The completed national focuses had become a historical foundation of many colors: the icon for [The Great Purge] still gleamed black, followed by [Final Chapter of the Purges], [Pacify the Interior], [The Son of Heaven Is Here], [Oath of the Luo River], [Tianzhu Autonomy Negotiations], [Recognize Area 11's Legitimacy], [Human-Machine Combined Total War], [Imperial Eagle Faction Cabinet], and [Luoyang National Industrial Core Zone].
Beneath every icon trailed costs that victory had not erased.
Lost experience among the officer corps, reduced initiative at the lower levels, the Regent's poor personal credibility, regional military factions' fear of the central government, India's lasting wariness of the state of emergency, Area 11's Government-in-Exile's dependence on Great Han military aid, and a tyranny opinion score already approaching the danger line.
Victory had not wholly absolved him. These methods had indeed taken a Federation that could not even pay its imperial guards in full and, in less than half a year, brought it to the point where it could mobilize millions twenty-two days ahead of schedule and destroy a phase-zero Hive head-on.
Then four previously mutually exclusive political paths lit up simultaneously along the edges of the national focus tree.
The red path extended downward from the Wartime Industrial Commission, coordinated military funding, and the Asset Takeover Office. It advocated bringing railways, power grids, heavy industry, sakuradite, arms manufacturing, aviation, bank clearing, and grain allocation under joint state control, sustaining total war through Workers' Committees, technical ratings, and military supply rationing. Deep within the path lay both union oversight and public welfare, as well as a permanent war economy, forced labor organization, and a Political Security System.
The black path revolved around the Son of Heaven, the Regent Government, the credibility of the Ancestral Temple, and the Wartime Military Commission. It could preserve member-state autonomy, local