Recaps

Xi Yan took control from the Regent Generals through force and a decisive attack on the Shoigu-Gerasimov faction. With the empire under his command, he began restructuring its government and economy and turned his attention to expansion and research.

• Xi Yan learned that the Regent Generals held real power and began recruiting support from Ailiveer, Ning Zhiyuan, Prigozhin, and Veronica.
• Xi Yan secured command of Ning Zhiyuan’s three corvettes and Prigozhin’s Army authority, while Veronica pledged her twenty warships to him.
• Xi Yan launched an artillery strike on the banquet hotel as Ning Zhiyuan and Veronica attacked Shoigu’s fleet at the Starport.
• Ning Zhiyuan used the upgraded Galactic Throne and Xi Yan’s battle plan to destroy Alexei’s fleet and retake the Starport.
• Xi Yan ordered Shoigu executed and the remaining rebels dealt with, then rewarded his allies and declared that humanity would expand beyond its star system.
• Xi Yan ordered investigations and seizures, planned a Cabinet while reserving final authority for himself, and began shifting production and services under imperial control.
• Xi Yan contacted the Science Ship exploring the Kolmakhian System and met its remotely directing chief science officer, Mardun Elwin.

Xi Yan consolidated control of the Empire through purges and public ownership reforms while Science Ship One discovered the stranded Hyacinth and its 114,514 survivors. With help from the United Nations of Earth and the rescued colonists, Xi Yan launched an invasion of Amat Eiro II, where the Empire established its first colony.

• Xi Yan imposed centralized control, public ownership, compulsory labor, and harsh purges while redirecting the Empire toward production and expansion.
• Science Ship One found the Hyacinth in the Amaterro System, and Mardun Elwin learned that its 114,514 passengers needed rescue and had been displaced in time by a wormhole.
• Xi Yan brought the Hyacinth’s survivors into the Empire as provisional citizens and arranged to use them to colonize Amat Eiro II.
• Xi Yan contacted Bai Fengfeng, secured six technologies from the United Nations of Earth, and shared them with the Academy of Sciences.
• At Xi Lie’s funeral, his recording asked Xi Yan to support the Empire and revealed that Xi Yan had two older sisters in the United Nations of Earth.
• Xi Yan prepared to exploit his family connections for intelligence but postponed contacting his sisters as his fleet approached Amat Eiro II.
• Xi Yan and his commanders organized the colonists and military forces for an invasion, with Ningdi Lingling leading the landing preparations.
• The Colonial Pioneers landed on the unclaimed, resource-rich Gaia Planet Amat Eiro II, establishing the Empire’s first colony.

Xi Yan conquered Amat Eiro II, forced the Plant People into a reservation, then exterminated them and claimed Gaia Planet for humanity. As the empire expanded, he established public holidays and founded the covert organization Ashes while Research Ship One explored the universe.

• Xi Yan led the landing and counterattack on Amat Eiro II, where Red Lasers defeated the Plant People’s forces and the empire prepared to colonize the planet.
• Xi Yan rejected peaceful coexistence, ordered propaganda to justify the invasion, and demanded the Plant People surrender two hundred thousand of their people and most of their planet.
• Xi Yan’s forces bombarded Plant People cities, confined the survivors to a reservation, and began building the colony and Plant People farming facilities.
• Xi Yan reviewed research showing that Plant People could be processed into food, sampled their sweet organic matter, and shared it with Ailiveer.
• After Xi Yan visited the reservation and praised its scenery, he ordered the frigates and troops to exterminate the Plant People, then declared that humanity would rule Gaia Planet.
• Xi Yan oversaw the empire’s expansion, designated Empire Labor Day and International Sword-Begging Day, and approved a five-day national holiday.
• Xi Yan named the covert intelligence and operations agency Ashes and ordered Yu Shuo to train agents for surveillance, espionage, assassination, and sabotage.
• Xi Yan went to the projection area after an alert reported that Research Ship One was exploring the universe.

After the Crystalline Entity destroyed Science Ship One, Xi Yan honored its crew and pushed the Empire toward expansion, stronger defenses, and new technologies. Contact with the M'tok Union revealed a powerful criminal enterprise, leaving Xi Yan to seek military aid from Bai Fengfeng.

• Xi Yan witnessed the three surviving scientists aboard Science Ship One die after their oxygen ran out, then honored their sacrifice as the “Science Ship One Spirit.”
• Xi Yan visited Cybrex Alpha University, urged students to pursue research or military service, and heard them pledge loyalty because his rule had improved their families’ lives.
• Xi Yan ordered the Empire to replace Red Lasers with Blue Lasers and inspected the Army’s new exoskeleton armor.
• Xi Yan and Gu Zaiyun discovered an intact Cybrex War Forge in the Delta Segment, and Xi Yan ordered the team to prepare it for operation and relocation.
• The Empire recovered Science Ship One’s wreckage, defeated the Red Crystal Shards, memorialized the dead scientists, and welcomed the M'tok Union’s first contact.
• Xi Yan learned that the M'tok were a hostile megacorporation protected by the Celestial Dragon, then closed borders, strengthened patrols, and arranged mutual embassies while planning reconnaissance.
• Xi Yan asked Bai Fengfeng for help against the M'tok Union and agreed to trade energy credits for resource-output, Starhold, and basic Torpedo Ship technologies after Bai refused Destroyer technology.