Chapter 263: (The Great Herd) (1/2)

Most Senior High Executive Permanent Most High Executor in Command Stu'ukmo'o sat as his lavishly decorated desk, staring at the hologram that was projected above his desk. It was a simple one, one that he had glanced at now and then without really caring that much for all of his three hundred years of life. A great field of stars, taking up the majority of the base of the galactic spur, all Lanaktallan controlled worlds. Farming worlds, manufacturing worlds, herd worlds, defensive worlds.

He watched as it fast forwarded through various parts of the Lanaktallans hundred million years of history. Different races rose up, usually toward the wasteland of the gulf between the arm and the spur, less frequently in the Great Gulf in the middle of the spur, and occassionally from one of the few planets outside of Lanaktallan control and supervision.

Every time the worst any enemy had done was destroy the ecosystem of a planet, perhaps even glassed it, and maybe taken a few dozen systems. The Great Herd had never been threatened, had slowly spread out as the slowly growing, carefully curated, population slowly expanded to different planets. Even vigorous and energetic species had been gentled and, through the use of various techniques, convinced to draw back to only a few systems. Usually the species thought that it was their own idea, their own race slowly dwindling, that resulted in them slowly retreating to their home system and awaiting either recycling by the Great Collectors or slow extinction.

The map was dormant for nearly a million years, only the fast expansion of a few races that were repressed almost before they could take more than a handful of systems that appeared as brief sparks on the map.

Then came the time to test the edges of the Great Gulf, to examine whether or not there were new species to worry about and to see if the ancient machines of death and destruction still lived. It was nothing new, something done every thousand generations.

The map suddenly slowed.

A blip here, a sparkle there. He slowed the map, looking at the icons.

TERRAN MARTIAL LAW kept appearing.

SYSTEM OWNERSHIP IN DISPUTE appeared on others.

Stu'ukmo'o knew that Lanaktallan corporations had screamed that the Terrans needed to turn over the systems and pay for all the damage caused by fighting the Precursors.

One system in particular caught his eye. Owned by the Kistmet Corporation, the Precursors had not only been dealt a severe defeat, but the Terrans had convinced neo-sapients to fight next to them, had led the combined forces to victory over the Precursors.

There, that was the start of it all, he mused. He examined the data.

A known criminal of such power and reach that he was forced to use the Terran language to describe him: Mobster. Lah Coastal Nostril.

A criminal that became a folk hero in Terran fictional historical dramatizations.

Stu'ukmo'o opened up a window and examined a report from the Executor Progranda Ministry bemoaning the effectiveness of the Terran propaganda machine. The EPM couldn't explain how a 'dramatization' what was 'based' on true events managed to get the true word out and be so beloved by those who partook of the media.

One picture popped up in the window of a Lanaktallan with a single burning cyber-eye wearing a warmech control helmet. The text said: ”Nobody cared who I was before I drove the mech” and even as Stu'ukmo'o watched it was shared ten thousand times.

Stu'ukmo'o had carefully researched that image, that propaganda memetic warfare image. It obliquely referred to a fictional story that had been told and told and retold over thousands of years.

”The Tragedy of Darth Bane and the Algol Collapse” the most recent one was called.

Stu'ukmo'o watched the dramatization and nodded along. Yes, yes, very exciting. Full of violent action, explosions, tragedy, drama, emotional content. Darth Bane was the bad guy, but also the central character, but also had motives that even Stu'ukmo'o could empathize with.

He just wanted to make his world a better place, return control of the star system to the people rather than the tyranny of the Jedi Council of the Children of Flying Mammal Man. He perished, undone by his own hubris, by the infamous Warborg of Purity, after an exhilarating vehicle chase that culminated in a laser sword battle on top of a burning bridge during a thunder storm where Darth Bane plunged into the icy ammonia river and vanished.

Stu'ukmo'o also paid attention to something his peers and subordinates rarely examined. The long part after the ending.

The credits.

He found that nearly thirteen thousand beings and two hundred corporations worked on the fictional narrative. The fiction had taken six years of production and Stu'ukmo'o opened a window to do quick calculations. He weighed the resources used, the manpower, then weighed it against how much profit the movie made for the studio and the corporations, how much it made for the viewing corporations, how much it made in products, then sat back and nodded.

It created more wealth than the value of the resources it had consumed.

Shaking his head, Stu'ukmo'o went back to watching the star systems change color.

Unlike many others, he had access to exactly what had happened on those worlds. The routing of the Kistimet Corporation, the fact that the Executors and the Military were destroyed by the Precursors at every engagement.

He injected a mood stabilizer and opened four windows. The first was a group of neo-sapients led by Lanaktallan Overseers against Precursors. They broke under fire, most of them dying as they fled in a panic. The second was Lanaktallan against the Precursors. Most of the force died from the Precursor's psychic assault, the rest were routed and slaughtered.

Stu'ukmo'o tabbed up another mood stabilizer and looked at the third window.

”YOUR FAMILIES ARE BEHIND US! JOIN ME TO FIGHT! NOT ONE STEP BACK! I FIGHT FOR YOUR FAMILIES, CAN YOU DO ANY LESS?” a Terran roared out, standing up in front of the neo-sapients huddled in the protections. Two lasers and a kinetic round bounced off the Terran's body armor. ”SMASH THESE METAL MOTHER FUCKERS INTO JUNK!” the Terran bellowed, her eyes a bright furious red who's glow completely obscured his eye sockets.

According to every other video the neo-sapients should have started screaming and panicking, fleeing the battlefield.

Instead first one, then another, then like a dam breaking, the rest joined in firing back at the Precursors. They all lifted their voices shrieking out a single word.

”JAWNCONNOR!”

He watched neo-sapients shrug off wounds that killed them in other recordings, snarling and spitting and yowling and fighting.

The fact that the helmets all had psychic protection put to rest the suggestion by Stu'ukmo'o's peers that the Terrans were using psychic abilities to make the neo-sapients fight.

Video after video after report after witness statement all agreed, a single Terran leading a thousand neo-sapients could turn a battle.

In the one he watched, the Terran was killed by a tank round that would have gutted a starship, the Terran staggering forward and firing until she collapsed.

The neo-sapients went berserk. Some of them resorting to beating on a Precursor machine with debris, screaming and spitting.

Examining the lexicon Stu'ukmo'o found it.

Valor. Bravery. Sacrifice. Duty.

The definitions were different, but close enough to the same to be understood.

They made Stu'ukmo'o shake his head and take another dose. Just reading the words seemed to fill Stu'ukmo'o with a burning desire to do more, to exercise the power of his office to benefit all people, not just his own. That it was his obligation rather than his privilege to have the power he possessed and wield it.

Human thought is infectious, like a disease, he thought to himself.

He tore himself away from watching those fascinating video clips and started the playback again.

Systems kept flashing icon for being attacked by Precursors. He watched the force levels of Lanaktallan forces, be they Corporate, Executor, Military, or even LawSec, dwindle rapidly.

Each time the icon for the Terrans appeared and it was the Precursors who began to dwindle. In over three-quarters of the systems the amount of local military forces increased.

Each time the Terrans prevailed.

Four times the Lanaktallan forces in the system defected to the Terrans. All four of them joined together to form ”The Warsteel Herd” and were armed by the Terrans themselves.

The members of that paramilitary arm were all wanted by the Executors, all with death sentences now.

He looked at an image of the leader. Two legs and part of one flank replaced by cybernetics, two of his arms and his arm pectorals replaced by gleaming black chrome. The Lanaktallan wore body armor as if he had been poured into it and had in his mouth one of those smoke stick that the insectiod Treana'ad always possessed.

Sixteen systems.

That was how many systems the Warsteel Herd protected against any who would attempt to take away ”The Right to Graze Free and Speak How You Will” from not only the Lanaktallan of the system but the neo-sapients who had all been released from debt bondage, many of them armed and trained by the Terrans.

A quick video showed a grouping of twelve Lanaktallan facing off against the Great Gatherers. Their warcry of ”We are the warsteel hooves of liberty!” shook the camera as the dozen infantrymen destroyed one of the largest Great Gatherer organisms.

He ran a check of ”Warsteel Hooves of Liberty” and found millions of results.

One animated graphic showed a Lanaktallan clad in Executor armor pushing his hooves on the face of a Lanaktallan foal, obviously laughing. Hooves shod with black warsteel entered the frame, kicking the Lanaktallan in the face hard enough the Lanaktallan flew off frame with the words ”LIBERTY!” appearing. The two legs attached to the hooves had words on them. ”FREEDOM” and ”FIREPOWER.”

A quick check showed that the memetic warfare propaganda image had a 83% engagement and approval rate among Lanaktallan who viewed it. In over two thousand systems just viewing the image was enough for summary execution.

That made Stu'ukmo'o shake his head. That was stupid. All that would ensure was that it was spread around even more.

Graffiti had been sprayed as deep as the Core Worlds of a black hoofshoe with wings made of overlapping blades on each side of the crescent, with the words ”WE FIGHT IN YOUR NAME” arcing over the hoofshoe with ”FREEDOM” and ”LIBERTY” underneath.

Then the annotation flashed up that the Great Gatherers had arrived in the Neo-Sapient Systems in the Outer Rim Worlds as well as the attempted assassination of the Terran diplomat stacked on top of the arrival of the First Wave in Terran Confederate Space.

More and more worlds began switching color.

Stu'ukmo'o nodded. This was to be expected. Each world would put a drain upon the Terran resources, straining their logistics chains, depleting their manpower, absorbing war material.

Projection lines were drawn for the maximum depth the Terran Confederacy would be able to conquer. There had been some estimations of deep strikes, but instead the Confederacy just made a steady advance. True, deep strikes had occurred, but always upon systems completely controlled by the Executor Council or automated factory systems.

Those systems had been left denuded of everything but a star. Even the Oort Cloud had been stripped away.

Stu'ukmo'o opened a window and examined what a probe had found in a system completely destroyed months ago. It was only a few weeks old, the probe moving through jumpspace in a region mathematically proven to be inhospitable to living beings to return quickly with the data.

The system was populated with planets. Gas giants, solid worlds, and three worlds in the Green/Yellow Zone for habitation. The probe had gotten a look at the fourth planet, which sat in the middle of the Green Zone, doing a fast scan and an atmospheric cruise to survey the world and the life.