[Empire Log: A perfect cleanup] [After the last smoke of battle cleared, Transit Hub World was left with nothing but natural terrain and bombed-out wreckage. Civilization had vanished from the planet, and every trace it left behind proclaimed that this had once been a modern colony. To save a little on upkeep, we chose to clear the place out-along with its 1.8 billion aliens.] [Biologists estimated that Transit Hub World's ecosystem would largely recover in a little over a decade. This untold chapter of history would also be buried beneath mountains, rocks, and moss. Although some called the extermination of 1.8 billion sapient beings to reduce expenses an atrocity, we called it inefficient, because it took us an entire year to finish the cleanup. Next time, we would absolutely cut that time down.] [Xi Yan's directive: With this precedent and a working template to draw on, depopulation efforts on subsequent planets will become more efficient.]
The situation on Transit Hub World was largely settled. All that remained was observation and finishing up.
As the Empire turned its attention toward the M'tok Union's other colonies, Xi Yan discovered quite a few interesting things.
On Shazka I, the M'tok Union's homeworld, they found numerous museums in the colonial capital, housing artifacts the M'tok Union had collected over the years.
At first, Xi Yan thought these counted as the game's minor artifact resources, which could be used to develop archaeostudies technologies and ancient weapons, but he soon dismissed that idea.
These were not minor artifacts, but something more like collectibles. They were far more precious than ordinary artifacts, and scientists could learn much more from these collections to advance various fields.
Many of the specimens were also enormous, far too large to fit inside an ordinary museum. The M'tok had simply