Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 702

Chapter 700, Absent-minded

. A military meeting was being held aboard the Golden Gate.

In attendance were leaders from all sides of the Human Empire’s coalition forces.

Their topic was to address the remaining Zerg in the Empress Star Region and surrounding star regions.

The disabled Zerg also needed to be eliminated.

It was estimated that a significant number of Burning Sky torpedoes would be required, especially in the Empress Star Region.

According to the General Staff’s estimates, they would conservatively burn nearly two hundred worlds.

The closer a world was to Readuches, the more likely it would be incinerated by the Burning Sky torpedoes.

Exterminating as many Zerg as possible as quickly as possible was only one of the reasons; completely burning planets into death, creating a dead world isolation zone of one to two hundred worlds surrounding the Readuches system.

Historically, this dead world isolation zone has proven invaluable in combating the Zerg. The Zerg swarm emerging from the void black hole would be unable to find any food for a long time, meaning they would receive no supplies and could not reproduce.

As long as observation posts are built and advance warning of the Zerg invasion is delivered, humanity will have ample time to mobilize its forces to counter the invading swarm before it escapes this dead zone.

As long as the Zerg aren’t “fed” and allowed to multiply, Zerg forces emerging from a Void Black Hole are generally easy to deal with. A

Zerg swarm, already starving after a long, conventional voyage, is at its most vulnerable stage when it’s deprived of food.

If they capture populated planets and begin feeding, they’ll become increasingly difficult to defeat.

In short, no matter how large the Zerg swarm emerging from a Void Black Hole, the easiest stage to deal with is right after it emerges.

Prolong their hunger as much as possible, and then defeat them while they’re hungry, minimizing the cost.

This is from a warfare perspective.

From a larger macro-level perspective, another advantage is that the Zerg can also “smell” from a distance,

sensing whether food is available at their target location.

When faced with such deathly silence zones, the Void Zerg typically try once or twice, or even give up altogether.

To create these deathly silence zones, Gu Hang has already petitioned Holy Terra for more Extermination Order weaponry.

At the very least, more ammunition is needed. Using naval guns for extended periods of bombardment—the most crude form of Extermination Order—to create dead worlds.

Of course, this would take a long time, and the ammunition would be expensive—perhaps even more expensive than a single Skyburning Torpedo.

But there’s no other solution; the latter is technically difficult and has a limited production rate. When there’s absolutely no such thing and the need is desperate, crude measures are the only option.

This requires constructing space stations and establishing observation points on some dead worlds, all requiring resources and garrisons.

In addition to the over two hundred worlds destined for extermination, the Empress Star Region contains another two hundred or so. These are infested with disabled Zerg, with virtually no living humans.

However, the planets themselves are valuable resources.

As long as a world hasn’t been severely devastated, it still holds value for recolonization.

Recolonization is the way to recapture these incapacitated Zerg.

Initially, it might be just a few hundred thousand or even a few million people, taking over a settlement and then developing it. As the population grows, the resources required increase, and planned expansion is implemented. The threat posed by the incapacitated Zerg is low, so we can proceed slowly. After a few decades, or even a century, when the population reaches tens of millions, the incapacitated Zerg can be completely eliminated.

This approach is the most cost-effective.

The risk lies in the possibility that a Zerg fleet, perhaps containing not only a Queen but even a Hive Lord, could emerge from the Void Wormhole at this moment and potentially reconnect the disabled Zerg swarms to the internet.

That would be a real problem.

Therefore, this strategy should only be used on planets with relatively low risk, those far from the Void Black Hole, or those with small Zerg populations.

High-risk planets must be cleared to a sufficient degree before being recolonized.

This recolonization effort doesn’t need to be undertaken by the Coalition; that will be the responsibility of the Archons who will subsequently take over the Empress Sector.

However, upfront, whether it’s enforcing the extermination order, determining which worlds require military intervention and dispatching troops, or even leaving Rhaeadotras and traveling at sublight speed to annihilate the disabled Zerg fleet on its way to support, still six months away from Rhaeadotras… these tasks all require the troops’ execution.

This is the final phase of the campaign.

This military meeting focused on this aspect.

To put it bluntly, it was about assigning tasks.

However, everyone seemed a bit disinterested and absent-minded during the meeting.

That was perfectly normal.

While cleanup work was important, doing it after the decisive battle wasn’t particularly rewarding, and it wouldn’t yield any particularly remarkable achievements. It

was perfectly normal for everyone to feel similarly.

Furthermore, the backdrop to this meeting was unique.

Literally.

Rheaduches had exploded.

Literally.

Even for the most experienced generals, such a scene was a first.

Extermination weapons like the Earth-Blasting Planet Destroyer were known to exist, but they were largely the stuff of legend.

Not only were they rare and extremely expensive, but they were also incredibly extreme.

To issue an extermination order, one could simply wipe out all life on a planet; why blow up the entire planet?

Still, it was a truly spectacular sight.

In space, there was no sound, but one could see the planet they had been fighting for over six months shatter into countless fragments with a bang.

The explosion transformed the planet into a violent ball of light. The largest of these fragments formed asteroids, flung far away; the smaller, perhaps merely the most basic atomic and molecular structures, formed gaseous bands of light, mist, and dust… Surrounding the original planet, they formed long, long bands of light—essentially, they were filled with rapidly moving particles.

The planet expanded in an instant, and after the stellar light of the explosion faded briefly, it became a dazzling expanse of color.

Perhaps countless eons from now, the material ejected by the explosion will, under the influence of gravity, reassemble into a new planet. But for now, it remained a beautiful, marvelous celestial structure of countless colors and infinitely varied shapes.

Seeing such a “beautiful sight,” a meaningless meeting naturally made one’s mind wander.

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94 more to go

(End of chapter)