The Astartes Family's Notebook

If something looks like an STC template, grab it first, you can't go wrong. Afterwards, have the mechanics take a look. Those tech enthusiasts who are willing to spend a lot of money to buy it or hire people to steal it are most likely STC.

As for admitting their mistake, the Mechanicus remained unmoved?

Let it gather dust in the warehouse, it's no big deal.

The reason for the suspicion that this refinery contained an STC template is that later immigrants restarted the factory's production line in just thirty years.

In ancient Terra, this level of efficiency is probably comparable only to a small, ununited kingdom like Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It's a clear case of the gentry squandering taxpayers' hard-earned money.

However, in the current human empire, it is impossible, absolutely impossible. Without the overall command and coordination of the Great Sage of the Mechanicus, such an efficient project could never exist.

Absolutely impossible!

There's something wrong with this refinery.

Kaz arrived at the factory's control hub with a small Thinker terminal. After physically connecting the terminal to the large Thinker array at the Promethium Refinery, he dismissed the manager who had led the way and began to examine the fruits of the Empire's industry.

The amazing technology of the Empire also produces standard laser guns. They can be made in workshops, manufactured on assembly lines, or in fully automated, unmanned factories, where humans only need to feed the materials.

It's really hard to judge.

Katz only learned after studying at Frankis III that what the Empire was so wary of was hateful intelligence, that is, advanced AI with autonomous personalities, not a complete rejection of automation.

The School of Mechanics completed chip research using a 0.3-nanometer process at least several thousand years ago.

So, within the same universe and the same empire, the upper and lower limits have been stretched to such an absurd degree that even a great-grandmother would find it outrageous.

First, search the database, then wander around. When he convened a meeting with the managers of the Promethium Refinery to convey the warband's ideas, small listening devices had already been attached to their clothes by Kaz.

Instead of blindly relying on luck, it's better to trust in human nature.

There will always be those who know the truth and try to take advantage of the situation, and there will always be opportunists who come looking for you.

Although the battle in Zhongchao was quickly quelled due to the Astartes' extremely high combat efficiency, the war still affected the production efficiency of the promethium refinery.

Through listening, Katz gradually sketched out the entire production line's process flow in his mind, and then, based on the bug's location function, he mentally modeled and simulated the managers' movement trajectories.

Then, their movement trajectories are compared with the factory blueprints retrieved from the database to determine whether their actions and words are consistent.

Soon, the fish, unable to bear the loneliness, surfaced on their own.

Why do mortal beings always try to outwit the emperor's angels?

Kaz placed the Spider Legs Automaton, which the chapter had created, in a dark corner far from the control console, prioritizing concealment over maximizing firepower coverage.

After arranging protective measures, Katz left the control room. Instead of choosing the regular personnel passage, he used Astartes' extraordinary skills and the obstacle-crossing ability provided by his magnetic boots to take a shortcut along the factory pipelines to the place where the malicious individuals were lying in wait.

Interesting, they bypassed the commuter elevator and chose the sewage pipe instead?

Although the blueprints show it as a large pipeline discharging highly toxic wastewater, locals always know the actual situation better than outsiders.

Using a birdwatcher to observe from behind the wall, Katz felt an urge to sigh.

It turned out to be a woodworm, not a big fish.

The warehouse manager, having embezzled from his post, led three workers, two to a cart, pushing two large cans of promethium towards the lower nest.

The fact that modified strollers can be used indicates that this route was not discovered recently.

He's a repeat offender.

Kaz slowly hung behind, his emotions gradually subsiding.

Could those two cans of promethazine just be a cover-up?

Although he knew it was unlikely, Katz switched to the monitoring channel and scanned the empty control room with the monitoring camera of the automatic turret, but still decided to follow.

Strangely, the four men walked to the sewage outlet, simply and crudely threw down two large cans of promethium, and then returned with the cart, without contacting anyone along the way.

After the four men had gone some distance, Katz followed their previous route to the end of the pipe where the barrier grille was already rusted through.

"Mom, Dad is still alive."

"Quickly dig the promethium jar out of the mud."

“Those damned Astronauts, they steal everything, leaving us not a single bit of fuel. Without fuel to keep warm, we’ll all freeze to death.”

"Stop talking, just pull harder."

The drop of more than 30 meters could not break the metal canister of the promethium, nor could it stop Kars' superhuman hearing.

Without even needing the power armor to assist in the calculations, Kaz was able to determine from the footsteps that there were only two adult males among the seventeen people below.

Hiding in the shadows and observing cautiously, Kaz confirmed that the people below did not show any obvious physical mutations, and then silently returned.

He understood the principle of "thinking about what is feasible and good, and not avoiding it" in his previous life.

Chapter 40: Wear a Helmet When Fishing

Don't deceive those who truly love you, because they will only deceive themselves...

-------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------

Katz received his second company commendation.

Because the promethium refinery has shipped the product.

STC templates do exist.

Although the engineers collectively determined that it was a replica of Mars, it was only related to promethium refining technology.

Ugh.

However, it was not equipped with a self-destruct lock.

Oh!

Although it's an older version from the M34 era, the heavy extraction part is damaged.

Ugh.

However, in our Warhammer world, the ancient is advanced, and the mysterious is technology.

Oh!

Although STC templates related to promethium refining are not worth as much as STC templates of other unknown technologies.

Ugh.

However, a craftsman from their own faction privately revealed that Mars wouldn't pay a high price to reclaim this STC template, but the situation was less certain in other foundry worlds.

Oh!

If they are not prepared to exchange high-tech, value-added industrial goods such as warships with the industrial world's foundry world, the value of this STC template will be amplified for a sector lacking basic raw material industries, and it can be sold for a very high price.

After all, the Mechanics Cult's aid is over once it ends. If a tech enthusiast says they'll help you build a promethium refinery, they'll only build one. But with this STC template, the sector government can build as many as it wants.

What? You're asking if the Star Region Government isn't interested?

Are you kidding me? The Empire only has five star regions and five star region governments. You think a nobody like me would dare to act tough in front of a star region government? You haven't experienced the righteous beating of the Empire's iron fist, have you?

If the Star Region Government wants to build a promethium refinery, it can order the Mechanical Engineering Institute to build as many as it wants, and the Mechanical Engineering Institute has to build as many as it wants. Why would it need to use the STC template?

Once it was determined that the potential buyer was a sector-level industrial player like the Industrial World or Foundry World, which lacked sufficient technical capabilities, it became easy to value the STC template acquired by the four-way acquisition.

In stock, there are at least three frigates, or a one-to-three exchange rate for destroyers.

If it's a custom order, a light strike cruiser shouldn't be a problem. If Wastewing is willing to pay a little more to cover the difference, a Moon-class cruiser is also negotiable.

If you want to switch to power armor, two hundred sets shouldn't be a problem. Although Mars doesn't value the technology it has, other forge worlds are willing to start a new furnace for this STC template.

Fun fact: The power armor worn by Space Marines is technologically advanced and extremely expensive, but that's not the main reason it's so hard to obtain.

The real challenge lies in the fact that the Empire has a total of one million Astartes, and power armor, a product designed for Space Marines, is far too niche for a galactic overlord like the Imperium of Man.

Ballpoint pen steel, you get it now?

An independent forging world would never open a production line specifically for Astartes power armor; it would be a losing proposition.

Apart from the capital star sectors of the five major star systems, the Empire would reserve a small amount of related production capacity for distribution as provisions in order to control the Space Marine chapters. For other forge worlds and industrial worlds, orders would be accepted first and then work would be done later.

So now you understand why there are so many high-precision products in the field of power armor.

Because they were all hand-made by master mechanics.

If the code can run, don't change it; if the production line can operate, don't modify it recklessly. Compared to modifying the industrial layout just to produce power armor—a luxury that costs little money and involves a lot of work—it's much easier for the great sages of mechanical engineering to directly assign apprentices to practice the "craftsman spirit."

Those apprentices should thank their masters, because they've learned new skills. The master, whose machine oil is black, even dares to ask his graduate students for patent royalties.

Therefore, the difficulty in obtaining the power armor used by Astartes is not because it is difficult to manufacture, but because it is extremely difficult to manufacture.

If the warband has good stuff that can impress the Cult of Mechanics, then everything will be fine.

As for the Terminator A, forget about it. It's really hard to make. The reason why Desolation Wings can make so many is because they have a close relationship with the Martian Mechanicus.

Currently, the number of forging worlds supplied to Terminator A across the five major star regions combined cannot be counted to more than twenty.

Kaz received two company commendations and, according to other veterans, was already on the list of candidates for promotion.

But the Space Marine Chapters aren't the Astral Army, so what's the point of getting promoted?

The Wasteland Wings were never a conventional Holy Scriptures team. The whole team just used the Astartes Scripture for show, and the four-card decks were all run by Master-level RR players who wanted to fill their extra decks with Rebellious Arsenal Falcons.

There's no place like the thrill of fighting when you're being promoted.

Katz believed he had no interest in the rank of sergeant in the company for the next twenty years, but he could still try to get the qualification to wear the Terminator Armor.

Regardless of whether it was a joke or not, he remembered that some of the veterans had promised to make the suggestion at the company meeting.

After all, Kaz had witnessed the power of the Terminator Armor firsthand in the previous battle.

Power armor can't stop artillery shells, but Terminator armor can.

Once the force field shield is activated, it truly becomes ruthless and unforgiving.

Unless the main cannon is a high-powered energy weapon that directly overloads the force field generator on the Terminator Armor with its powerful flying bricks, it would be difficult for a live-fire shot of the Lemanrus main cannon to directly damage the Terminator Armor.

After all, the Terminator Armor's bulkiness is only relative to conventional power armor; it's still faster than the Leman Rustank's turret rotation speed. It's practically impossible to hit an Astartes Terminator directly at close range.

According to the veteran, other combat groups he had seen, especially those that had accumulated some wealth, particularly liked to gather Terminator armor in the first company as a display of power.

Wow, when they were putting on a show and talking to other units, there was a whole platoon of Terminators, it was quite a sight.

The problem is that only when a chapter has the Terminator Armor, is willing to use it, and has extensive experience using it, can they understand that no matter how powerful the Terminator Armor is, it is still just armor for heavy infantry.

There are very few Astartes who can truly use the Terminator Armor effectively; let's not try to save face by saying there aren't many, there are very few, they're extremely rare.

Most veterans who have completed the Terminator A piloting course will never be able to get rid of the "trainee" label stuck to their backsides.

For example, there's Ingus, the company champion, and Terrence Tyrant, the honorary sergeant.

Tyrant had said this to Katz himself.

“I’m wearing power armor, so I’m not afraid of Ingus wearing Terminator armor at all. My power sword and molten bombs can negate the Terminator armor’s thick defense. My absolute advantage in mobility means I have the priority to attack. If I hold out for too long, I’ll lose. In a one-on-one situation, I can kill him within fifteen seconds. If Ingus is also wearing power armor, and I kill him in more than five seconds, I’ll eat him. You decide what I eat. But if everyone is wearing Terminator armor, I’m no match for him.”

"That's not right, Sergeant Tyrant. If that's the case, why is Sergeant Ingus the company champion?"

Kaz thought Tyrant would say something like, "What a big man is born to do."

After a moment of silence, Tyrant finally chose to be pragmatic.

"What I just told you was all about close combat. Ingus is too well-rounded; I'm not as good as him."

In a moment, Kaz recalled fragments of his past memories like a revolving lantern and decided to follow them after all.

"Calling Commander Motor Sich, calling Commander Motor Sich, this is Kars, this is Kars, Space Marine detected without identification signal, on my way to investigate, on my way to investigate, request immediate support, request immediate support!"

The figure flashed by so close to the blind spot that Kars might have easily missed it if he hadn't been multitasking all the time.

That design... must be Space Marine power armor.

Unlike the typical anime/light novel protagonists, Kars bombarded the company commander with messages before deciding to investigate.

Keep a record of your work, consult with superiors more often, and report frequently; you can't go wrong with that.

Chapter 41 Rabbit Ears Spinning Around

There are more than a dozen legitimate demi-human races within the Empire, which are the best and last bastion of human multiculturalism.

-------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------

The upper hives demand houses from the middle hives, while the middle hives plunder the land of the lower hives. The original inhabitants of Omidas' hive city had long since been taken to paradise by Saint Macarius with a sigh of despair. The new immigrants have already done their best to restore the basic functions of the entire hive city; expecting more is simply unrealistic.

Therefore, for other hive worlds with solidified class-based ruling norms, guarding the elevator shaft basically means controlling traffic flow between different levels of the hive.