Chapter Summaries

Song Zhong and other low-grade workers from the United Nations of Earth were forced to work in Xi Yan’s factories under armed supervision. Song Zhong endured the brutal shifts as workers who complained or tried to bargain were sent to generate power.

• Song Zhong arrived at a consumer goods factory, regretted his decision, and vowed to escape and take revenge on his overseer.
• Xi Yan ordered production to begin and berated the Academy of Sciences for failing to develop Robotic Workers technology.
• Song Zhong packed products while Army soldiers watched the workers and sent a complaining man to the Bio-Generator District.
• A former gang boss tried to seduce a soldier to get a bathroom break, but the soldier dragged her away to generate power.

Song Zhong endured brutal factory labor and learned that escape attempts led straight to the biological generator district. He returned to work under the Military Junta’s coercion, still trapped in the labor camp.

• Army overseers seized more than a thousand factory workers for biological power generation, while Song Zhong worked diligently to avoid being taken.
• During the brief break, Song Zhong ate compressed swill biscuits and watched workers abuse and extort one another in the overcrowded dormitory.
• Song Zhong considered escaping through a gap in the enclosure, but suspected it was a trap and held back as others slipped out.
• The factory bell summoned the workers back after only half an hour, and an Army soldier dragged the last person in line away for power generation.
• Song Zhong saw soldiers escorting the would-be escapees toward the generator district, then rushed into the factory as the overseer whipped the crowd inside.

Xi Yan met the M'tok Union delegation and launched into a barrage of insults at the alien ambassador, Kabulosius. He then discovered that the M'tok ambassador was a gigantic stone being, leaving him shocked by the species' strength and size.

• Ailiveer told Xi Yan that the M'tok Union delegation had requested a meeting, and Xi Yan reluctantly agreed to meet them.
• Xi Yan and Ailiveer arrived at the Amaterro System conference hall, where senior Empire officials had gathered to meet the delegation.
• Xi Yan insulted Kabulosius, prompting Ning Zhiyuan to enjoy the verbal sparring.
• Xi Yan heard a deep voice agree with him and realized it came from a massive M'tok ambassador who looked like a stone wall.
• Xi Yan stared in shock as he recognized the M'tok's immense size and strength.

Xi Yan traded insults with the M'tok Ambassador while Kabulosius tried to negotiate an agreement between the M'tok Union and the Interstellar Human Military Junta. After Kabulosius proposed opening their borders, Xi Yan rejected the deal and left, forcing the alien delegation to offer more flexible terms.

• Xi Yan challenged the M'tok Ambassador to an insult contest, and Kabulosius tried unsuccessfully to steer them back to business.
• Xi Yan and the M'tok Ambassador exchanged increasingly personal insults until Xi Yan declared himself the winner.
• Xi Yan learned the delegations had not agreed on any terms and asked Kabulosius what the M'tok Union wanted.
• Kabulosius proposed opening both sides' borders to promote trade and cultural exchange, but Xi Yan stood up and ended the talks.
• Kabulosius rushed to stop Xi Yan and said the terms were negotiable, but Xi Yan dismissed him and walked out of the conference hall.

Xi Yan negotiated with the M'tok Union by acting tough and setting strict limits on military access, surveys, and travel near Cybrex Alpha. He demanded Starhold Technology and threatened war when the M'tok Ambassador refused, leaving the talks on the verge of collapse.

• Ailiveer joined Xi Yan in pretending to disagree about cooperation, prompting the M'tok delegation to push for open borders.
• The M'tok Ambassador urged Xi Yan to state his demands plainly, and Xi Yan agreed to negotiate directly.
• Xi Yan and the M'tok Ambassador agreed to bar each other’s military vessels from their territories.
• Xi Yan rejected Kabulosius’s demand for surveys and instead offered communications access and star charts, while forbidding aliens from approaching Cybrex Alpha.
• Xi Yan demanded Starhold Technology and threatened war after the M'tok Ambassador refused, prompting Kabulosius to blame the ambassador for the confrontation.

Xi Yan used threats of war to secure three technologies from the M'tok Union and concluded a preliminary framework for cooperation. He left the detailed trade terms to his subordinates, planning to let the bureaucratic process delay the agreement while the Empire prepared its Cruisers.

• Xi Yan threatened the M'tok Union with war unless it offered compensation for the harm to the Empire's citizens.
• Kabulosius agreed to provide technology after Xi Yan rejected energy credits and resources as compensation.
• Xi Yan secured [Carrier Warfare], [Assembly Patterns], and [Selective Defoliant] technology, while Kabulosius refused Plasma Thruster technology.
• Xi Yan left import, export, and tariff negotiations to his subordinates, and the two sides established a preliminary framework for cooperation.
• Xi Yan estimated that the bureaucratic negotiations could be delayed for at least ten years, by which time the Empire's Cruisers might be ready.

Song Zhong endured brutal factory labor under Xi Yan’s regime and was recruited by a cautious escape organization. After agreeing to hear its plan at the camp that night, he fell asleep from exhaustion, only to be woken by a gloomy voice.

• Song Zhong packed consumer goods in a sweltering factory while Xi Yan’s guards drove the United Nations of Earth laborers to work.
• A wiry man told Song Zhong that an organized group was planning an escape and had chosen him because of his former reputation.
• Song Zhong agreed to hear the escape plan at the camp that night while considering how to protect himself and possibly betray the group.
• A guard caught the workers slowing down and lashed one of them, prompting Song Zhong to resume working.
• Song Zhong washed, ate, and fell asleep in the crowded camp, but a gloomy voice woke him.

Song Zhong met Rake and the other members of Escape to Freedom, who explained their plan to flee the factory and cross the Industrial District. Song Zhong agreed to test the escape route the next day while warning that the apparent exits might conceal a trap.

• Song Zhong followed the wiry man to a hidden meeting place in the barracks and reunited with Rake and several former allies.
• Rake explained that Escape to Freedom aimed to escape the factory and reach safety beyond the surveillance-filled Industrial District.
• Rake described plans to use a disturbance to reach the ventilation ducts or the raw-material passage, with hiding inside the factory as another fallback.
• Song Zhong agreed that they should test the plan the next day by goading other laborers into scouting the route.
• Song Zhong and Rake warned the group to expect traps and agreed to use a code phrase to regroup if the plan went wrong.

Song Zhong and Rake set a mass escape attempt in motion at the factory, using a staged machine breakdown to trigger a rebellion. As laborers charged the guards, Rake opened a ventilation duct for his organization to escape through.

• Song Zhong persuaded a fellow laborer that the workers could escape by causing a disturbance, while secretly planning to use the chaos to slip away with Rake.
• Guards noticed the workers acting unusually and deployed more security robots nearby, but the laborers remained unaware.
• Rake's associates sabotaged a machine, stopping the assembly line and giving the guards an excuse to order everyone to crouch.
• A laborer seized a guard's pistol, killed guards who tried to report the rebellion, and urged the crowd to charge for freedom.
• Rake and the Escape to Freedom Organization pushed against the fleeing crowd, gathered beneath a ventilation opening, and tore off its grille.

Rek and Song Zhong led their group through a series of escape attempts after their uprising, but the ventilation duct was a trap and the cargo ship they commandeered locked them inside. They were left trapped aboard as the ship reported their attempted hack to security.

• Rek let his underlings enter the ventilation duct first, but they discovered its passage narrowed to an impassable gap and warned the others to turn back.
• Song Zhong ordered the group to abandon the duct and follow his backup plan through the raw-ore passage.
• Security robots attacked rioters at the factory entrance while Song Zhong, Rek, and three members escaped through the raw-material warehouse.
• Song Zhong and Rek boarded a descending cargo ship, knocked out its pilot, and prepared to leave after unloading the cargo.
• A technician tried to bypass the ship’s identity verification, triggering its security system to seal the vessel and lock its propulsion.
• Song Zhong found the hatch sealed, leaving the group trapped aboard the cargo ship.

After the failed riot, Xi Yan spared Song Zhong and Rake to use them as apparent defectors who could expose his enemies. Song Zhong killed Rake and pledged his service to Xi Yan.

• Agents captured Song Zhong, Rake, and the surviving rioters after their escape attempt failed.
• Xi Yan arrived at the interrogation room, where Rake cursed him and the Agents beat Rake senseless.
• Xi Yan ordered the other surviving rioters executed by biological power generation, then offered Song Zhong and Rake a chance to serve him as apparent defectors.
• Xi Yan released Song Zhong and Rake's shackles and said he needed only one of them to clear obstacles for him.
• Song Zhong killed Rake and knelt before Xi Yan, pledging his loyalty.

Xi Yan turned Song Zhong into an undercover agent to expose his opponents, then struggled to control the factory laborers. After deciding the troublesome low-quality workers were expendable, he sought a meeting with the M'tok Ambassador to find an efficient way to eliminate them.

• Xi Yan recruited Song Zhong as a supposed rioter tasked with organizing his opponents, and an Ashes Agent injected him with a tracking device.
• Xi Yan tried easing the laborers’ restrictions, then imposing harsher supervision, but both approaches led to more trouble and factory riots.
• Xi Yan sent the laborers to tour the Bio-Generator District and connected a third of them to the power grid, but the punishment sparked larger protests.
• Xi Yan realized the remaining low-quality laborers amounted to only 0.01 pops and decided to get rid of them.
• Xi Yan thought of Himmler’s methods and asked Beta to arrange a meeting with the M'tok Ambassador.

Xi Yan visited the M'tok Embassy and frightened Ambassador Kabulosius into agreeing to sell M'tok toxin by claiming the Empire planned to poison one hundred million people. Kabulosius resolved to warn the M'tok homeworld that Xi Yan and his Empire were dangerous lunatics.

• Xi Yan arrived at the M'tok Embassy early and made uncomfortable small talk with Ambassador Kabulosius.
• Xi Yan offered to buy M'tok toxin, claiming it would help the Empire eliminate a surplus population of one hundred million.
• Kabulosius feared Xi Yan's supposed mass-murder plan and agreed to supply one or two tons of toxin at the standard interstellar market rate.
• Xi Yan left, and Kabulosius told Kabulosius to contact the homeworld and warn them to change their plans.

Xi Yan exterminated more than a million troublesome workers and recycled their bodies, then celebrated the long-awaited development of intelligent robotic workers. At a press conference, he introduced the first robot, Cybrex New Body Zero, and promised that automation would not leave ordinary humans without support.

• Xi Yan ordered scientists and military factories to develop a biotoxin weapon, then had Ashes agents use it to kill more than a million low-quality workers after a riot.
• Xi Yan publicly announced the workers’ elimination while Ashes kept Song Zhong and his anti-Xi Yan organization under surveillance.
• By 2205, the Empire had developed robotic workers after two kun-years of research.
• At a press conference, Xi Yan said intelligent robots could replace at least half of low-end human jobs but assured workers that the Empire would provide for them.
• Xi Yan introduced the first robot, Cybrex New Body Zero, who greeted the human audience.

Xi Yan introduced Zero, the Empire’s first robot, and announced that robots would receive protected social status and some rights as Imperial citizens. As robotic workers stirred public debate and conspiracy theories, Xi Yan remained committed to welcoming robots and eventually pursuing machine ascension himself.

• Xi Yan presented Zero at a press conference and had it explain its rule forbidding harm to humans.
• Xi Yan announced that robots would receive some Imperial citizen rights and the Empire’s protection.
• Beta questioned whether robots should be treated as citizens, and Xi Yan said that respecting them early would help prevent a future rebellion.
• Robotic workers caused an uproar, and Imperial citizens spread conspiracy theories that Xi Yan planned to replace humans with robots.
• Xi Yan privately found the theories about machine girls and his own robot harem tempting, while another theory blamed Beta for plotting to restore the Cybrex Civilization.

Xi Yan ordered Ashes to suppress the Resistance Organization’s conspiracy and the Ministry of Culture’s disloyal workers, while accelerating mass robot production to replace citizens in basic jobs. Robot No. 01 was activated, programmed to serve Xi Yan and the Empire, and sent to work in a Generator District.

• Ashes exposed and eliminated the Resistance Organization’s plot, while Song Zhong prepared to bait another trap in a new urban district.
• On Xi Yan’s orders, Ashes executed Ministry of Culture workers spreading disloyal information and announced raises for the remaining employees.
• Xi Yan ordered robots to replace workers in basic jobs so citizens could move into specialist and mining roles.
• Orbital Debris Cleaner No. 102 collected scrap that Smelting Specialist No. 831 and Robot Assembly Specialist No. 397 helped turn into robots.
• Robot No. 01 was activated with loyalty to Xi Yan and the Empire built into its foundational logic.
• Robot No. 01 traveled to a Generator District, greeted the human technicians, and began its assigned work.

Gorpious accepted the M'tok Union's commission to escort its transports into the Interstellar Human Military Junta's territory and prepared the Community Security Fleet for the mission. After the convoy arrived and the briefing began, the Criminal Enterprise manager Grugulum challenged the fleet's competence, and a human officer defended it.

• Gorpious accepted Perkin Asland's offer to escort Union merchant ships and employees to a colony in exchange for payment, a damaged destroyer, and priority escort work.
• Gorpious prepared the fleet, drawing on human intelligence and its newly purchased M'tok destroyer while ordering extra supplies and ammunition.
• A month later, the Union's convoy arrived, and Gorpious briefed his captains on escorting it to Amat Eiro II in the Amaterro System.
• Grugulum criticized the Community Security Fleet's competence, and Greger and a human officer rebuked him and asserted that the fleet would complete its mission.

Gorpious’s Community Security Fleet prepared to escort a convoy into the Empire, while undercover agent Krauk reported that the fleet was protecting a Criminal Enterprise branch. Xi Yan learned of the approaching fleet and faced the prospect of an armed conflict just as the border treaty was nearing completion.

• Krauk defended Gorpious against Grugulum, who stormed out after threatening to report the dispute to Perkin Asland.
• Gorpious ordered the captains to prepare their ships and asked Krauk how he felt about returning to his former homeland.
• Krauk declined special treatment, and Gorpious praised his potential to command a fleet.
• The fleet adjourned and prepared to depart the next stellar day, while Gorpious asked Krauk to stay for a private discussion.
• Krauk delayed his intelligence report until the fleet approached the border, then sent it to the Empire through his diary for Ashes to intercept.
• Xi Yan received Ashes’s warning and realized the fleet’s arrival could trigger an armed conflict before the border treaty was signed.

Xi Yan ordered the Empire to let the Community Security Fleet enter and prepare at least a hundred corvettes to overwhelm it. As Gorpious's fleet approached the Interstellar Human Military Junta, Gorpious and Greger prepared to negotiate and carry out their mission despite expecting war.

• Xi Yan and Beta agreed to let the Community Security Fleet enter, then deal with it inside the Empire's territory.
• Xi Yan ordered the fleet's sixty Blue Laser corvettes to assemble in the Amaterro System and demanded that construction continue until the Empire had at least a hundred ships.
• Xi Yan told Beta to spend alloys freely and said the Empire could dismantle ships after the war if upkeep became too costly.
• Gorpious's Community Security Fleet reached a border system of the M'tok Union and prepared to enter the Interstellar Human Military Junta's territory.
• Gorpious asked Greger to help command the destroyer Community while Gorpious handled communications and tried to avoid direct conflict.

The Korodo System served as a strategic border between the Interstellar Human Military Junta and the M'tok Union, while its mining station supplied the Empire with resources. Gorpious's Community Security Fleet entered the system after receiving no response from the humans, leaving the encounter's outcome unresolved.

• The Korodo System connected the Interstellar Human Military Junta to three M'tok Union systems, giving the Empire a valuable position from which to threaten its neighbor.
• Ren Shuang inspected the automated mining vessels and arranged for their mineral and alloy cargo to be shipped onward to the Ring World.
• Xi Yan remained devoted to Gray and rejected attempts by others, including General Veronica, to find him a partner.
• Gorpious brought the Community Security Fleet into the Korodo System after months of waiting and unanswered requests for permission to enter.
• Gorpious felt uneasy when scans showed no human garrison in the border system, though Xi Yan had simply kept his fleets at home.