Chapter 806: Cricket in a Golden Cage
Magre universe, Mi Ting star domain, Mi Ting star.
The golden dome reflected the light of the artificial sun, immersing the entire meeting room in a honey-like color. The chairman of the Magre Universe, Kane Archavon, leaned on the throne inlaid with teardrop-shaped rubies, and the pearl curtain made a crackling sound as he trembled nervously.
Below him, many ministers knelt on the black jade floor tiles inlaid with star maps, with electronic shackles engraved with family crests around their necks - this was a new policy three months ago, and Archavon claimed that it was necessary to ensure "the focus of the court meeting."
He had to do it.
It has been thirty years since the Great Disaster. Fifteen years ago, Archavon was not like this. At that time, he was still determined to make progress.
There is something special about the place called Magre Universe.
Due to some historical issues, the chairman of this universe is a long-term member of a dynasty family that has been in power for thousands of years.
Ten thousand years ago, when the Emperor was on the Great Crusade, the Archavon family was the ruling family of a pocket empire of humanity called "Maigre" with the planet Miding as its core. When the Emperor arrived, they quickly surrendered the entire pocket empire.
Moreover, their country was very special. During that longer dark age, the country of Magre was surprisingly normal.
In their country, there is neither disgusting alien technology nor disturbing subspace power. It is a pure human country with a good standard of living for the people. It is an enlightened monarchy...
Their complete surrender not only brought the Empire hundreds of complete and pure worlds, but they also actively responded to the Empire's call, provided resources, formed legions, and sent troops to fight. In the great expedition that lasted for hundreds of years, they played a great role in helping the Empire recover the entire universe.
Therefore, this universe was named after the country of Magre and was permanently granted to the Archavon family. The chairman of the universe was controlled by the eternal line of the Archavon Dynasty, known as the "Maigre Royal Family".
The Archavon family once had a glorious history. Not only did they make great contributions to the empire during the Great Crusade, but after the Great Crusade, they also produced many wise kings. There were even many times when King Magre went to Holy Terra and served as the High Lord as the Chairman of the Universe.
But the empire is a big melting pot.
After being incorporated into the Empire for thousands of years, what the former Magre Kingdom was like can only be seen in documents, records, and history. Today's Magre Star Region is no different from the general Imperial Space Region. The Magre royal family has also "degenerated" in the long, worry-free life of power.
It's impossible that there will be wise kings in every generation, right?
The so-called "eternal line" of the Archavon royal family could not really reach the level of "eternal line" after such a long time. In the last thousand years, the Archavon family lost the position of chairman of the Magre Universe many times, and until the last thousand years, their family was not in power for 800 years.
Even though they do not directly control the position of Chairman of the Universe, they are still one of the most important political families in the Magre Universe.
Kane Archavon's great-grandfather came to power during the last Iron Armor War. He took advantage of the chaos caused by the invasion of the Iron Armor Army when the Magre Universe came to power. After the war, the Archavon family was caught in a political siege and looked precarious.
Kane Alkavon was a young king. At the age of fifty-four, he took over the unstable throne of Magre from his great-grandfather.
He was lucky to stand out from the countless descendants of the royal family of Archavon; he was able to stabilize Archavon's already unstable royal power, which also proved that he was capable.
But the Great Cataclysm broke out in the tenth year after he came to power. From this perspective, he was unfortunate.
Even more unfortunate - or one could say fortunately - in the first year of the Cataclysm, at the most chaotic time, he received a "Letter to Fellow Citizens in the Disaster" from the High Lord and Alliance leader Gu Hang.
This seemed like an opportunity.
Just like his ancestor ten thousand years ago, when facing the incoming emperor, he made an extremely correct choice, which at least guaranteed their family's prosperity and wealth for ten thousand years.
Now, the same choice came before him.
And he, without hesitation -
He chose to scold Gu Hang.
In the entire Magre universe, he was the one who cursed Gu Hang the most harshly.
Call him a thief, a traitor to the Empire, a betrayer of trust, an accomplice of Chaos...
All of them smashed onto Gu Hang's head.
He did not accept the Alliance from the bottom of his heart. Even before the Cataclysm, he was a staunch anti-Alliance faction, believing that it was a warlord separatist on the border, and thus received support from the central government of the empire in many policies.
He is jealous of Gu Hang. Who are you? Do you want to bully me?
Are you worthy of being a high lord?
Are you worthy of being a savior?
In short, I don't recognize it.
From the perspective of practical interests, accepting the Control Committee would guarantee a certain amount of power under this new system. However, how could that compare with the royal power?
As for comparing this opportunity with his ancestors ten thousand years ago... Don't be ridiculous, can Gu Hang be compared with the emperor, can he establish a new empire, and then continue his family for another ten thousand years?
Dream on!
And McGregor is not the only one who has similar ideas.
Everyone knows what the alliance system is. No matter how much they guarantee the existing vested interest groups, it can only be said to reduce losses. In the final analysis, they still want to subvert the status quo, redistribute, and reform. In any case, power and wealth will be taken away from them. In the future, they will not be able to enjoy much of the dividends of social development. The alliance's rank system does have a very good living standard for high-level people, but it is different from now, everything is mine and private.
These opponents still have a lot of power, and after Kane Alkavon issued a declaration against Gu Hang, these people united around him quite smoothly.
The entire group was still very powerful in the early stages of the catastrophe. They were united and determined to forge ahead. In the first fifteen years of the catastrophe, they established a circle of contacts covering more than a hundred worlds.
Both communication and navigation have been opened up.
Although it is impossible to be as smooth as an alliance, it is already rare under the current environment.
But they paid a lot in the process. The loss of population is secondary, and the shrinkage of wealth is even more heartbreaking.
At this point, many people in the interest groups feel that it is enough. Everyone has been very successful and it is time to make money and make back the losses caused by the catastrophe and the cost of the past fifteen years of redevelopment.
Even Archavon himself had similar thoughts.
Especially in the process of outward expansion, as the size of the entire regime becomes larger and larger, the cost of outward expansion rises sharply and the difficulty reaches a daunting level.
Exploration gradually ceased, and hedonism and extravagance began to prevail again.
This step of the process happened so quickly that it even caught people off guard.
And these trends are even more serious than before the Cataclysm.
All-day cocktail parties, splendid ceremonies, exquisite architecture and works of art...if it were just that, it might be normal.
But many abnormal things, such as wild and debauched parties, abuse of psychotropic drugs, pedophilia, homosexuality, group promiscuity, and killing for fun... these are unacceptable. Even some more disgusting and more humane "fun" has become popular in secret.
It is said that Kane Archavon also personally participated in some of them, and later on, he even became a "big player".
But all of these were threatened three years ago.
After more than twenty years of dark side crusades, the Alliance has finally arrived.
The arrival of the Alliance shattered the self-deception of the Magre Universe government: before this, they generally believed that the Alliance's so-called saving of all the imperial worlds was just bragging. With thousands of worlds between them, it was unknown how long it would take for the Alliance to reach them - especially after they had personally experienced how difficult and painful it was to expand outward.
Even if the alliance could really come, it would take who knows how many hundreds of years.
As a result, the alliance was established in just twenty years.
The two sides officially went to war.
But given the current behavior of the Universe Government, can we still fight?
Yes.
In recent years, the number of psychics found in the more than 100 worlds under the jurisdiction of the Miting Star authorities has increased significantly, and the number of mutants infected by the subspace has also increased significantly. The latter should have been dealt with seriously, but some dignitaries, after "playing" with them privately, claimed that these mutants were also trustworthy and recruited a large number of them into the army.
The combat power of these mutants was quite good. Coupled with the fact that the number of psychic wizards was dozens of times that of the past, they were able to fight the Alliance fairly well in the early stages of the war.
It's just the beginning.
Then, when the alliance increased its efforts and changed its tactics, their doomsday was approaching day by day.
On the star Mi Ting, another court meeting was held against this backdrop.
"So what you're saying is..." Archavon suddenly craned his neck, and the amethyst monitor embedded in his cheekbone flashed a dangerous red light, "The execution of Admiral Hawke was a mistake?"
The Chief of Military Affairs' Adam's apple rolled: "We are just worried that executing the best fleet commander will shake the situation..."
"What are you shaking? Shake the efficiency of the maggots eating the rotten flesh?" Archavon suddenly opened the curtain, revealing a face covered with purple veins - that was the sequelae of long-term injection of some high-quality medicine. He stepped barefoot on the back of the kneeling chief financial officer, and the spine with pleasure interfaces bulged like a centipede under the silk robe.
Another minister knelt and handed over a data tablet: "In the past three months, the rate of fall of border galaxies has increased by 37%. The royal fleet needs..."
"We need purer loyalty!" Archavon kicked the data board to pieces, and the sharp fragments scratched the minister's cheek. "Just like the truth I discovered when I cleansed the kitchen last month - when 98% of the common ingredients are removed, the girl's heart and liver soup will reveal its true flavor."
There was a sudden muffled sound from the dome of the hall, and a few grains of gold powder fell on the carefully maintained wig of the Minister of Etiquette. Everyone tacitly ignored the regular tremors that had lasted for four months - that was the aftermath of the bombing of the orbital defense platform.
Four months ago, small-scale alliance fleets had been invading the Miting galaxy, occasionally firing at the orbital defense platform system.
"Perhaps we could consider contacting the Control Committee..." The young Foreign Affairs Secretary was interrupted just as he began to speak.
"Contact?" Archavon suddenly chuckled, grabbed a silver comb with barbs from the secret compartment of the throne, and began to comb his tangled hair frantically. "Do you know what happened in the execution room yesterday? The guy who claimed to be Gu Hang's messenger, his internal organs were reorganized into an art painting in the strong magnetic field!"
“In fact, the loyalty of the people…” Just as the Civil Affairs Minister activated the holographic projection, the Führer pierced his palm with a silver comb and nailed him to the wall.
"Loyalty? Let me see!" Archavon inserted the neural access port into the eye socket of the Minister of Civil Affairs, and a blood-stained holographic image suddenly filled the hall - a flesh and blood mass was being held in the bottom floor of a hive, and mutant believers were using bone spurs to carve excerpts from "A Letter to Our Fellow Citizens in Disaster" on the wall.
"Is this what you call loyalty?!" He pinched the Minister of Civil Affairs' skull with his hands, and his purple nails began to extend, starting from the different organs of the head and slowly inserting into the brain.
The intense pain caused the other party to scream, but to Archavon's ears, it sounded like wonderful music.
He even listened to the whispers of pain in countless past tortures and learned how to adjust his techniques to make the music more beautiful.
Most of the ministers around him were enjoying themselves together with him. Although they might become "instruments" in the future, at least they were still listeners for now.
But there were a few who kept clear eyes and looked at each other.
The most important defense minister in the Ministry of Military Affairs finally sighed silently and nodded slightly under the gazes of several other colleagues.
After getting the hint, the foreign affairs secretary pressed a button on his lower back with a sigh of relief.
After 36 minutes, the torture is almost over and the movement is about to end.
But at this moment, all the lights in the royal court began to flicker violently. Then, as everyone panicked, they suddenly went out.
Twelve lightning bolts split open the explosion-proof door of the meeting hall. The Terminator Space Marines, wearing a red background with a white border and the emblem of a bird reborn from the ashes, walked heavily over the black jade floor tiles.
(End of this chapter)
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