2079, Operation Zero (II)
"Social foundation? That is precisely where we are strongest." Tang Xiao spoke coldly. "The slogan I am the Calamity resounded across the skies! Every citizen rushed to the fore, every soldier led from the front! In production, in daily life, in battle—how were the people of the Duchy of Dawn inferior to those of the Galactic Empire in any way?"
"But they do not identify with the Duchy of Dawn," Ling Liang said. "Perhaps aside from those awakened from the motherships and the 5 billion Cryo-embryos, how much identification with the Duchy of Dawn do the others really have? To put it bluntly, those people only came here to eat."
Hari Seldon said, "According to current statistics, we directly awakened a total of 550,000 people. Including their direct descendants, their current population stands at 4.7 million. The Cryo-embryos produced a total of 4 billion people, and including their direct descendants, their population is now 19.3 billion. Yet the total population within the Duchy of Dawn currently stands at 830 billion. In other words, no matter how one calculates it, more than 800 billion people grew up living under the Galactic Republic and the Galactic Empire. These people will not have much identification with the Duchy of Dawn."
He continued, "The Galactic Republic existed for over twenty-five thousand years. Even though it has now been replaced by the Galactic Empire, in the minds of the masses, this is merely a continuation of the Galactic Republic. What does twenty-five thousand years of rule mean? It means that nearly everyone sees the Galactic Republic's existence as a matter of course. It ought to be there, with Coruscant as its capital, projecting its authority across the entire Milky Way Galaxy."
"By contrast, people are deeply unfamiliar with the existence of