Rogue Trader CYOA Story
Part 2
"I claim this world in the name of the Emperor of Man and His Imperium. I bring justice and truth for the loyal, punishment and death for the guilty, and the spoils I take by my own hand."
— Ansellion Aquairre, Lord Captain of the Caelestis Imperium
His Glorious Aspirations. Frontier System.
While I had been tempted to make a warp jump straight to another universe as soon as possible, and to never look back, that wasn't what I ended up doing because while I felt certain it would work it be would extremely foolish for me to utilise an untested piece of technology in such a way. Aside from that my cruiser would only be able to operate without support for so long. If could find enough raw materials we could expand our time away from port from months to years, but one day I would need to take my ship to a space dock that could handle an IOM cruiser and so I'd have to come back to the forge-world.
With those thoughts in mind, I'd gone along with the plan the Ad-Mech had come up with. Which was to jump to a frontier system far from the forge-world to find out exactly how much time got shaved off the journey while using a warp route known to be stable. The route wasn't used very often since it led to the edge of the space from where the astronomicon could only be faintly made out. Retracing the journey would be simple enough since the warp in this part of the galaxy allowed for safer and more stable trips.
This was partly why the drive was being tested so far from Mars or one of the Forge Worlds closer to Mars. The other reasons involved the fact that forge-worlds didn't always share technology and information despite them being unified under one banner. Also out here in this remote part of the Imperium, there was less chance of any enemy agents finding us and performing acts of sabotage.
"Report, Number One," I said.
Rather than converse with the crew directly, something that unnerved me a little since so many of them were servitors or close to it given their sheer amount of cybernetics, I made use of my first officer's experience with starship command. He was able to quickly gather up the desired information and he was able to present it to me without much delay. I really should see about getting a raise.
"As we hoped the projected journey time was cut in half," he told me.
Due to the messed-up nature of warp travel that just meant the time we'd spent travelling was half of what it would have been for another ship, how time would have progressed for the rest of the universe was another matter and we wouldn't know until we returned to the forge-world. Assuming things went well we'd arrive back there in half the time a trip to the frontier system and back should have taken, and all without needing a navigator since I felt fairly certain that any psyker with enough power could simply will this ship to go where it needed to go as long as they knew where they wanted to go. Although a navigator would be the best choice to do should the drives somehow ever be replicated since they had experience with the warp.
"Lord-Captain!" called out a voice "We are picking up something on the scans".
The Master of Etherics had actually mentioned something about consulting machine spirits of foreseeing or some such rubbish. Due to my perspective as a 21st-century human, I knew that the technology all around us only seems as if it has a will of its own in the form of a machine spirit, I simply paid lip service to such things, as I didn't wish to be burned at the stake for being a heretic, and everything for me worked just fine. As such, I did my best to filter out most of the mumbo jumbo and to understood what they all really meant.
"Any idea what the augur is picking up?" I questioned.
I didn't get much information.
"A group of fast-moving objects" I was unhelpfully told.
I decided to go with my gut on this. I'd been warned that there would be groups out that didn't want the IOM to start using a better form of warp drive and while the drive couldn't be replicated that might not always be the case. Besides if it did allow this ship to reach other universes then it would allow me to expand the influence if the Imperium to place its enemies couldn't follow. One day I might bring back some sort of technology that greatly altered the balance of power in this galaxy. Groups like Chaos and Eldar might learn of that due to their warp powers and move to stop me before I could change things.
"Battle stations" I ordered, "Raise the void-shields".
So absolute was my will while on this ship that my commands were carried out right away and this was good because it takes time for even a smaller IOM warship to power up its weapons and shields. It isn't like Star Trek, there's no single button or simple series of buttons to press that does everything for you.
"We need to get out of here," I said to my First Officer.
Unlike jumping into hyperspace, going into the warp is not a simple matter. The warp drive is a very complex and poorly understood piece of technology in which you get around the whole lightspeed limit issue by travelling through what can best be described as Hell in the style of Event Horizon only with a shield to protect you. Lucky for us this ship had a very advanced warp drive and we'd not entered the system near anything with a gravity-well strong enough to stop us from getting back into the warp.
Navigation of Warpspace can be achieved in two ways: the calculated jump, which is what humans used before navigators and limited to a few lightyears, and the piloted jump I was about to do a piloted jump as we'd not ventured too far into the system to jump. Whoever had decided to ambush hadn't waited long enough before the attack, if they had we'd have been able to simply leave. It also mattered that this wasn't a battleship and that the Dauntless-class cruiser was meant to scout for the fleets, so it was rather nimble for an IOM ship.
Once a spacecraft activates its Warp-Drive, it is plunged into a dimension very different from the material universe. It is convenient to imagine Warpspace as consisting of a relatively dense, almost liquid, energy, devoid of stars, or any sort of light and life. But that is not the truth, it is in fact a nightmare realm full of all our fears, self-loathing and nightmares. It should also contain our virtues, dreams and kindnesses in equal measure, alas the War in Heaven between the Old Ones and the C'tan screwed up any kind of balance, and it didn't help that those stupid space elves had murder-fucked another chaos god into existence.
This was something I tried to keep out of mind as I leaned back in the command chair and linked with the drive's machine spirit which I knew to really be its complex operating system. Since it was much more advanced than other warp drives, this combined with the fact that we were on a ship more much nimble than other IOM vessels, and because we had extra power, I should be able to get us back into the warp before we all got killed.
Before I focused totally on my tasks, which was to get myself, with everyone else tagging along since we were all on the same vessel, out of not only this solar system but this universe. I imagined that I had cool psyker powers and I tried to reach out to them to sense who was coming after us. Powers or not I didn't know was on the ships now coming after us, I just somehow understood that they were psyker tricks to disguise themselves and that they meant to destroy us.
With that in mind, I focused my will and drove the cruiser into the warp as soon as I could. I desired to lay low, to go someplace where I would not have to worry about advanced enemies in a world that I knew well and wouldn't mind exploiting.
I smiled as we entered the warp with my destination in mind.
(Line Break)
His Glorious Aspirations. Unknown System.
I'd been right as it turned out, the Dark of Technology Drive did allow access to other dimensions as I'd somehow known (If I had part of the Emperor within me then perhaps I knew because he knew) it would, and as hoped I'd used the drive to escape the nightmare realm of Warhammer 40k because no remotely sane person would hang around in the galaxy unless they really had to. I would have to go back to make use of the Forge-World docks, but I could limit my exposer. One day I would hopefully find something to protect myself and the ship from any taint caused by The Warp. However, that was part of my long term plans.
Right now I needed to deal with other issues, such as figuring out where I'd brought us as I couldn't be certain we were where I'd wanted us to be, and what we would now that we were here. No matter where we'd ended up I needed to find some way of making a profit while here as otherwise, I would lose my ship. I would not be parted from my vessel, it was too much to lose. My ship and my warrant were my freedom. I would not go back to working a dead-end job on some Hive World.
Running a Dauntless-class cruiser, even one that's been stripped down of many of its weapons and doesn't have hanger bays full of fighters and bombers, is not cheap. Imperium of Man warship is more mobile city-fortresses than anything else. This ship is 4.5 km long, masses at 20 megatonnes and has a crew of about 65,000 people, and that's without counting the nine thousand guardsmen and women, and all the people who supported them. They all needed to be supplied.
While the ship was well stocked, we might be able to spend a few months out in the unknown before we would have to return to civilized space, but with more than seventy thousand people onboard just feeding everyone took massive amounts of resources every day. Then you had to take into account keeping them all equipped, busy with work, entertained when there was no work, and on top of all that I still had to pay anyone who wasn't a slave and since I'd recruited a proper crew for my ship they would need to be paid well. I needed to find some way of making money while out here.
As such if this solar system, the one I'd brought us to, didn't contain a way for me to make a lot of profit in the next couple of months, I'd either have to resupply out of my own pocket, which I couldn't do since I'd spent everything I had on this ship, or I'd have to take us back the forge-world and hope that the Ad-mech would be pleased enough with the test run to keep supporting me.
With that in mind, I'd called a meeting so that the senior member of the Ad-Mech, a man called Archmagos Del Arx who was an Explorator, who are a class of Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus that focus on the exploration of space to gather knowledge, often in Explorator Fleets. He should be able to explain to me what was going on in the system I'd brought us to and if it was the system I hoped it was.
Unlike the Engineseers who kept the cruiser going, the Archmagos wasn't under my authority in the strictest sense because of the strange way the Imperium works, but since I had the Warrant of Trade I was considered to the God-Emperor representative when we were beyond the borders of his domain and since the Ad-Mech believe that Big E is the physical avatar of their machine god or something like that, the Archmagos would agree to go along with what I wanted as long as my plans served the interests of the Ad-Mech. If this was a lifeless system we might just end up mapping it and doing a little mining. This might be enough for the Ad-Mech as a star chart of an unknown system is useful information to them even if it contains nothing profitable, and they liked to control information, any minerals we picked up would also be nice.
"Lord-Captain Maximinus Thrax," said my First Officer.
That wasn't my real name, and it wasn't the name I'd been given up arriving in the 40k universe, but when I'd become part of the nobility it had made sense to get a more important sounding name. There had been a family of Rouge Traders called Thrax who had vanished centuries ago so reusing the name made sense and the Ad-Mech, who had assigned me the name and the ship, weren't exactly known for coming up with anything new.
"May I present Lord-Inquisitor Inquisitor Allectus Jacobus of the Ordo Mallus his bodyguard Sister Brigicia of the Adepta Sororitas and Sanctioned Psyker Suzan" said my XO.
I wasn't shocked to discover that the Inquisition had someone on board, they'd gone to the trouble of mindwiping me rather than just shooting me so they must want me for something.
"We did not expect the Inquisition," said one of less ranking Magos who'd come with the Archmage.
Upon hearing this the psyker, a small blonde woman in clothing that wouldn't look out of place down in the gun decks, stepped forward and I could see the big grin on her face.
"No one expects the His Imperial Majesty's Holy Inquisition! Our chief weapon is a surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near-fanatical devotion to the God-Emperor... no wait I'll start again".
Had she just fused Monty Python with Warhammer 40k? I didn't know if I should be scared or to start falling in love with the crazy blond girl who I couldn't help noticing had a passing resemble the actress who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films.
"Forgive Suzan" requested the Lord Inquisitor "her abilities prove useful when seeking out the those corrupted by the Warp, but they strain her mind".
Given how The Warp worked it wouldn't surprise me to find out that poor Suzan was haunted by the spirit of Graham Chapman. As for the Inquisitor, he was a tall man in rather simple black clothing no more decorated than my own. If he'd been a native of Earth back in my time I'd say that he was either from some Middle-Eastern country or descended from the natives of one such land, but given the sheer number of human-hed planets in the Warhammer galaxy, he could be from anywhere.
The battle sister at his side who he introduced as Sister Brigicia of the Adepta Sororitas wore something that wouldn't look out of place in a Catholic Church back home, although I'd been raised as a Methodist so I was no expert, only she didn't cover her hair, which was a vibrant red and tied back in a ponytail.
"Also we have Lord-General Segean Holam" informed my second in command "and Lady-Navigator Praxana of House Praxo".
General Holam looked like a grizzled veteran, he had a clean-shaven face and a short hair cut that drew attention to the scars he'd acquired during many services to the Emperor. His uniform was also rather plain, free of any needless ornamentation such as medals. Even the Navigator wore a simple red robe and a red headdress, to cover up her third eye which could kill with a look, and this confused me as I'd been under the impression that high ranking members of IOM liked to try to upstage each other with finery and that they all carried arms all the time that we were needlessly large to show off their prowess. Maybe they only bothered with stuff when someone was likely to take a photo.
"While the Lord-Captain was resting I took the liberty of scouting this system," the Archmagos told us in an unexpectedly human-sounding voice "And this is what we have learned so far".
My cruiser had navigators, however, due to the special nature of the warp drive we were using I somehow guided the ship, the navigators were only to take over guiding the ship through the warp if I somehow failed. Since the drive could not be replicated didn't threaten the Navigator Houses and if it was one day they'd be the ones to use the drives. If anything they could profit from my ventures as I also had to pay them with some of my profits while they didn't little to no work due to ancient laws. Still, it would be worth it if only to stop them from interfering with my operations and if I did pass out during a warp jump they might be able to save us from being consumed by daemons so I didn't mind having them here.
"This is a map of this system," said the Archmagos.
He'd just done something that was part technical and part mystical, at least in his mind, to make the round table that we were all standing around emit a very detailed hologram. This system had what one would imagine a solar system would have. Rocky worlds, gas giants, a sun, that sort of thing.
"So far we have found only one word that holds any interest to us," said the Archmage who altered the image so that one world floated before us in the centre of the table "All our fact-finding supports that this is a world that can support human life. We have detected no signs of any intersystem travel or vox signals, so until we make orbit and perform a planetary scan we won't know if it is inhabited by anything more advanced than simple animal and plant life".
Suzan again spoke and did so with a big smile on her face.
"A song of ice and fire!" she yelled "Death marches on The Wall!".
No one was more shocked than me to hear those words and I had more reason to react than others. At least I knew that we were in the right place and if the psyker was making any kind of sense the White Walkers were on the move. Not that I worried, they could be dealt with via orbital bombardment. Besides the ice demons would be the Inquisition's problem.
"My psyker does not speak without good reason," said the Lord-Inquisitor "There must be something on that world of great importance for her to say such things".
Now the hologram had slowly spun around to show me a recognisable landmass I knew for sure that I'd brought us to the right part of the multiverse. The continent that I looked at just had to be Westeros. I'd been write about the drive and while it had been taxing for me to bring us here it could be quite profitable if I played my cards right. There was no one on that world to stop us and so it would just be a matter of exploiting its people and resources as effectively as possible.
This would be a good first world for me to visit as a Rogue Trader in action as I had much to learn about conquests and making massive amounts of profit. If my life was a game, and it sure felt like that at times, this could be considered a fun first level to start with. A way to learn what I could do and without putting too much strain on myself or my ship.
I had to wonder if this Suzan woman was like me from Earth in the past, around about the early 21st century or if in her universe life on Earth had been the same at that time as it had been in mine, and she was somehow tapping into the pop culture of that era via The Warp. Either would make sense to me given how downright nuts the 40k verse could be. If she was a SI of some kind then she should be able to sense the same about me and if so she'd likely make contact at some point. If not then she just an oddity and it would be best for my sanity not to pay her too much attention.
"There is a concern we should address before anything else," said the high ranking Navigator "While the psykers on board this ship, be they Astropath or Navigator can still feel a faint trace of the God-Emperor's light we have lost sight of The Astronomicum. To avoid a panic this news had been allowed to spread"
Despite how bad that sounded, and it was bad since it meant we were very far from Holy Terra, I wasn't too concerned about this.
"I should be able to retrace our journey and take us back to the forge-world," I told everyone.
You didn't need psychic powers to sense how well everyone took this news. Now it would be possible to tell the crew that we would be able to make it back. In theory, any psyker should be able to guide the ship back to the forge-world it just wouldn't be possible to leave the Warhammer universe unless you had an idea of about somewhere to go.
With that issue dealt with a discussion began about the habitable planet that we would soon venture to. Suzan muttered something that her boss took to mean that we were heading towards a feudal world, what I would call a medieval setting. If this was the Game of Thrones world and Suzan's words could be trusted then I suspected that we'd arrived at some point in the timeline that I saw on the show, which made sense since I'd been thinking about this fictional universe when connected the drive while picturing events from the show, and when The Warp got involved, and the drive did use The Warp in some way, then time and space didn't always have to make sense.
"If this world is feudal in nature then conquering it will not prove difficult even it might be time-consuming," said the Lord-General "We can't take on the native armies all at once, but if they are divided into warring states we can conquer them one at a time".
Thanks to the teaching engines and my own knowledge I knew that a Feudal World is a planet into which the Imperium has not seen fit to introduce the most advanced technology to keep its people in an easily controlled state. Sometimes the people of that world will have access to more advanced medical technologies than expected for such a society, this can include basic antiseptic agents and antibiotics, this is not done out of kindness, rather than to ensure that the worlds' population, which can be drawn upon to create guard regiments, isn't lost to an epidemic, and make sure the raw materials or food paid in tribute to the Imperium keeps coming.
Feudal Worlds are defined as those planets of the Imperium that have developed late Iron Age civilisations that are moderately technologically advanced while remaining pre-industrial, having usually progressed as far as to discover or re-discover rudimentary gunpowder weapons. These planets often possess widespread and advanced farming economies and typically have a population somewhere between 10,000,000 to 500,000,000 people. Feudal Worlds are similar culturally and technologically to Terran societies in the European Late Middle Ages or Renaissance periods of the Age of Progress.
Generally, Feudal Worlds will have little direct political or economic interference from the larger Imperium and be required to pay only low planetary tithes. Imperial Planetary Governors of Feudal Worlds will generally live on a space station in orbit of the planet to avoid altering the cultural balance, only descending to the surface to deal with heresy, rebellion or rampant mutation.
These planets are populated by folk who have lost access to all but the most basic of technologies and maintain Iron Age or early Gunpowder Age societies. Farming, simple labour-intensive machines such as pulleys, windmills and the like are known but propelled flight, automatic weaponry and powered vehicles are likely to be rare or non-existent. These words are often said to be the most politically harmonious of all the planets of the Imperium because their peoples know their place.
Feudal worlds are self-sufficient, and due to dependence on agriculture, a large part of the populations of these worlds are peasants, usually ruled by warrior aristocracies. Feudal worlds are of relatively little use to the Imperium's military as you have to deal with culture shock when recruiting guard regiments, but it does happen and given time you can train medieval warriors into guardsmen you just have to account for the higher failure rate during training. This was something I would keep in mind
When the Inquisition had mindwiped a lot of my recent memories they had implanted me with some greater knowledge of this galaxy that I could access when required to help guide me as a Rogue Trader. If only to decrease the chances of me screwing something up and making a mess that they'd have to clean up later on. This knowledge would come in handy during my career.
"We should hold off on any plans until we make orbit and get more detailed readings of the world," I said to the VIPs around the table "If humans are living on the planet we'll need to abduct some of them to find out more. The same goes if they are some kind of aliens who will need to be destroyed".
It amused me that I was about to send ships to a world to abduct people.
"Hopefully without the anal probing," said Suzan all of a sudden.
Thankfully the people here pretended that she hadn't spoken. Perhaps they were simply used to Sanctioned Psykers saying odd things at times.
"That would be wise," said the Archmagos "It will take a further 37.2 hours for the ship to enter orbit. At that point, I will entrust the Magos under my command to begin gathering information. Once I have a report, which should be possible in an estimated 51.8 hours, the Lord-Captain can decide our next course of action".
Already I was thinking about how I, or more likely the Lord-General, could conquer most of the feudal world with only nine thousand guardsmen and whatever men and women I could afford to excuse from duties on the ship to support the regiment. In the show, The Mother of Dragons proves to anyone watching how the Free Cities around Slaver's Bay could easily be taken by a big enough force and that could be a good place to start. But first I needed more information, such as knowledge of recent events and a plan for dealing with the White Walkers, assuming the Inquisition didn't take care of that for me.
(Line Break)
His Glorious Aspirations. In Orbit of Planetos.
Less than three days later, which was rather speedy for the way the IOM tended to handle matters, we were all back in the meeting room and looking at a much more detailed map of the world of Fire and Ice. The system had been named the Maximinus Thrax System after me with the world that Game of Thrones was on being called Maximinus Thrax Primus or simply Thrax Primus. Apparently, the only other claim to fame found in the records for the original Rogue Trader family called Thrax was a lost STC of some kind.
"As you can see by the hologlobe" said the Archmagos "There are six continents, however, those we have questioned, which includes a Maester of the Citadel, which is a centre of education according to the native human population, to them the known world consists of four discovered continents: Westeros, Essos, and Sothoryos. Of these only Westeros and Essos are well known. There are also numerous islands and archipelagos, including the Stepstones, the Summer Islands, and Ib".
So far this fitted in with what I knew.
"The two unnamed continents are highlighted," said the Ad-Mech leaders "One is to the far west and the other in the far south. There are no signs of any habitation according to our orbital scans".
Given that the scans hadn't picked up the Children of The Forest, and thus we had no one screaming about foul Xenos, some sort of intelligent life might have existed in parts of the world unknown to the local humans or still could it was well hidden.
"Call the westernmost landmass Ameros and the southern one Austraos" I decided.
Archmagos Del Arx understood my naming.
"You have combined the names of two landmasses from ancient Terra with native use of os," he said "I approve".
Since no one else around here had seen maps of old Earth then didn't understand and soon enough the discussion moved on.
"The landmass we know most about is Westeros," said the Archmagos "It is located in the far west of the known world. Westeros extends southwards from the northern polar icecap for approximately 3,000 miles. Most of the continent is unified as part of a political entity called the Seven Kingdoms, and it is ruled by King Robert who sits on the Iron Throne in the city of King's Landing".
This was discussed for a few moments.
"When it comes time to conquer these Seven Kingdoms it will be important to quickly capture this King's Landing," said the Lord-General "Seizing the city could throw the entire of this Westeros into anarchy".
It wasn't hard to see the wisdom in this. By the time any of the High Lords got an army together with the intent of retaking the city the Lord-General's soilders would have had plenty of time to dig in.
"The northern border of the Seven Kingdoms is marked by The Wall, beyond which lies mountainous tundra inhabited by the Free Folk" we were told, "If the Sanctioned Psyker is correct...".
"Death marches on The Wall!" she yelled.
"Then this part of Seven Kingdoms should be investigated" finished the Lord-Inquisitor "As will the site which is known as the Doom as also this Asshai that I have already been informed about thanks to my own investigation. By my authority as Inquisitor, no Imperial citizen no matter his or her rank may venture to these locations without my blessing. I will personally execute anyone who disobeys this command".
Since I knew that north of The Wall lies the Land of Always Winter which is assumed to be governed by White Walkers under the authority of the Night King, it made sense not to go there. The Doom was where Valyeria used to be and no one should go there either. As for Asshai, it was supposed to be home to magic users so again it made sense to let the Inquisition handle this matter. Now that they were out in the open I knew that the Inquisitor had an entire squad of his own personal guard on my ship and he would be able to call upon the Stormtroopers that would normally be under the command of the Lord-General. These were Cadian Stormtroopers so they'd be better prepared for weird magic shit than other soilders do to having fought Chaos.
As for the White Walkers, assuming that the Inquisitor didn't simply kill them all, which was possible given that compared to the threats faced in 40k the White Walkers weren't that impressive, we'd have to seize and further fortify The Wall. I figured that our laser weapons should prove quite effective against wights.
Given that most of the action in Game of Thrones occurs in Westeros, I'd have to go there if I was to have much impact on future events. While the regiment would be busy doing whatever it was the Lord-General wanted them to do I had my battle-harem as well as any Navy Armsmen that could be spared. Given the tens of thousands of crew members I had on board, who would be far more disciplined than the crews of other ships due to their training, I should be able to put together a small army of my own if needs be.
It might also be a good idea to set up a base of operations of my own somewhere on the planet and request that the Ad-Mech build me a nice fortress to call home while I was planetside. That would be something to discuss later once I knew where the Lord-General would focus his efforts as I'd be more focused on trade than conquest unless I could take easy targets.
"As for Essos" the Ad-mech leader was now saying "It is separated from Westeros by the Narrow Sea, Essos extends eastwards for many thousands of miles and its far reaches are unknown to anyone we questioned, whereas we have a much better idea of what is out there. We did learn of names such as Asshai and the forbidding Shadow Lands, as well as rumours of sorcery".
Inquisitor Allectus Jacobus assured that he would look into this and requested from Lord-General Segean Holam the aid of his best troopers, something he consented to quickly since he wouldn't want what he would think of as rouge psykers on the world he would soon govern as a military commander. His regiment would stay behind to keep this world secure in the name of the God-Emperor, and this meant that I'd need to acquire a new regiment, and that wouldn't be cheap so while Holam would rule the world I would be permitted to exploit it to make the conquest profitable for me. If nothing else the world had people I could ship back to the forge world to serve as a labour force, an idea that didn't bother me anywhere near as much as it should. I would need a lot of people to make it worthwhile, as in tens of thousands, but that was managable.
Looking at the hologlobe I saw that Essos not was linked to Westeros in any way even via the poles, and this suggested the forts that had been set up in Esso along with a wall of sorts in the far east were not meant to keep out the White Walkers. Perhaps there was some other threat out there that the Inquisition would need to look into sooner or later.
"Essos is larger than Westeros but less densely populated" The Archmage let us all know "The western edge of the continent is controlled by the nine Free Cities, while the city-states of Slaver's Bay are located in the south-central region. Further east is Qarth and the fabled Jade Sea, which Essos partially encloses".
This news was also discussed for a time.
"These city-states aren't unified in any way I'm guessing," I said.
It wasn't a guess since I knew this to be the truth.
"Correct" stated the Archmagus.
Lord-General Segean Holam caught on quickly.
"Given their divided nature and the distances between them it should be simple to take them one at a time" realised the old veteran "We won't need to leave a large occupying force if these city-states make heavy use of slavery".
I knew what he was thinking. If we took a city we could liberate the slaves and with some effort, we could get them to form a new regiment that was gifted with weapons and training by us. Even a few months of training with what people from the 40k universe called autoguns and with some decent body armour along with some veteran guardsmen to lead them, and then the locals could fight for us as a sort of PDF. We'd just have introduced proper Imperial Faith to the downtrodden masses, something the priesthood would be good for, and Imperial Guard would suffer few losses taking all of Slaver's Bay due to their massive firepower advantage, their thanks and flying support craft.
"Much of the continental interior west of the Jade Sea is ruled by the tribal warriors known as the Dothraki who are in large part responsible for the lack of any proper civilization in Esso" he Archmagos let us all know "They will not bow to Imperial authority, and will need to be destroyed. While they are nomadic they do have a central authority of sorts, a city called Vaes Dothrak".
Since I didn't have a hanger bay full of fighter and bombers I couldn't just blast the nomads out of existence. Orbital bombardment of a city was one thing, trying to wipe out nomadic clans that way could work, but it would destroy a lot of land that could be used for farming in the future.
"If Vaes Dothrak were taken then the nomad raiders would return to it in force" I mentioned.
I'd made that sound like a possibility rather than a statement of fact. Something for the Lord-General to keep in mind during his conquests.
"Of Sothoryos: Relatively little known, Sothoryos is located south of Essos, on the far side of the Summer Sea. It is a large continent consisting of deserts and jungles" we were now hearing "It is said to be a haven for plagues and dangerous animals as such it has not been explored much beyond the northern coastal regions. Like Uthlos is it very sparsely populated, but Ulthos has no real contact with the rest of the world".
While it was good that we would be able to conquer the planet in the name of God-Emperor, because you didn't need to be Big E to know that this world needed a firm hand to sort it out, it would cost me quite a bit in terms of resources to fund this conquest. As such, I needed to quickly make a profit. Prisoners of war could be used as slave labour, but since I didn't intend to return to the IOM for a couple of years at least, because by then I'd have to. I would need to feed and house all the slaves until I could dump them off somewhere else, and that would increase my expenses.
"Are there any material benefits to conquering this world?" I asked.
With the manufactorum we had onboard we'd be able to produce a wide range of goods as long as we had enough raw materials to feed the machines. That would give me easy access to manufactured goods that we could sell to the locals in exchange for gold, but we needed the materials first.
"The auguries have shown us that this world has vast deposits of useful minerals" the Archmagos let me know "including large amounts of gold, far more than would be expected for a habitable world of this kind. The mass of this planet is slightly greater than that of most worlds suitable for human habitation, but the difference is not great enough to cause any problems".
That made sense given that the Lannisters had been digging up gold for thousands of years in just the Westerlands and gold did have value to the Ad-Mech for more than decoration. As the locals used it for money I could have some of the gold we minded converted into coinage that those on shore leave could use as money. Rogue Traders could mint their own coins as the money would serve as tokens for the goods a trader had on his ship. This made it easier to deal with a planetary governor since it meant you wouldn't need to transport tons of materials when you were still at the bartering stage for the services of a world. As for the people of the soon to be conquered world they used gold coins so they should be accepting of any currency we introduced.
"Ulthos is a landmass in the far east, it is very sparsely populated," said the Archmagos "Upon your command the Magos under my command will begin recovery of the mineral bounty of that landmass. It is doubtful that any of the political groups on the other landmasses would even be aware of our actives in Ulthos. The jungles biomass can be converted into sustenance for the crew and the Imperial Guard".
That made sense so I authorised it. Not that the Ad-Mech really needed my permission to do anything. This was a curiosity more than anything else.
"Lord-General if you are going to focus your efforts on Essos then I plan to make diplomatic contact with kingdoms in Westeros and maybe one or two of the Free Cities near the Narrow Sea" I mentioned, "We might be able to bring them into the Imperium without conflict, or at the very least I can gather information for you before an invasion".
The Guard would need a year, maybe more, to secure just the known parts of Essos and to train enough men for a proper invasion of Westeros, which was much more unified than the Free-Cites, at least when they weren't at war, due to having a central authority. I might need to weaken Westeros before an invasion or just let them have the civil war that I knew was coming.
"If I may Lord-Captain," said the Archmagos "You might consider using your own forces to conquer one of the island chains before you make contact. Given their feudal nature it is likely that the leadership of the Seven Kingdoms, this King Robert would accept your authority as long as you demonstrate your power".
That could work since the culture of Westeros was built around military might so if I came along and smashed the Ironborn or the pirates of the Stepstones it might worry the other kingdoms, but they wouldn't be outraged and since the Iron Islands were the weakest kingdom the others wouldn't be so sure that I could steamroll over them as well. The Stepstones would be better since I knew the Iron Islands to be rather worthless.
This would involve a lot of planning so I figured that this meeting would drag on for many hours.