Starch Factory Expansion Planning and Auxiliary Personnel Selection

Civilian factories served a purpose similar to the original ones, able to produce various "consumer goods" and accelerate the speed of real-world infrastructure development.

Normally, some of the thirteen civilian workers should have been reserved to maintain civilian livelihoods and could not be reallocated, but perhaps because Huron's system lacked this mechanism, all civilian workers were available for use.

Therefore, as soon as all the new recruits finished their transformations, Huron impatiently dragged the "Badab Government" faction, led by Odinson, into a briefing.

This faction had about a hundred members; most were new recruits converted from administrative personnel, while a small portion were chaplains and librarians.

Although many of them had management experience, and Odinson had genuinely served as a planetary governor for quite a few days, this group was, on the whole, still a ragtag outfit.

Because the universal system of the Warhammer universe was the classic "the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal," the Administratum did not care how a planetary governor ruled, the planetary governor did not care how the nobility ruled, and the nobility did not care how the bosses of the factions beneath them ruled.

As long as taxes were paid in full and nobody raised a fuss about rebellion, all was quiet and peaceful.

Reflected on Huron's interface, this meant the puppet state of Badab Planet was nested inside layer after layer of loops; not to mention organizations like the Ecclesiarchy and Adeptus Arbites fortresses, the former planetary governor, nobility, guilds, gangs, and chambers of commerce were also piled up in overlapping layers, creating a bunch of factions.

Currently, the area under the direct control of the Astral Claws was only a part of Palatus, the planet's largest hive city.

Such a shitty system naturally could not satisfy Huron's vision; even if high-intensity centralization was out of the question, at least make the commands come from a single source—what were they trying to achieve by making a bunch of factions?

The system's judgment of "factions" was not arbitrary; first, one had to be an independent entity, and then have actual mutual interest interactions to count.

In other words, these people were running wild on his planet, setting up independent kingdoms.

Therefore, Huron's first demand of Odinson was to cast off the nobles of the original Badab system as much as possible and establish a centralized and unified administrative system.

Odinson wore a troubled expression. "Chapter Master, this is too difficult. Even without mentioning the various industries controlled and monopolized by those nobles, we simply do not have enough manpower."

As an old noble who had also spent so much time in a highly militarized organization like the Astral Claws Chapter, Odinson could naturally understand Huron's desire for centralization.

Yet precisely because of that, he knew all too well how difficult it was to establish such a system, even with a hundred or so "supermen."

Because what this required was not a small number of supermen, but a massive grassroots administrative staff.

Based on his experience, wanting to govern the hive city of Palatus—which had a population of twenty billion—using this system would optimistically require around one billion grassroots civil servants.

Even if only a portion of the hive city was governed in the early stages, it would still require a scale of millions or even tens of millions.

The Astral Claws plus chapter serfs only amounted to a population of a few hundred thousand, and the Chapter Master demanded shaking off the original noble system as much as possible, so where were these people supposed to come from?

Huron patted Odinson's shoulder and comforted him. "Rest assured, I have obtained the Emperor's blessing, and the auxiliary forces will soon be able to train a large batch of usable administrative personnel. For now, you just need to get the framework set up."

Lately, Huron spoke constantly of the Emperor's blessing, but the successful transformation of over a thousand battle-brothers was real, and the daily weapons and equipment were real; thus, most people accepted Huron's identity as the Emperor's chosen or even a living saint.

Therefore, the meeting to reorganize chapter serfs and establish a larger-scale, more meticulous, and specialized chapter auxiliary force passed smoothly.

Hearing the Chapter Master's assurance, Odinson also relaxed slightly and began discussing with the others how to build this system.

Because Huron forbade them from copying the chapter and turning it into a super-military-managed model, the management team could only search for answers in past experience.

However, the administrative staff promised by Huron had not yet arrived, nor were they sure of the quality of the first batch of chapter auxiliaries, so the discussions were mostly empty talk, which was why Huron felt the "Badab Government" was a ragtag outfit.

After listening to their discussion for a while, Huron signaled them to pause. "Put the rest aside for now. Our first goal is to master basic supplies—such as food, water, energy, and air circulation industries—to avoid being at the mercy of others after falling out with the nobility."

Odinson pondered briefly and offered his thoughts. "In that case, our first target could be expanding the production scale of corpse-starch."

Huron asked with some curiosity, "Why?"

Odinson displayed the data on his handheld tablet to Huron. "Because we happen to have the relevant resources. After the noble rebellion—where they colluded with aliens and smuggled addictive neuro-drugs—quite a few chambers of commerce from the corpse-starch guild joined them. Now, we have taken control of all these traitors' assets."

The opportunity for Huron to declare himself Governor of the Badab Sector was that certain nobles on Badab who had colluded with aliens and engaged in smuggling had rebelled, attempting to overthrow the rule of the former planetary governor.

When the Astral Claws Chapter was invited to suppress the rebellion, these insurgents were quickly put down, and their assets naturally fell into the hands of the chapter.

Although many nobles, especially the former planetary governor, tried to argue forcefully and annex these assets, they did not dare to be too presumptuous now that the Astral Claws were dead set on taking root in Badab.

Huron glanced over the relevant data, which included a considerable number of corpse-starch factories and production equipment. If these resources could be integrated and utilized, at least ensuring that the people of Palatus Hive had enough to eat would not be a problem.

And having enough to eat was already something that could be called a dream for the inhabitants of the hive city, especially the lower hive.

Huron already had an idea in mind.

"Thanks" to the upper echelons of the Imperium's fear and rejection of self-evolving Iron Men, that sentiment trickled down, causing the lower classes to also harbor an aversion to electronic industry and automated machinery.

The result was that a vast number of industries retained a considerable amount of manual labor; compared to artificial intelligence, most people strongly favored Homo Sapiens Notor.

The corpse-starch factory expansion project planned by Odinson was no exception. In his plan, it would probably require mobilizing a total of hundreds of millions of personnel as labor.

This manpower would primarily be used for transport, loading, and installation, and machinery would only be used for the remaining high-precision parts.

As for the wages of these people?

Odinson felt that the Chapter Master was relatively friendly toward mortals, so he also offered the workers quite high compensation.

Not only would meals be provided, but additional starch and vitamin tablets would be distributed as wages and bonuses.

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By the time Huron saw this, his entire brow was twisted into a knot, and what made him even more uncomfortable was that, according to his memories, Odinson's arrangements were indeed extremely benevolent.

Not only did it cover meals, but there were also extra wages and bonuses, and vitamin tablets were absolute luxuries that could even be used as medicine for lower hive dwellers.

Yet precisely for this reason, Huron decided that the first batch of auxiliary personnel would be selected from these workers and their families.

As long as they could eat and drink their fill, the lower-class people of Warhammer were actually quite docile, because under ten thousand years of continuous large-scale artificial selection, those who were not docile had long since been purged.

Furthermore, Odinson's grace would be enough to make these lower hive dwellers endlessly grateful, further enhancing the stability of the auxiliary forces.

Only at moments like this could Huron truly feel the madness of the Warhammer world. Yet he was powerless to change it, and could only use the system to alter the status quo as quickly as possible.