StarCraft: Tyranid Empire

The time Augustus really felt how much Kerrigan said she missed him was when he saw the mountains of documents. This was more frightening than the roaring charge of thousands of insect swarms. He would rather fight with the fanatical Templar warriors than face the cruel reality in front of him.

But aside from the mountain of government affairs, Augustus was still happy to stay in the palace.

The walls of the room he used as his office were lined with mahogany wainscoting, a warm fireplace exuded a soothing aroma, and the clear sky was outside the half-open windows. It's very quiet here, giving people a sense of comfort and security.

Augustus had a good sleep yesterday and woke up feeling energetic and with a good appetite. Augustus's youngest daughter Charlotte can already speak, which makes him feel a lot better.

After returning, the first thing Augustus dealt with was the payment of pensions and various subsidies after the Battle of Ayr. At the same time, he ensured that the people below could meticulously carry out the pensions for soldiers' widows and the resettlement of a large number of disabled soldiers. Because the number of casualties is almost impossible to announce, the difficulty of follow-up work is also extremely staggering.

Dealing with these things made Augustus extremely tired and always sad.

But just yesterday, a lot of government affairs accumulated that I had no time to deal with.

In the Tyran Empire, the emperor is also called the head of state and has overall political and military power. These matters must be decided by him personally.

Governors from various parts of the empire would also report their work directly to the emperor, and the matters they talked about would vary in severity, and Augustus would have to review them one by one. Therefore, regardless of whether it is important or not, these imperial officials must point out that Augustus once called Governor Vygoire to Augustgrad and beat him up because he could not stand his nonsense.

Regarding these "memorials", he actually wanted to reply like this: Sirs, please stop memorializing. I already know these issues, but I am not God, let alone a wishing machine.

The situation of each imperial planet is different, and there are also differences in the intensity of implementation of policies by local governments, and the problems they encounter are even more varied. Some planetary governors can solve problems easily, while other planetary governors fail miserably.

For example, the governor of the lunar colony in Meinhof 426 (Colony 426) handled the influx of hundreds of millions of refugees very well, but only a few hundred thousand refugees brought the order of New Venice to the brink of collapse.

On the other hand, the Terran Empire is a vast interstellar empire. The backward areas are often very different from the core worlds that were first established. Many planets are extremely xenophobic, and there are even old enemies between each other, which further tests the ability of the Governor-General's government. .

Mar Sara is a world similar to the American West, where criminals and sheriffs riding vultures battle wits in the wilderness all day long, while the imperial dignitaries of Terrador enjoy swimming pools, ski resorts and yachts. The government is full of sycophants.

Many planets are not of the same mind as the imperial government due to historical issues. Today, the Minister of Autonomous Territory Affairs of the Empire reported to Augustus that the situation in Abaddon and Santee was turbulent, and the locals were bringing up the old matter of independence from the empire.

There are also many colonies in the empire that are seeking independence, or at least demanding the power of internal autonomy. After all, the last person to take the lead in doing so was Korhal.

But there is nothing to worry about. As long as the threat of the insect swarm is still there, they will not dare to leave the empire. Moreover, the Free Territories enjoyed chartered religious freedom and independent economic policies, but they still had to pay taxes and perform military service.

Augustus could give it, but they couldn't force him to give it, otherwise there would be chaos.

With a sigh, Augustus picked up the documents on the table and read them.

All in all, there are a lot of troubles in the empire now. There are powerful enemies outside and a lot of internal conflicts. Some problems cannot be solved at all under the current situation. It can be said that they are hard to recover from.

The empire's highly centralized power system and solid and strong industrial foundation enabled them to successfully complete the transition from a peaceful economic system to a wartime system in response to foreign invasion. With the experience of previous all-out wars, both the government and the people have shown amazing calmness and extremely high efficiency.

During the Doomsday War, the Terran Empire government placed far more orders for large-scale military projects, weapons, and warships than during the Brood War and the Second Total War. This led to unprecedented prosperity in the military and civilian industries, and forging machines in factories were The sound of machine hammering roared all night long, and every tank, every tank, and every walking mecha driven out of the heavy factory would eventually converge into a rolling torrent of steel.

The Empire's military technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in these years. They drew inspiration and learned technology from the Earthlings, Protoss, Zerg, and Xel'Naga. Any veteran who has served since the beginning of the Empire can feel that the armor they wear has become stronger and the firepower has become more powerful.

Augustus saw that Archer, the current Minister of Munitions of the Empire, mentioned in the report that the Empire should increase the output of Widow Mines and restart the production lines of Iron Crow point defense drones and hunter-killer missiles to meet the needs of the front line. Soldiers' needs.

He thought it made sense, but he did not want to crowd out the production space of other weapons and asked the other party to give a more detailed report and list the data.

The Imperial Munitions Department is responsible for coordinating the efforts of the various Imperial production departments to fulfill orders for the planetary armies, marines, and navies.

Of course, according to the rules, Minister Archer cannot deal with people in the Finance Department, or even have any contact. He only considers whether the empire's production capacity can keep up with order demand, and never considers how much military expenditure this will generate. For example, if there is an urgent need for more siege tanks, you may choose to reduce the production of Wolf Warrior and Goliath armed robots.

On the positive side, the demand for the military industry can significantly solve the employment problem and boost the economy. However, in the long run, this is not a good thing. Maintaining the wartime system for a long time will cause irreparable damage to the economy.

Because of this, Augustus pursued a quick resolution of the battle on the Ayr battlefield while stabilizing the front.

After approving the report of the Ministry of Munitions, Augustus saw the Minister of the Interior reporting that cases in Korhal and other imperial worlds had increased significantly. At the same time, the number of pirate organizations has also increased significantly. He listed the names of Hel's Angels (hel is Hela) and Tyrador blood-shrike, indicating that they frequently attack The Imperial fleet transports cargo, seeking protection from the Imperial Navy.

The intensity of the Doomsday War was also far greater than before. It could be said that the empire was jointly attacked by the protoss and the main force of the insect swarm at the same time. As a result, the empire needs to summon more reservists, build more fleets, and ensure their supplies to maintain combat effectiveness in the long-term preparations for war.

Building a huge military force is one thing, maintaining it is another. Behind every Imperial soldier fighting on the front lines are two to three support staff and workers. This is still before productivity. in case of damage.

To maximize its war potential, the empire had to undergo an industrial transformation to ensure the supply of military supplies while requiring workers to work more hours. The government needs to intervene in the market economy, control prices, moderate consumption, and ensure that the salaries distributed to workers and soldiers will not shrink significantly due to inflation.

But just like in the past, the living standards of neither them nor ordinary people are much higher. Especially when they are repeatedly defeated, the social atmosphere becomes obviously depressing and dull. The people can tolerate the decline in living standards, but cannot allow the army to fail one after another while they continue to make sacrifices, without any hope.

Previously, when facing the Golden Fleet and the Insect Swarm, the Empire adopted a strategy of avoiding their sharp edges and shrinking the defense line. Although it achieved many local victories, it still continued to lose ground overall, and a large number of resentful refugees began to pour into the core world. , causing a lot of chaos and unrest, and crime incidents also increased significantly. As security declined, so did the number of mercenaries and pirates.

This situation did not ease until the Golden Fleet and the Insect Swarm suddenly withdrew from the Empire World and the Battle of Aiur was won.

However, the concentrated influx of these people solved the empire's growing manpower shortage problem to a certain extent during wartime. After all, so many people became workers, soldiers, miners, and even employees of the Empire's wartime bureaucracy, all of which required manpower.

But compared with the loss of losing these marginal worlds, this is far from making up for it.

It is easy to destroy a world, but it takes a lot of time and money to terraform a planet and make it habitable, sometimes even several generations of effort. Even though humans can survive in extremely harsh environments with perseverance and wisdom, for them, habitable planets are still as precious in the universe as flowers in the desert.

During the First Contact War, the protoss only burned those planets that had been infected by the zerg, but this time they treated them equally, reducing their own and human homes to ashes.

In his reply to the Minister of the Interior, Augustus said that the police and border security systems are allowed to recruit more people and increase funding, but whether they can recruit people depends on themselves. As for the problem of pirates, the mines have been short of people recently, so it's just a matter of sleepiness.

At the same time, Augustus was pleased to note that the Minister of Agriculture reported that food production had steadily increased recently, a large part of which came from the newly opened colonies in the Sigma Sector.

The most important industrial areas of the empire are basically in the core world, but the outer fringe world also provides a large amount of food and raw materials. The direct impact of this is a food crisis and a reduction in industrial production.

Thanks to the grain storage system that Augustus attached great importance to since the establishment of the empire, the imperial government brought a large amount of affordable food to the market, which suppressed the rise in grain prices due to extreme panic and maintained price stability. The great war at the end of the old federation Famine did not happen again.

In order to solve the shortage of raw materials, build fleets, and extract more crystal minerals and high-energy gas in a shorter time, the Tyranid Empire's ever-expanding mining industry has hollowed out more than one planet, and the damage it has caused is no less than The Kaimorian Federation, known as the interstellar locusts.

During this period, there was great chaos within the empire, especially in the fringe worlds where the empire's control was weak. Businessmen who had greatly benefited from the country's financial difficulties took the opportunity to hoard goods and buy large quantities of grain and other in-demand goods, causing prices to skyrocket. This was a routine operation.

At the same time, entrepreneurs refuse to raise wages and even fire local workers who demand higher wages, hiring refugees from other worlds to increase profits with lower labor costs. Then, they will pass on the conflicts between the unemployed workers and themselves to the migrant workers. As a result, the locals will become more and more disgusted with the refugees who caused them to lose their jobs, but few people remember who actually fired them.

Things like this happen all the time in chaotic times.

When Augustus overthrew the Old Federation, he eliminated the senatorial families of Tarsonis in one fell swoop, killing many people. These long-standing families controlled the politics of the Old Federation and most of the wealth. But after that, another group of families quickly filled the vacancies of the elder families. They were the upstarts of the empire world, military families and the owners of another group of large consortiums and large enterprises.

Even before the war broke out, these entrepreneurs with large amounts of money began to try to get involved in politics again, infiltrating and buying local planetary parliament members, inducing them to propose policies that were more beneficial to them, and even indirectly using the Marine Corps to protect their assets. .

When the war broke out, these conglomerate families naturally regarded their own interests as more important than the empire and imperial power. But they didn't dare to disobey Augustus. After all, this emperor had killed the senatorial family that had been rooted in the Federation for centuries.

Augustus has been watching this with a cold eye, waiting for someone to jump out and oppose him so that he can reap a wave of wealth and regain his blood.

A few compliments were given to the Minister of Agriculture, and a report from a diplomat made Augustus laugh out loud.

After the Battle of Aiur, the United States of Umoyan claimed that they had reopened their borders with the Duram Protoss, but had yet to receive any response from the other side. In fact, the Umoyan people themselves knew that no one cared whether the border was closed or not, the golden fleet and the zerg could still come in without fail.

Rather than being sad, it is better to say that the Umoyan government made one thing wrong, that is, the method they used to deal with the Tyranid Empire did not work on the protoss at all. In the Koprulu sector, strength, more directly speaking, military strength is the most important.

At present, Umoyan is still an independent regime, but Augustus abides by the promise made during the Revolutionary Army, but the Umoyan people always feel that Augustus will take action against them sooner or later.

After Augustus read it, he issued another order to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that is, in addition to the original cooperation projects, a certain amount of arms could be sold to Umoyan. If they were willing to talk, the Imperial Navy could provide them with protection in the event of a zerg invasion.

In short, Augustus did not intend to sit back and watch Umoyan's demise, but the protection fee had to be collected, so his help could not be in vain, and the Tyranids could not die in vain.

The following reports are more military in nature, such as a border planet experiencing a rapidly spreading infection crisis and all infected houses must be destroyed before the infection spreads further.

Stukov said that the Void Tearers appeared again on Char and were launching an attack on the Imperial Fortress. Everything seemed to be a repeat of the Korhal Rift incident, and Amon's power was reviving.

General Davis reported that the environment of Viridia is rapidly deteriorating, and the extremely increased crustal movement is destroying the planet. Psykers loyal to the Imperial government believe that this is the work of the Dark God.

Amon's army reactivated several protoss space-time channels in the ruins of Kayadir to transport their military power. The nearest imperial world is in danger (End of Chapter)