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Chapter 166: They Have Lost
🕑 Added 2025-09-23 13:45:58 +0000 UTCChapter 166: They Have Lost
How terrifying. To think that one day, he would actually have to try and distinguish which pile of shit smelled better.
Thinking of the Imperium's historical handling of its own rebellious worlds, Romulus sighed again. The Sector Governor in charge of the Damocles Gulf was probably sweating bullets right now.
"To be honest, I often feel a great deal of sympathy for the citizens of the Imperium," Romulus said.
Ever since he had started intervening in the affairs of the various planets along their route, Romulus had gained a profound understanding of what true misery was. To be frank, in all the battles they had fought, the heretic problems or Chaos outbreaks on many planets could be blamed on poor governance.
My god, that humanity can still survive in such a social environment... that you would believe in Chaos is understandable, though not forgivable. But that you don't even rebel... you are truly patient.
"Many of the Imperium's civilized worlds still have many nations. The living standards between them are uneven, but it is rare for any one city-state to abandon its original culture and ethnicity to join another just because their living standards are better," Cawl couldn't help but remind him.
Romulus's words were quite "politically incorrect" in the current Imperium.
"Heh heh."
Romulus suddenly laughed at these words, a laugh that held an undisguised bitterness. "Of course. Of course I know."
Averting his gaze from the Archmagos, he looked out the window at the planet, which was shrouded in the fires of war. Beyond the halo refracted by the atmosphere was the endless sea of stars.
The greatest irony was this—that modern humanity would rather turn to xenos than believe that another human regime could give them a better life.
"In ancient Terra, there was also a poor and weak nation. She had a good geographical location, an ample population, vast lands, and abundant natural resources. Can you guess what she did in the face of several more powerful, more advanced regimes?"
"How did a nation with such a foundation fall into poverty and weakness?" Cawl couldn't help but ask.
"..."
You're actually concerned about that?
Romulus was silent for a moment. The nebula that was passing by the viewport cast a mottled light and shadow on his power armor. He suddenly took a breath, as if to suppress some emotion.
"That was the problem of the rulers."
He finally replied, his voice as if squeezed from between his teeth.
"...Understandable."
Cawl felt that Romulus was once again subtly criticizing the Imperium. He then played along and said, "I am very curious as to what that regime did in the midst of a pack of wolves."
"They struggled, they learned, and then they continued to struggle. And then they carved out their own path," Romulus replied.
"And modern humanity, or rather, this modern human Imperium, in my opinion, has already lost that confidence of 'you are good, but I can learn, and then surpass you'."
This was why the Imperium's decisions often looked comical, and in fact, were comical.
How can you leave your brothers and stop eating shit? No! You have to come back and eat shit!
And then they would use absolute violence and cruelty to drag you back.
It was so damn hellish.
"...Indeed," Cawl nodded sincerely.
Whether the reason was that they couldn't do it, or that they didn't want to do it, the current state of the Imperium was pretty much rotten to the core. Just looking at the military deployments was abstract enough.
Leaving aside the strategic misjudgment in the previous Tyranid war that had led to the annihilation of the Tyranid mobile fleet and had affected several hundred Imperial worlds, a serious strategic blunder.
Just look at the situation now. A dozen or so battleships were stuck in the Damocles Gulf, and who knew what they were doing. With the T'au's current combat strength, logically, the punitive fleet should have crushed their opponent and entered the T'au Empire's territory long ago.
"So I do not think that just because another race is better, I should take my talents and join them. I would rather that we could give humanity another answer. An answer that would allow them not to have to choose the xenos," Romulus said, looking at the data-slate in his hand.
This was the data on this planet that had been gathered by various parties. Including the culture, technology, social model, and the value of the planet itself, it was gradually being expanded and integrated into the data-slate as one information integration center after another was conquered.
Learn. Admitting that you are not as good as others in this aspect is not a shameful thing. To give up on yourself is the most shameful thing.
"..."
Cawl nodded. It was indeed he who had been overly concerned—these Primarchs' plans for the future were far clearer and more definite than he had imagined.
Just as the Archmagos was about to respond, the communication system of the Dawnbreakers' ship suddenly emitted an urgent prompt.
Romulus raised his hand, and Cawl immediately went silent.
The crimson [Urgent Communication] icon pulsed in his vision, accompanied by an encryption verification process:
[Communication Accessing. Password Verification: THE FIRST PRIMARCH IS ETERNALLY LOYAL!]
[Verifying... Verification Passed.]
"..."
Ramesses's encryption... well, I guess an ordinary person in this universe really wouldn't think of this.
Romulus accessed the communication with a straight face.
"Technology recovery is complete," Arthur's voice sounded.
The panel showed that he was now standing in the core area of the Bork'an Central Research Institute. Ramesses's figure was at his side, and around them were the Dark Angels who were performing the final search mission.
"Including the Slipstream Module physical object, which will require a transport ship for transfer."
Arthur continued to report, his voice exceptionally clear under the mysterious connection between them.
"And the recovery of the Earth Caste scientists and artisan technical teams has been confirmed. It has been verified that the artisan race that was providing support to the T'au are members of the Leagues of Votann. They have now all been contained in the Warp and have been handed over to Ramesses for communication. Details are in the attachment."
"Acknowledged. Inform the ground forces to begin the cleanup, and then organize the evacuation."
While accessing the information in the attachment, Romulus issued the order and then hung up the communication.
The goal had been achieved. There was no need to delay.
"A beautiful planet," Romulus turned and, for the last time, looked at Bork'an, and couldn't help but sigh.
Cawl chimed in, "It will become a beautiful world, waiting for humanity to set foot and develop it."
The natural conditions of Bork'an were excellent. A temperate climate zone, rich rare mineral deposits, and the asteroid belt in orbit, which was rich in various metals. On the side of the orbit closer to the star, there was also a death world, a good place to build a Forge World.
"I hope so."
Romulus withdrew his gaze. The servo-system of his power armor let out a heavy hum as he turned. When he sat on the command throne, the hydraulic system automatically adjusted the power armor to stretch with his body, making his figure even more imposing.
"Cease orbital strikes. All fleet, prepare for Warp-jump."
His voice echoed on the bridge.
Captain Aurora's fingers danced across the control console. The holographic star-chart expanded with her operation, "Straight for Dal'yth?"
According to the original plan, they should have gone to this key border world to resolve the conflict between the Imperium and the T'au, to deal with the affairs of the punitive fleet, and then to take this fleet to aid Ultramar.
"No. We are going to T'au," Romulus's fingers swiped across the holographic projection. The star-chart quickly enlarged and finally settled on a star system in the heartland of the T'au Empire.
"Order the strike fleet, activate the Exterminatus strike plan with the cyclonic torpedoes."
Aurora's pupils contracted slightly, but she immediately straightened her back. "As you command, my Lord."
The various races of this universe had, more or less, a mystical connection with their homeworlds.
Leaving aside the ancient Necrons and the Old Ones for now, just looking at the three races of the Eldar, the Orks, and humans, you could see the difference.
First, the most powerful human Imperium. Although the Emperor was on the toilet and his brain was gone and he was beginning to rot into a pile, he was still the most powerful force in the galaxy, firmly maintaining his absolute rule over Terra.
Secondly, the Orks. Although their homeworld of Ullanor had been taken by humans and renamed Armageddon, and even the star system it was in had changed, they had not caused the Imperium less trouble since the War of the Beast. Before the Tyranid invasion of the galaxy, the Orks were humanity's second-greatest enemy besides Chaos. And in a little over a hundred years in history, they had hit humanity with a big one twice in a row.
Finally, the most miserable were the Eldar. The Crone Worlds, which were their core, had all been soaked in the Eye of Terror after Slaanesh's scream. Every time the Craftworld Eldar returned to a Crone World to mine soul stones, it was like an ordinary person going down into lava, with a ten-to-one chance of survival.
After ten thousand years, the entire race had basically entered a state of chronic death, purely relying on their own stats and technology to hang on.
This was enough to show the importance of a race's homeworld to that race.
In the original history, the punitive fleet had deployed 15 battleships, had fought for three years, and was still stuck at Dal'yth, without achieving any significant results.
And now, the punitive fleet, because it had concentrated its forces at the Tyranid fortress world before, had an even larger scale, but it also had not achieved any significant results.
And the commander was an Inquisitor named Rost.
"Ten hours..."
Romulus muttered the time, his fingers tapping on the data-slate. It showed the results they had achieved in these 10 hours—a T'au Sept world had been completely conquered in such a short time.
He had barely even interfered with the fleet's operations, which proved that the fleet's combat power was not the problem.
Since it wasn't a problem with the troops, then it was a problem with the people.
Romulus didn't believe that these people could handle the T'au Empire. This enemy was no longer something the Ultima Segmentum government could handle.
When the first wave of radiation storms pierced the planet's north pole, the ionosphere above the pole glowed with an eerie purple light.
The moment the cyclonic torpedoes made contact with the polar ice cap, the planet's two poles suddenly caved in into perfect parabolic surfaces. The entire continental plate, like a piece of ceramic struck by an invisible heavy hammer, cracked along the longitude lines at a visible speed, tearing the crust.
The core began to scream. The equatorial current belt spewed magma. The atmosphere was stirred into a spiral vortex by the gravitational waves. At the eye of the storm in the stratosphere, mantle material gushed out, forming a massive calcite crystal pillar.
When the first fragment of the core broke through the atmosphere, the planet's axis of rotation had already shifted by several dozen degrees.
The continental plates collided with each other under the tearing of various forces. The once-azure sky was now covered in purple-black ionization clouds, dyed a strange fluorescent green by the escaping oxygen ions.
The final disintegration came exceptionally suddenly.
The atmosphere, having lost the confinement of the magnetic field, dissipated silently like a pricked bubble. The water, exposed to the direct radiation of the star, instantly boiled.
The entire planet, in its gravitational imbalance, stretched into an ellipsoid. The mantle material was thrown out along the critical line of the Roche limit, gradually turning the entire planet into fine fragments.
The metal wreckage that had once carried a civilization was now slowly rotating in a vacuum. A planet that had existed for 3.6 billion years had, at this moment, become a star-ring that revolved around the star.
In the Warp, the Warp storm that had surrounded this star region since the T'au had first stepped on their homeworld's land began to calm down.
"Is this the reason why our race has been feeling a sense of heart-palpitations?"
In the Dal'yth war zone, Commander O'Shovah, who was called Farsight by countless T'au, looked at the scene in the image and said with a hoarse voice.
The adjutants around him, looking at the scene of the planet's destruction, all covered their faces in pain.
"The enemy's movements," Farsight asked the Water Caste diplomatic leader, his four-fingered hand unconsciously stroking the edge of the tactical hologram.
"After destroying the homeworld, this human fleet went straight for Dal'yth. The colonial planet defense fleets along the way were all wiped out. The administrative centers, industrial systems, and starports suffered a devastating blow. The planet's technological level has regressed by a hundred years."
"Secondly, the enemy has mastered a technology that can hack our AI. The coordination of the various planets has also fallen into a difficult situation."
This battle-hardened commander supported his face with his hand, listening to the other's repetition. He calmly and intently watched the crusade fleet's advance route, as if the grief of his homeworld's destruction had not affected him.
"What about the human colonies they passed? How did they deal with them?" Farsight analyzed the route and quickly asked.
"They relied on orbital drop-strikes to carry out a decapitation strike on the planetary government. When dealing with the local human residents, they adopted a soft policy that was completely different from the other fleet. They preserved our construction achievements in the local area. The resistance was very small."
"No liquidation?"
"None."
The diplomatic leader quickly explained, "They simply reorganized the planetary government, organized representatives of the various social strata, and placed a group of religious personnel and administrative personnel before leaving directly. Their advance speed is absurdly fast. It is estimated that in twenty homeworld rotation cycles, they will be able to reach Dal'yth."
The T'au were quite popular in those colonies. Collecting intelligence was not difficult.
Farsight looked at the star-chart, silent. The lighting system of the command cabin flickered for a moment, projecting the more angular facial contours of him, compared to other T'au, on the curved observation window, overlapping with the distant starlight.
Even when facing the overwhelming fleet of the Imperium at Dal'yth, he had never felt such a suffocating pressure.
In the expansion against the Imperium's domain, the T'au Empire had already found it difficult to win over the power of humanity.
After a long silence, he finally broke the silence. "...We have lost."
He immediately stood up and said decisively, "Organize the fleet. You are responsible for personnel coordination. Transfer the population of the other castes. I will organize the Fire Caste to hold the rear."
The holographic star-chart shook violently with his movements. Farsight raised his hand and steadily drew a route in the orbit. "We will head north of the homeworld."
"What about those colonial stars? Are we to abandon them?"
Do we still have the ability to gather a group of kinsmen who have fallen back to the early industrial civilization?
"Yes," Farsight replied, a struggle in his eyes. "We will have to abandon them."
Romulus and Drakus were working in their office.
They could still clearly hear the sound of battle from the planet's surface.
The sound of gunfire, the shouts of killing, the curses, and the footsteps of the traitors constantly reinforcing. They could hear it all.
A servo-skull was constantly broadcasting the battle situation of the planetary governor's palace, while Romulus and the others were compiling a statistical table.
"The Correlation Between the Improvement of Human Living Standards and the Proliferation of Chaos Corruption"
Drakus, as the master of the Invictarus Suzerain, was actually clear about the overall living situation of Ultramar in the 30k era. But times had changed. Now, they needed the data of this era—accurate, cold, irrefutable data.
Unfortunately, the current Imperium was all abstract stuff. Good things were hard to find, bad things were everywhere.
The garden worlds had no reference value. They hadn't arrived at the Ultramar sector yet. Fortunately, the T'au Empire had timely provided the Dawnbreakers with several high-quality case studies.
For the colonies that had joined the T'au Empire, the T'au Empire would also, like the Imperium, assist in the local development. But compared to the Imperium's simple and crude "laissez-faire - levy - suppress - exploit" method, the T'au Empire was more meticulous.
Re-planning the residential areas, placing industries according to the local natural conditions, conducting a census, improving the local welfare level, and purifying the planetary environment.
The AI could assist them in completing these tedious steps. After this set of procedures, the average living standard of the planet naturally rose sharply.
When the crusade fleet had arrived, the attitude of the various middle-level representatives, who were all in a "live or die with the T'au Empire" state, had made the four of them laugh with rage.
What else could they do? They couldn't just kick them back to a pre-medieval state of survival.
Maintain the local planet's development. Arthur and Karna had gone down in two waves, one overt and one covert, to investigate, and then make a table.
And when this table was pulled up, they had found the problem.
The so-called necessary evil was really not necessary.
As long as the planetary governor was a person, the probability of a planet being invaded by Chaos would be greatly reduced.
Of course, with the improvement of living standards, hedonism would begin to prevail in the human population, especially in the upper classes. Although the vast majority would not reach the point of being tainted by Slaanesh, they had already begun to neglect their duties.
But the lower classes had always remained stable, and their production efficiency and ideological health were well maintained.
Was it easier to change the top or the bottom?
With a tangible iron fist, of course it was easier to change the top.
The Dawnbreakers had reached a consensus on this.
The chaotic sounds in the image had stopped at some point.
[Governor's Palace operation complete.]
The combat units quickly sent back their mission report.
"Proceed with Plan 13. The fleet will depart after one Terran day."
Romulus had recognized the situation and had then issued the order.
In his mind, he calculated the next route. He then looked at a finely wax-sealed invitation.
An invitation from Inquisitor Rost.
"..."
For a rare moment, a rare emotion appeared in Romulus's eyes.
It was a killing intent, naturally generated out of what a certain individual had done.
(End of Chapter)
