"I've wrapped things up on my end."
Karna suddenly appeared, casually greeting the staff along the way without caring whether they responded. He then tossed Romulus a data card.
"The whole ship has 11,409 people, far fewer than the Imperial Navy. Most facilities, including the macro-cannons, are automated machinery. The Logis Engines handle data processing, while the Enginseers operate them."
Karna could clearly sense that his investigation into the ship's environment had gone exceptionally smoothly, as though the vessel itself had been cooperating with him.
"I knew it."
Romulus looked over the detailed data with an expression of complete unsurprise.
The Imperium wasn't avoiding automation because it feared Chaos corruption. It simply didn't treat people as people. A ship on the Tech-priests' side could operate at full combat capacity with less than a tenth of the personnel of an Imperial vessel of the same class, yet their ships hadn't exactly become prime targets for Chaos.
They still needed to remain appropriately wary of AI and potential Chaos corruption, but the Adeptus Mechanicus's internal systems had already given Romulus a level of reassurance he could accept.
Right, they could follow the Adeptus Mechanicus's automation model for now. They had plenty of living humans to serve as control nodes anyway, so there was no need to turn real people into Logis Engines or Servitors.
Romulus's mind raced as he began drafting a preliminary reform plan for the ship.
"Stop muttering about problems. Let's talk about something happy instead, like what we gained."
Karna keenly noticed Romulus's mood and spoke up first.
"Oh, right. This is the codex I just unlocked. See if there's anything useful in it."
As he spoke, he manipulated the interface and shared his information.
"This is..."
Romulus scanned the new entries in the production-line module, surprise appearing on