(The content of this chapter is entirely a reasonable extension and depiction of the novel's plot. None of its statements represent any objectionable views or promote any ideology; they are wholly exaggerated and humorous expressions. Any sensitive content pertains exclusively to game content and terminology and has no connection to reality.)
(The next few chapters are going to get into slaughter, so I'm piling on disclaimers to stay safe.)
Compared with ordinary people, Paradox Interactive players viewed politics, economics, and war from a completely different perspective.
Even if these were only games, games still reflected reality to a certain extent.
Paradox Interactive players understood clearly that all politics was a sham, a tool for maintaining stable rule and providing economic bonuses; the economy had to come first in everything, because nothing could be accomplished without it; there were plenty of reasons to wage war, but never fight a war you weren't confident of winning.
Politics served the economy, the economy served war, war served development, and development served the economy. Everything ultimately came back to the economy.
With a functioning economy, the Empire could pay the upkeep for everyone and everything. Players might therefore consider other factors, but they would never choose something detrimental to the economy.
Xi Yan was no different. His desire to wipe out the aliens in the colonies wasn't just driven by his obsession with racial purity; the colonies' outrageous upkeep was another major reason.
"These aliens are practically begging to die! They actually dared to colonize a world with twenty or thirty percent habitability. No wonder this ball costs so much to maintain and produces so little!"
Xi Yan held a statistical report on one of the colony planets, growing red-faced with anger as he read it.
Colonizing a planet with extremely low habitability meant