Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"Your Excellency, I have conducted a standard on-site takeover mission in the Dark Side of the Empire. The results are as follows: the Chaos Evidence was destroyed by the Hands of the Sealholder with bare hands; the assets of the traitorous governor were looted by the Hands of the Sealholder in front of him; and the sacred seal of the Inquisition was crushed by the Hands of the Sealholder. My Stormstrike Team is currently playing the role of sanitation workers. Please give further instructions."

He thought about it and decided not to write it.

Even if I write it, no one will care.

Er Gou took Titus to other locations on the planet.

In the twelfth hour of the takeover, the Cornerstone Sequence discovered a set of abnormal data while integrating the Nest Capital's administrative system.

Population shortage.

Swarm intelligence cross-references the recovered household registration data with the imperial census records from before the rebellion.

Even after accounting for explainable factors such as war deaths, escapes, and refugees, millions of people still disappeared without a trace.

The population density of the seven residential areas from the seventeenth to the twenty-third floor drops precipitously.

More importantly, there's the timeline.

Swarm Intelligence confirmed from surviving administrative logs that population loss in these areas began two years ago.

The curve is smooth and there are no sudden fluctuations.

Water supply, food distribution, and lighting load all decreased steadily and synchronously.

Er Gou stared at the population heat map for a long time.

The blank spaces of the seven residential areas on the ground floor resemble an expanding black hole on a cross-sectional view of the city.

He couldn't quite put his finger on what it resembled.

But his intuition told him that the planet's problems were far greater than the apparent rebellion.

"The finishing touches are left to the cornerstone sequence."

Er Gou stood up. "Take this back to show the boss."

He packaged the data and transmitted it to the encrypted storage area of ​​the armory, then took Titus into the static field.

…………

The Usvi Ark is anchored on a stable shipping lane on the outskirts of the Agrippina sector.

The Eldar Ark, stretching 3,600 kilometers, still appears enormous against the backdrop of the Empire's forged world cluster, but at this moment, it resembles a colossal beast licking its wounds.

Three large-scale structural damages can be seen on the surface of the ark.

The situation inside the Ark was even worse.

Twenty-three percent of the spiritual bone structure on the outer edge of the Bone Soul Realm has been corrupted and eroded by demons, and the temple area where the ancestral soul stones are stored has been severely polluted.

For the Eldar, Soulstones are not relics, but living ancestors.

Pollution means that the souls of our ancestors are being corrupted by impurities from the warp.

If they are not purified in time, these souls will be trapped in the soul stone forever in a painful torment, or worse.

Karaden and Usvi's prophetic group were almost driven mad by this.

They concentrated all the remaining psionic resources on the Ark on the restoration project of the Bone Soul Realm. The prophets took turns maintaining the purification array, and the clan leaders personally moved uncontaminated spirit bone materials to fill the gaps.

The entire Ark's focus shifted from daily life to this race against time to rescue souls.

Evelynine couldn't help.

The restoration of the Bone Soul Realm requires Usvi's own sorcerers and craftsmen; outsiders cannot get involved.

Karaden politely asked her to leave the restoration area the following day:

“Everene, all you can do here is watch us jump around in frustration. Go outside for a walk. We’ll talk to you about what to do next once we’ve calmed things down.”

So Evelyn left the Ark of Usvi.

Ilancia received her on the Vigilant Star.

Evelynn is Guilliman's messenger, while Ilancia is Lordson's Eldar liaison and inner court member.

Evelynne followed Ilancia around for the next few days.

Before leaving Terra, Evelynn read the Imperial intelligence report about Vigilant Star.

The report describes the military fortress at Nakmund Pass as being under constant threat of chaos, with harsh living conditions for civilians.

What we actually saw did not match the report at all.

Saint Harbor, the main hive of Vigilant Star, is indeed a giant city under militarized management, but militarization does not equate to being in dire straits.

What surprised Evelyn the most was the order of the nest.

She had seen what the underworld of the Imperial Holy Face looked like in Terra, a lawless land rife with gang warfare, rampant drugs, slave trade, and disease.

The empire's administrative system ceased functioning at the entrance to Lower Nest, and the inhabitants of Lower Nest lived in utter anarchy.

The way the warning star descends to its nest is not like this.

The management network of the foundational sequence covers every layer of the hive, including the lowest layer.

The residents of Xiachao have household registration, work allocation, and medical rations.

Ilancia took her to see something called "Civilized Community Evaluation".

The various residential areas in Xiachao are divided into community units, and a hygiene and order evaluation is conducted every month.

The community with the best ranking will receive additional supplies, including meat, cleaning products, and recreational allowances.

The worst-performing communities will be publicly displayed on the public information screens in Chaohu City.

Evelyn witnessed two women from the lower nests arguing heatedly in the hallway because "people from your community are throwing garbage at our community entrance."

On the second and third days, Ilancia took her to two planets in the Agrippina sector.

One of them is Klein Agricultural Star.

Blue sky, clear water, and vast fields of grain crops growing under the starlight.

The farmers work in the fields with a calm and contented expression, as if they can go home and have a drink after finishing their work.

The other is an industrial city on the main star Agrippina.

The casting production line operates 24 hours a day, and workers receive wages, rest time, and standard meals.

There's a small market at the factory gate, managed by a cornerstone system. After get off work, workers can use their wages to buy things beyond their rations: tea, tobacco, candy, and usable cleaning supplies.

Evelyn took a walk around the market.

She saw a worker buying a candy stick for his daughter, who was about five or six years old. The little girl smiled happily as she received the candy stick.

In the industrial world of the Imperial Holy Land, the children of the working class don't know what sugar tastes like.

On the fourth day, she returned to the vigilant planet.

At the accommodation arranged by Ilancia, Evelyn spent the entire night sorting through what she had seen and heard over the past few days.

She is one of the most knowledgeable people in the Eldar race.

But her experiences over the past few days have made her re-examine some of the judgments she previously took for granted.

In Terra, Evelynn and Guilliman shared the same vision of the Empire's dark side.

The Great Rift severed the light of the Star Torch, and the dark side of the Empire eked out a living amidst chaos, orcs, and various threats. Civilians awaited their deaths in despair, and order crumbled.

Lawson's presence was merely a makeshift shelter erected on the ruins, barely enough to sustain them.

The actual situation is completely the opposite.

The administrative system of the dark side of the empire is completely different from that of the holy side of the empire.

The administrative system of the Holy Face is a bureaucratic behemoth built up over ten thousand years.

Guilliman spent a great deal of energy on coordination, compromise, confrontation, and persuasion whenever he pushed for a policy.

Eighty percent of his time was not spent governing the empire, but dealing with the empire's own institutions.

These are not present on the dark side.

Lawson’s administrative system was built from scratch.

The cornerstone sequence replaced the bureaucracy.

From the moment Lawson issues an order to its execution on the farthest planet, there is no human-caused delay or attenuation in between.

A food rationing reform that Guilliman couldn't implement in three months, Lawson could roll out across the entire sector in just three days.

She remembered the documents Guilliman had on Terra's desk.

Impeachment proceedings, church protests, and noble petitions.

The Star Guard's transfer request was rejected by three different departments.

A relief supply for a famine-stricken planet had been sitting in a warehouse for thirteen years because its inter-sectoral transfer required a Level 7 authorization order from Terra.

Guilliman didn't lack the desire to govern the Empire well; he was simply trapped by the Empire's own systems.

Evelyn made a decision.

After she returned to Terra, she told Guilliman everything she had seen in the dark side of the Empire.

Guilliman is the Primarch; he'll know what to do.

On the fifth day, Lawson returned to the Vigilant Planet, and Er Gou gave a report in Lawson's command room.

“Boss, the matter of Hecate-IX is not just a rebellion.”

"The seven residential areas at the bottom lost millions of people within two years, a continuous and orderly evaporation."

"Hecate-IX is not an isolated case."

Er Gou continued, "On my way back, I had the swarm retrieve population data from other planets on the dark side of the Empire for cross-comparison."

He projected the second set of data.

A star map of the dark side of an empire.

There are hundreds of red dots flashing on the star map.

"According to incomplete statistics, there are approximately 300 planets on the Dark Side of the Empire that have experienced similar population anomalies. The time span ranges from six months to three years. The total number of people who have disappeared is in the billions."

“What are the characteristics?” Lawson asked.