The cornerstone team is responsible for frameworks, standards, monitoring, and key decisions, while human talent is responsible for execution, innovation, communication, and localization.

The effect is immediate.

The planet, which was barely surviving on a million foundational stones, saw its administrative efficiency soar by forty percent after being supplemented with hundreds of thousands of local talents.

For those selected, this is the first time in their lives they have experienced the exhilaration of "doing as much as they can with their talents."

A logistics manager from the bottom nest sits in a bright office for the first time, coordinating the distribution network of an entire nest city. A technician from the forging world has, for the first time, the authority to modify an inefficient production process that has been in use for three thousand years. A retired officer from the recruitment world is given, for the first time, full authority to train new recruits instead of merely acting as a mouthpiece within the old system.

They were grateful for the opportunity.

They knew who had given them this opportunity.

As for the Imperial worlds still waiting for rescue in the gray zone, those hundreds of thousands of planets that Lawson does not yet have enough foundational sequences to fully take over, he will not completely abandon them.