Chapter 166: Fundamentally a Human Problem |
The Dawnlight sat silently at anchor in the low-orbit of the Bork'an world.
As the flagship of the entire fleet, it maintained a perfect distance from the planet's surface. This allowed the ship's observation equipment to clearly capture surface dynamics while effectively evading any potential surface-to-air counterattacks.
The main forces of the fleet were currently executing a saturation bombardment on the starport and key industrial zones. The brilliant flashes of orbital strikes were clearly visible against the void of space.
Simultaneously, dozens of Adeptus Astartes assault squads had already breached the atmosphere. Stormbirds pushed through the relatively weak low-altitude anti-air fire, landing with pinpoint accuracy on critical strategic nodes.
The planetary Archives, High Academy of Sciences, and Military Data Center... all these facilities would suffer a devastating blow. But before that, all valuable T'au technical data would be systematically scanned and copied.
Thanks to the T'au and their meticulous planetary planning, at the very least, the Space Marines did not have to face a despair-inducing environment like that of a Hive City.
Romulus stood on the observation deck, gazing down at the planet through the reinforced glass.
Bork'an was a beautiful planet.
Its atmosphere possessed a dreamy pale purple hue, and its landmasses were blanketed in vast stretches of emerald vegetation. Even the polar regions boasted hardy crystalline lichens. Most striking of all were the honeycomb-like hexagonal architectural complexes, overlapping and scattering like naturally grown crystals, perfectly integrated with the mountains and rivers.
"The assault forces' advance is exceeding expectations. Your tactical predictions were remarkably precise."
A sudden voice shattered his contemplation.
Romulus turned his head slightly, spotting Archmagos Cawl standing in the shadows of the corridor, having arrived completely unnoticed.
The Adeptus Mechanicus representative's left hand gripped an Artificer Scepter, casting an elongated shadow on the floor. His right hand held a Data-slate currently displaying a 3D anatomical schematic of an XV8 Crisis Battlesuit.
"This was an inevitable result."
Romulus shifted his gaze back to the planet. The illumination system on the bridge cast shifting, flickering shadows across his sharply defined profile.
"Of course, the T'au have an excellent population evacuation mechanism. As long as we intentionally leave certain sectors open, they will focus on mass population transfers. A massive portion of their active forces will be expended on this process, naturally reducing the armed forces resisting our assault."
The T'au Social System was built upon strict Collectivism. When dealing with their own members, they always prioritized Humanitarian Aid.
The Damocles Gulf Crusade provided a stark example of this.
When the Imperium launched a Punitive Operation against the T'au Colony World in the Silkaer System, the warriors of the Fire Caste still prioritized covering the evacuation of Earth Caste and Water Caste scientists and Administrators, even during the most intense firefights.
This seemingly stubborn rescue protocol often allowed the Imperial Guard to gain a significant advantage in the early stages of a war.
Ironically, this led the Imperium to pull a tactical joke during the subsequent Second Damocles Gulf Crusade, attempting to attack human colonies that had surrendered to the T'au Empire in order to force the enemy to retreat and defend them, utterly baffling the opposing commanders.
The mere thought of this made Romulus feel like he was going to laugh from sheer exasperation.
The thought process of that field commander was truly bizarre.
He had to admit that the T'au Empire was far more advanced in planetary governance than the current Imperium. Leaving aside those worlds struggling in Suffering, the imperial capital of Terra alone presented a suffocatingly vibrant and fiercely competitive scene.
This was not due to the Imperium lacking technology or talent, but pure apathy.
The high and mighty Nobles and lords cared nothing about the conditions of the planets they ruled. As long as tithes were paid on time and they superficially obeyed Imperial rule, whether the bottom-tier citizens lived like human beings was none of their concern.
Of course, there were exceptions.
For example, the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.
Even under the immense pressure of war, Ultramar during the Great Crusade Era maintained an astonishing pace of development.
Unlike other Space Marine Chapters, in Ultramar, candidates who failed the Adeptus Astartes modification surgery were not executed or demoted to Chapter Serfs. Instead, they were given the opportunity to enter core government positions.
Countless unarmored or surgically failed Astartes entered the government. Under their administrative assistance, the planetary governments maintained incredibly high efficiency.
The realm prospered, and the people lived in stability.
These superhuman warriors might have had various flaws, but bloat and corruption were certainly not among them.
The Invincible Iron Guard's auxiliary administration team, led by Dracus, had shattered his preconceptions more than once while helping Romulus manage the affairs of various planets along their journey.
The more he compared it to the past, the more utterly disappointed he became with the present Imperium.
Romulus tapped his fingers lightly against the railing of the observation deck. His gaze fell upon the T'au cities bursting with sporadic sparks in the distance. The dancing flames reflected fractured golden glimmers in his deep crimson irises.
He suddenly spoke up.
"I'm starting to understand why the Emperor explicitly restricted AI and held such extreme hostility toward Xenos."
"AI and Xenos are not the issue."
Cawl's mechanical augmetic eye flickered slightly as data streams rapidly scrolled across the lens. He clearly had his own understanding of this policy.
"Fundamentally, it is a human problem."
His tone carried a rare trace of lamentation.
If the Inquisition had intercepted their conversation, it would have been enough to get them tied to a stake and burned for three days and three nights. But in this moment, within a cabin enveloped by a stasis field, they exchanged a tacitly understood look.
In truth, the so-called AI was not prone to issues, and Rogue Traders dealt with all sorts of Xenos frequently.
The Adeptus Mechanicus continuously claimed that the entities housed in certain facilities were Machine Spirits, but were they truly Machine Spirits? Rogue Traders constantly insisted that the cargo transported by their fleets was a dynasty specialty, but was it really just a specialty?
Cawl had emphasized more than once that given the sheer power of AI, it was extremely difficult for Chaos to corrupt them. Even planetary-scale sacrifices might not breach the continuously updating algorithms of those AIs.
What was actually prone to problems were the humans.
"There is a very vivid example right in front of us."
Cawl seemed infected by the mood, opening up the floodgates of conversation.
Or rather, the Archmagos had long held his own views on this, but unfortunately, there had never been anyone he could discuss it with until now.
"Taking similarly integrated fleets, even with the naval forces of the Ultramar Sector being much stronger, why is their performance so unsatisfactory while the Expeditionary Fleet continues to win time after time?"
One side used its fleet to liberate hundreds of worlds, rebuild order, improve livelihoods, and was still bringing prosperity to the sectors they passed through.
The other side used its fleet to blunder massively, sacrificing hundreds of Imperial worlds.
The Archmagos tossed out a question, then continued.
"Do you know of the Unification Wars on Terra?"
"Of course."
Romulus nodded.
"Starting in 990.M29, when the Emperor established his armed forces at the original Sigillite stronghold beneath the Himalayas, until he reclaimed Pluto in 712.M30, the Emperor consolidated his control over Terra and officially declared victory in the Unification Wars. It took seven hundred and twenty-two years."
"In 798.M30, the Emperor completed the ideological and military unification of all factions within the Sol System, and the Great Crusade Era officially began."
Cawl's processors let out a faint hum. The aperture of his mechanical augmetic eye contracted slightly as he silently committed this piece of history to his memory core.
A rare hint of humanized confusion appeared on the Archmagos's mechanical faceplate—
'What exactly did these four lords do in the past?'
"The time it took the Emperor to unify Terra was far longer than the time he spent conquering the Galaxy."
Cawl's vocalizer produced a deep, resonant tone. His mechanical fingers gently tapped the edge of the Data-slate, offering a hint.
The Emperor who had swept across the Galaxy like a hurricane over two centuries, reclaiming a million worlds, had actually spent eight hundred years on his own homeworld.
"Because of the endless abuse of various forbidden technologies by Terran warlords, among which AI had the highest danger coefficient. The battle at the Storm Corridor involving the Eighteenth Legion was fought against an extermination relic machine deployed by a warlord. They claimed victory only at the cost of near-total annihilation."
With powerful self-evolution capabilities and foolproof one-click operations, even a pig could become a warlord if it had an AI. During the Age of Strife, these Terran warlords used bloody facts to show all of humanity what a stellar moment of subhumans looked like.
Why did the Emperor always strictly guard against Xenos and AI? Why was he so wary of power that surpassed mortals?
Romulus stared at the flashing battlefield markers on the tactical hologram in his field of vision. He had been commanding the troops the entire time.
It was just that over a thousand Adeptus Astartes had nearly completed taking control of the planet's critical facilities during their brief chat. The scars left from their long campaigns were now whispering a certain warning.
Because these entities allowed an individual's influence over the collective to grow exponentially. When power and virtue failed to match, it would only bring never-ending disaster.
After all, when pushed to the brink, humanity could drain the very last drop of Terra's oceans. If you gave them an open-ended choice, heaven only knew what they might pull off.
If restrictions were lifted, mankind might well have engineered some unimaginable catastrophic spectacle.
Therefore, to save time, the only option was a one-size-fits-all extreme approach. The remaining problems could be resolved slowly in civil wars after the fact.
Unfortunately, the Emperor Taking a Gamble ended in failure. The Imperium of Man, which was meant to be a temporary structure, had somehow absurdly survived ten millennia amidst raging storms.
Romulus's gaze swept over the busy servitors on the bridge. These half-human, half-machine cyborgs were the most typical manifestation of the Imperium's contradictory attitude toward technology.
Their current servitors were hand-modified from vat-grown humans, but what about the rest? What about those penal laborers enduring punishment?
"I think the Archmagos's example is far more fitting."
Having sorted out his thoughts and gained a brand-new understanding of why the Emperor had always avoided certain things, Romulus spoke.
"Very few can be like Archmagos Cawl—living for ten millennia, holding boundless wealth in his hands, yet remaining true to his original intentions."
The Transmigrators were still self-aware.
If they hadn't been lucky enough to transmigrate with a host of extraordinary abilities, allowing them to stir up trouble according to their predetermined plans, they would currently be watching all sorts of disasters fall from the sky, wailing 'I can't do anything!' while pounding the ground in despair.
If they had been unfortunate enough to reincarnate into an underhive, their lives would have been well and truly over from the start.
"You flatter me."
The optical lenses on Cawl's faceplate contracted slightly, displaying a data fluctuation akin to joy, though his voice remained impassive.
He accepted the praise, but his synthesized mechanical voice maintained the restraint typical of a scholar.
The conversational style of these few Primarchs was indeed comforting. They abandoned the arrogance typically found in the upper echelons of the Imperium, favoring discussions based on facts and logic.
When facing adversity, they first considered the root of the problem and the solution, rather than selectively ignoring contradictions.
It was precisely this rare empathy...
"Lord Romulus, in my view, I am afraid these Xenos are not entities you can unite with."
Cawl spoke with a degree of caution.
"Why would you think that?"
Romulus couldn't help but look surprised. He was indeed deeply dissatisfied with the Imperium's current state and appreciated the T'au's highly efficient governance model. He even cracked jokes about the Imperium every single day—
But that didn't mean he was naive enough to abandon the human faction to ally with Xenos.
Moreover, the T'au Empire was truly not a faction worth allying with.
His gaze swept over the T'au strongholds marked on the tactical hologram. Around those seemingly harmonious hexagonal complexes, the architectural ruins of another Xenos species still stood.
The T'au Empire could clearly recognize their own weakness and sought out more allies, which showed they had a clear understanding of themselves. However, their expansion had never been as gentle and harmless as it appeared on the surface.
They were predators, too.
The T'au Empire getting thrashed by the Imperium during the First Damocles Gulf Crusade was entirely their own fault.
Decades had passed since humanity's first contact with the T'au.
Over decades of trade, massive amounts of Xenos goods flooded the Imperium's borders like a tidal wave. Even the most obtuse Sector Governor should have noticed something amiss.
Yet all these years, successive governors had tacitly chosen to turn a blind eye.
After all, in the vast expanse of the expansion Sectors, worlds secretly dealing with Xenos were a dime a dozen. Even Throne Gelt had become hard currency in Commorragh, the Dark Eldar's lair. What did one more T'au faction matter?
Furthermore, thanks to AI-assisted production, T'au products were both high-quality and cheap. They were highly competitive across various Imperial worlds, and flipping them allowed the Nobles of the Sectors to make a killing.
Normally, things could have just continued like this—you sell your goods, and I provide my resources.
The ring of Warp Storms surrounding the core worlds of the T'au Empire had deterred Imperial Rogue Traders from exploring the area for millennia, not to mention the High Lords who were already exhausted by Macarius's crusade.
But look at what the T'au Empire did.
While conducting diplomacy and trade, the Water Caste engaged in a bit of espionage on the side. They investigated local social conditions, armed rebels, and incited indigenous populations to overthrow their planetary governments and join the T'au Empire.
By the time the Damocles Crusade began, over a dozen fringe human worlds had been absorbed into T'au territory. Many planetary governments openly declared their induction into the T'au Empire's Greater Good.
Never mind an extreme government like the Imperium of Man; replace it with any modern Sovereign Nation, and they wouldn't tolerate such a thing.
And then, only when a punitive fleet was right in their faces did they realize it was time to negotiate?
You can't wait until the Imperial fleet's Macro-cannons have fired and your war of aggression has turned into a desperate defensive war to remember you should send the Water Caste to parley with Imperial authorities.
No matter how beautifully packaged, the T'au Empire was ultimately an Expansionist Regime on the rise. They possessed a natural need for expansion and were destined to clash violently with a conservative and extreme Imperium.
And the Imperium of Man was the quintessential example of a force brutal to both outsiders and its own people. After this wave of conflict, not only would the T'au suffer, but their own people would bear the brunt of it.
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