Civilian factories served a similar purpose to those in the original game, producing various “consumer goods” and accelerating real-world infrastructure development.
Originally, some of the 13 workers should have been reserved for maintaining basic living conditions and couldn’t be used, but perhaps due to a lack of such a mechanism in Huron’s system, all workers were available.
Therefore, after all the recruits were converted, Huron eagerly convened a small meeting with the “Badab Government” group led by Odinson.
This group consisted of about one hundred people, mostly recruits converted from administrative personnel, with a smaller number of Chaplains and Librarians.
Although many had management experience, and Odinson had even served as a planetary governor for a considerable time, the group was still largely a makeshift operation.
Because the common system in the Warhammer world is the classic “my vassal’s vassal is not my vassal” — the Administratum has no say in how the planetary governor governs, the planetary governor has no say in how the nobility governs, and the nobility has no say in how the leaders of their subordinate factions govern.
As long as taxes are paid and no one clamors for rebellion, life is peaceful.
This is reflected in Huron’s interface.
Even within the puppet state of Badab, there are numerous layers of interconnected factions.
Organizations like the Ecclesiarchy and the Arbites fortress are just the beginning; the former planetary governor, nobles, guilds, gangs, and merchant guilds are also layered upon each other, creating a multitude of factions.
Currently, the Astral Claws only control a portion of Paratos, the planet’s largest hive city.
This absurd system naturally doesn’t meet Huron’s expectations.
Even if a high degree of centralization is impossible, at least ensure unified command.
What are you trying to achieve by creating so many factions?
The system’s judgment of “factions” isn’t arbitrary.
You first have to be an independent force, and then there have to be actual mutual interests for it to count.
In other words, these people are essentially creating independent kingdoms on his planet.
Therefore, Huron’s first request to Odinson was to establish a centralized, unified administrative system, eliminating as many nobles as possible from the original Badab system.
Odinson looked troubled: “Chapter Master, this is too difficult.
Even disregarding the various industries controlled and monopolized by those nobles, we don’t have enough manpower.”
As a veteran nobleman who had spent so much time in a highly militarized organization like the Astral Claws Chapter, Odinson naturally understood Huron’s desire for centralization.
But precisely because of this, he knew even more how difficult it would be to establish such a system, even with a hundred or so transhumans.
Because it required not just a small number of transhumans, but a large number of grassroots administrative personnel.
Based on his experience, to govern Paratos’s hive city with a population of 20 billion using this system, an optimistic estimate would be around 1 billion grassroots administrative officials.
Even if only governing a portion of the hive city initially, it would still require millions, even tens of millions.
The Astral Claws, including their serfs, number only a few hundred thousand.
The Chapter Master also demands that they break away from the original aristocratic system as much as possible.
So where do these people come from?
Huron patted Odinson on the shoulder, reassuring him, “Don’t worry, I have the Emperor’s blessing.
The auxiliary forces will soon be able to train a large number of capable administrative personnel.
Now, you just need to set up the framework.”
These past few days, Huron had been constantly mentioning the Emperor’s blessing, but the successful transformation of over a thousand battle-brothers was a real achievement, as were their daily weapons and equipment.
Therefore, most people accepted Huron’s status as the Emperor’s chosen one, even a living saint.
Thus, the meeting to reorganize the Chapter’s serfs and establish a larger, more detailed, and professional Chapter auxiliary force was smoothly passed.
Hearing the Chapter Master’s assurance, Odinson felt slightly relieved and began discussing with others how to build this system.
Because Huron stipulated that they were not allowed to adopt a super-military control model like the Chapters, the management team could only find answers from past experience.
However, the administrative personnel Huron promised hadn’t arrived, and they weren’t sure about the quality of the first batch of chapter support troops.
Therefore, their efforts were essentially all talk and no action, which is why Huron thought the “Badab Government” was a shoddy operation.
After listening to their discussion for a while, Huron signaled them to pause: “Put everything else aside for now.
Our first objective is to control basic resources, such as food, water, energy, and air circulation, to avoid being controlled by the nobles after a falling out.”
Odinson thought for a moment and offered his idea: “In that case, our first goal could be to expand the production scale of corpse starch.”
Huron was curious: “Why?”
Odinson showed Huron the data on his tablet: “Because we happen to have the relevant resources.
After the nobles who colluded with the xenos to smuggle addictive neurotoxins rebelled, many corpse starch guilds joined them.
Now we have control of these traitors’ assets.”
Huron’s claim to be the governor of the Badab sector stemmed from a rebellion by some nobles on Badab who had smuggled with the xenos, attempting to overthrow the previous planetary governor’s rule.
After the Astral Claws Chapter was invited to quell the rebellion, the rebels were quickly suppressed, and their assets naturally fell into the Chapter’s hands.
Although many nobles, especially the former planetary governors, are now trying to justify seizing these assets, they dare not act too recklessly given the Astral Claws’ determination to establish themselves in Badab.
Huron glanced at the relevant data, which included a considerable number of corpse starch factories and production equipment.
If these resources could be integrated and utilized, at least feeding the inhabitants of Paratos Hive wouldn’t be a problem.
And being well-fed, especially for the lower hive inhabitants, was practically a dream.
Huron already had a plan in mind.
“Benefiting” from the Imperial upper class’s fear and rejection of the self-evolving Iron Men, the lower classes also developed an aversion to electronics and automated machinery.
As a result, many industries retained a significant amount of manual labor; most people preferred skilled workers to artificial intelligence.
The same applies to Odinson’s planned starch factory expansion project, which, according to his plan, would require the mobilization of a total of hundreds of millions of people as labor.
These workers were primarily used for transportation, unloading, and installation; only the more complex and sophisticated tasks involved the use of machinery.
As for their wages?
Odinson felt the Chapter Masters were relatively friendly towards mortals, so he also provided the workers with considerably high compensation.
Not only were meals provided, but they also received extra starch and vitamin pills as wages and bonuses.
When Huron saw this, his brows furrowed.
What bothered him even more was that, according to his memory, Odinson’s arrangement was indeed very benevolent.
Not only were meals provided, but there were also extra wages and bonuses.
Vitamin pills were a true luxury, even medicinal for the lower hivers.
However, precisely because of this, Huron decided to select the first batch of auxiliary troops from these workers and their families.
With sufficient food and drink, the lower-class people of Warhammer were quite obedient, because under tens of thousands of years of large-scale artificial selection, the disobedient had long been eliminated.
Odinson’s favor was enough to make these hivers deeply grateful, further strengthening the stability of the auxiliary forces.
Only at this moment could Huron feel the madness of the Warhammer world.
But he was powerless to change it, and could only use the system to change the status quo as quickly as possible.