Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 600

Chapter 598: Adding the Second Group

When Gu Hang received the report from Phantom Moon, he simply glanced at it before signing to indicate he had read it and agreed with the next steps.

His casual attitude wasn’t because the matters of Fury and the New World Torch were unimportant.

On the contrary, they were quite important.

Gu Hang had long wanted to eliminate Paulitus. He had caused considerable trouble for Gu Hang and the Alliance.

If Paulitus had simply found a place to fight a decisive battle with the Alliance, there wouldn’t have been so much trouble, and the war wouldn’t have dragged on for so long.

Eliminating them would eliminate a significant hidden danger. Finally, there were no significant, threatening enemy forces within the Proud Claw Segmentum.

For the Phoenix Chapter, the Alliance had helped them achieve one-third of their revenge.

The surrender of the New World Torch also brought benefits.

Gu Hang didn’t really care much for those two hundred Space Marines.

Their abilities aside, who would trust them after they betrayed him twice and were traitors to their families?

No matter how magnanimous Gu Hang was, he wasn’t willing to place Wang Mengsong and the two hundred or so New World Torches he led in any crucial position. They had already proven themselves incapable of withstanding the pressure. If they’d defected twice in times of crisis for survival, they’d surely defect a third time.

But the New World Torches themselves were still more important.

Ever since he learned there was a limit to the amount of Phoenix Seeds he could redeem, Gu Hang had to consider recruiting more Chapters to acquire more gene-seed and produce more Space Marines.

After the New World Torches surrendered, a new gene-seed redemption option appeared on the Chapter interface.

This was their greatest value.

The new gene-seed available wasn’t called ‘New World Torch’ gene-seed, but ‘Secondary Infinite Gene-seed.’

The parent Chapter of the New World Torch Chapter was none other than the Infinite Chapter. This was well documented; during the founding of the Faro Army, the newly formed Chapters were largely constructed using gene-seed from the Infinite Chapter lineage.

This wasn’t surprising at all.

The Infinite Chapter had been the largest of the Legion’s ranks back then. Their gene-seed compatibility was among the highest of all newly-founded Legions, meaning the success rate of gene-seed implantation was the highest. Furthermore, their Legion had been adept at management since its inception, so it was quite natural that they had the largest number of members.

With a large number of members, when the Legion split, there were more Chapters, resulting in more gene-seed taxes. Later, when the Legion was rebuilt, more Chapters were created using the Infinite Marines’ seeds. More Chapters, more members, more gene-seed taxes…

This cycle continued in a positive way until today, with the Infinite Marines, blue helmets and blue armor, and many descendants.

But why was it a “secondary” seed?

Shouldn’t the Infinite Marines’ gene-seed be one of the most stable? How could it degenerate?

After a moment’s reflection, combined with his knowledge of Space Marine gene-seed and the situation with the Phoenix, he formed a rough hypothesis.

Over the long years and countless generations, the Space Marines’ gene-seed would undergo some “changes.” Some gene-seeds were less stable, so the magnitude of these changes could be greater.

This also involves a characteristic of gene-seed: Gene-seed that matures in the fifth year doesn’t count. The seed that has been with a Space Marine throughout their life, removed upon their death, carries a portion of their host’s “information.”

This is combat experience and skills.

When implanted into a new individual, it won’t instantly transform them into a mature warrior, but it can greatly accelerate the process. The information contained in the gene-seed becomes something akin to biological instinct, allowing the new warrior to inherit the legacy.

Space Marines mature rapidly and often inherit many of their previous masters’ fighting styles.

Chapters like the Phoenix, with their thousands-year history, are considered relatively ancient. This means that they have inherited the original Phoenix gene and undergone similar changes and transformations over millennia. Furthermore, Phoenix gene-seed is not known for its stability, so some differences between their gene-seed and that of the parent Chapter are normal.

Furthermore, the Phoenix’s past history contains some unknown experiences…

As a result, their current gene-seed isn’t completely different from that of the Phoenix, but the differences are significant.

This is what Gu Hang could see on his system dashboard: the gene-seed he exchanged was called ‘Phoenix Seed,’ not ‘Phoenix Seed.’

Gu Hang suspected the Blood Sharks would be in a similar situation.

However, they hadn’t yet appeared in Gu Hang’s Chapter list, and their gene-seed couldn’t be exchanged, so he could only wait and see.

As for the New World Torch, their situation was different.

The New World Torch had been established not long ago, only about three hundred years. Their Chapter had only reached the fifth generation, and even a significant number of second- and third-generation members

remained. This was clearly insufficient to support significant changes in the Chapter’s gene-seed, especially for a Chapter like the Infinite Warriors, whose gene-seed remained unchanged from its founding.

The reason for the secondary gene-seed was easy to understand.

In theory, each Chapter was required to submit one-tenth of its newly generated gene-seed to the Imperium as a gene-seed tax, which would be stored by the Mechanicus, inspected, and sealed in the gene-seed vault.

Given this situation, what kind of seed would each Chapter submit?

The only requirement was quantity, which naturally meant submitting the least active seeds, produced over a five-year period. Those salvaged from veteran warriors and elites, as well as those with exceptionally high activity, would be kept for themselves.

These generally inferior gene-seeds, after being sent to Mars, remained in cold storage for who knows how many years.

The Mechanicus’s gene-seed preservation techniques were undoubtedly excellent. However, time is the ultimate killer. Even the best preservation techniques inevitably diminished after centuries or even millennia of storage.

The most significant impact of this diminished gene-seed activity was a lower success rate for implantation.

A secondary, less obvious consequence was a varying degree of weakening in the strength of the resulting superhuman organs after a successful implantation.

This problem could be gradually resolved and improved over a long period of time, as the Chapter, through repeated brutal battles, accumulated a sufficient number of veterans, and their gene-seed was passed down through generations.

However… the New World Torch, both in its founding and in its centuries of development, was insufficient to sustain the cultivation and optimization of its own seeds.

When it fell into Gu Hang’s hands, it became the ‘second-rate Infinite Warrior gene seed’.

However, he soon stopped dwelling on the issue.

Subpar, so be it; they were still Space Marines.

Gu Hang wasn’t without a way to make up for it. Through the training interface, he could raise the level of Space Marines to a higher level.

For veterans, champions, and the like, the differences brought about by gene-seed would be reduced to a negligible level.

Wait… thinking about this, Gu Hang realized another problem: not every Space Marine has the potential to be trained to champion status.

Even the Phoenix can only train all members to veteran status; 30% to non-commissioned officer level; and 10-15% can be trained to the level of company champion.

Would those inferior seeds affect the potential of the Space Marines bred?

Maybe it was.

Thinking of this, and looking at the glaring word “inferior”, Gu Hang couldn’t help but curse. No wonder the New World Torch is so poor, its bloodline is not good!

After a moment of depression, Gu Hang gathered himself and continued to think.

The quality of the gene-seed is a foregone conclusion, and there is no way to change it. But what to do with it still posed a dilemma.

Excluding the surviving Wang Mengsong and others, Gu Hang could only redeem a total of approximately 1,800 inferior infinite seeds.

Adding the 200 surviving New World Torches who surrendered, the total number came to 2,000.

This posed a complex problem: how should Gu Hang use the proceeds?

Breaking things down, there are actually three issues: captives, seeds, and the name “Torch of the New World.”

Let’s start with “Torch of the New World.”

Gu Hang intends to keep this chapter name.

Of course, the newly trained Space Marines can be treated like the “Shadow Chapter” he previously established using a thousand Phoenix seeds. However, Shadow Chapters are only meant to do dirty work and operate in secret, which is inconvenient. With

another chapter under his name, Gu Hang has a thousand more chapters that can operate openly.

As for their betrayal, that, too, needs to be addressed, otherwise the Empire will be in trouble.

The solution is the Expedition of Atonement.

As commander of the Southern Front, Gu Hang allied with the Shining Inquisition, a long-standing organization operating in the Eastern Realm with which he has a good relationship, to order the Torch of the New World to a Centennial Expedition of Atonement.

This presents a slight problem.

Gu Hang aside, the main issue is that the Shining Inquisition is a bit… too small. They theoretically have the power, but their strength is too weak to justify it.

But the Alliance, for now, appears to be quite strong.

As long as the process is flawless, the Alliance will handle any issues of strength.

While in the Atonement Crusade, the New World Torch must unconditionally accept requests and orders from all Imperial factions.

That naturally means the Alliance.

Even after this war is over, the New World Torch’s combat missions for the next hundred years will be entirely taken up by the Alliance. If other Imperial factions come offering missions… sorry, I already have them ready to fight for the Alliance.

In fact, it’s not just the New World Torch; Gu Hang of the Fury Flame also plans to do the same.

He’ll announce that the Fury Flame Chapter has surrendered—regardless of whether or not that actually happened.

Then, he’ll sentence them to a two-hundred-year Atonement Crusade.

Then, he’ll take the genes from other chapters and fill them with the Fury Flame Chapter.

With the addition of the New World Torch and Fury Flame, Gu Hang will have two thousand Space Marines capable of open operations.

In reality, this still doesn’t cover the four thousand gene-seed Gu Hang estimates he has.

And then there’s the captives. After a moment’s

consideration, Gu Hang decided not to execute all of these two hundred or so individuals.

Although it was an unconditional surrender, Gu Hang hadn’t promised them anything. After all, after negotiating the surrender, they had served as bait, per the Alliance’s request, and had barely held out for the required fifteen minutes.

Although the battle hadn’t been pretty, Gu Hang wasn’t about to burn his bridges.

He would offer Wang Mengsong two options: either retire, and the Alliance would allocate them some “territory” on a desolate, undeveloped world in the rear. They would be granted Alliance citizenship and allowed to cultivate the land, just like ordinary farmers.

Such worlds existed in abundance, especially in the northeastern part of the Dragonhawk Segmentum, those once occupied by greenskins.

The Alliance couldn’t possibly wipe out every single one of those worlds with extermination orders. So far, the Alliance had only eliminated all interstellar travel capabilities of the Ironfang Greenskins and, through orbital bombardment, destroyed all conspicuous waste towns, crippling their industrial potential.

Hundreds of millions of greenskins still lived on many worlds.

He couldn’t just ignore them. Otherwise, if another Greenskin leader emerges, building a hidden garbage city underground and in the hills, and constructing a number of Greenskin ships and launching them into the sky… perhaps the Iron Teeth Green Tide will begin again.

Even now, when the Alliance embarks on an expedition, a small fleet led by a cruiser patrols the formerly Greenskin-occupied areas. They regularly eliminate prominent targets on each Greenskin planet.

The Alliance has also established colonies on these planets.

Conquer an area, gather resources, settle, continue to grow, and then fight outward… This may be a century-long project, requiring a people’s war to truly clear the entire planet.

Fortunately, without a leader of their own, the Greenskins fight among themselves even more fiercely. To them, troublemaking someone is no different from overthrowing the Greenskin tribe next door.

The Greenskins, in their current state of disunity, don’t believe in the concept of racial war as the ultimate priority.

The veterans of the New World Torch can all retire and go to these planets. If you die, blame yourself. The immigrants of the Alliance can find a way to survive. Even if the Space Marines lose their power armor, they can’t survive? That’s purely your own problem.

By the way, it can also bring some help to the Alliance’s immigration and colonization of these worlds… I hope so.

Those who choose to retire will be completely scattered all over the planet, and then do what they should do.

If Wang Mengsong and others are unwilling, Gu Hang also gave them a second option: to join the Punishment Camp, or the Death Company. Then they can continue to maintain their identity as Space Marines, but they will always face the most brutal battles, and their priority for supplies will be the lowest. In the Death Company, without orders, you are not allowed to decide to retreat or transfer on your own.

(End of this chapter)