It was pretty handy that all my Arcologies were mostly made of organic materials. It ant I could take control of them from afar, grabbing the seed of eldritch flesh I’d left behind in each to shape the Arcologies as I wished, letting add in extra things I’d forgotten without having to tear down parts of it and rebuilding it the old-fashioned way.
So of the Mayors or their general staff who’d gone through the blueprints I’d provided were probably scratching their heads, or suspicious, at a brand new room that seemingly didn’t exist a day before just popping into existence.
They’ll get over it. Now every Arcology had a Holo-Conference room which was outfitted with hard light projectors and my best communication array to make sure there was no transmit lag.
All fifty-one rooms were identical, with the final one being located in my capital, in my Fortress. Standing on a raised podium, I watched as holographic forms flickered to life one after the other in the room before .
Fifty desks, all with four chairs behind them. One for the Overseer, one for the Mayor, one for the Ambassador and one for a free choice I’d left up to the Mayors.
In the future, the Ambassadors would be here in person, but for now they were just projections too.
I stood before them, showing off a little as I hovered a bit off the ground with my bare feet just barely not touching the floor. I wore my regular garb of flowy white pants and a silky shirt, making it look like I was wearing a Roman toga at a glance at how its folds rested on my body.
I had Selene and Alpha to my sides, with the rest of what I was going to call my Council — Val, Zedev, Selene, Alpha and maybe Fae, Bob and Zara too if I felt like it — missing for now. They all had jobs to do, or would have a ntal breakdown in Zara’s case. Selene’s job was standing next to and being my emotional support human — though her human-ness was starting to grow questionable with the recent enhancents I had given her —, unquestionably the most crucial job of them all.
To a lesser extent, she also helped look all regal and authoritative, giving little suggestions through our Bond whenever I did sothing undignified in her opinion.
“Welco,” I said, the chattering fading instantly as my voice resounded in the room. I gave them a smile. “To the first of hopefully many of our still-forming nation’s Grand Assemblies. I am Echidna, as I’m sure most of you’ve learnt by now, and I rule this world.”
There were so murmurings at that, so dissatisfied looks, so obvious scheming but most of them just looked intrigued or eager. Then there were the very few who I knew bullied my cute daughters into telling them what this eting was about.
I’d let them off this once, because none of them got too an and they were understandably stressed, but I was going to punt them through a wall if they did it again.
It wouldn’t do for them to disrespect my daughters, and while I wouldn’t kill a sitting Mayor — that was a slippery slope I knew I would slide right down into the abyss if I took a single step onto — I was going to curse the shit out of them. Literally, since making a laxative Biomancy curse was child’s play.
I’d also notify Alpha about who’d need help to reign in their assigned Mayors, I was sure they could handle them if they all worked together.
I’d keep an eye out, though. If any of them got the guts to actually get violent or try to threaten my daughters, the gloves would co off and their asses would be punted into the nearest star. Fuck consequences. Actually, those would be the consequences, and they had better rember them.
“Like always, let set so ground rules for this Assembly,” I said. “You may ask any question you may like, I’ll try not to take offence even if it's impolite, but I promise even the most outrageous question won’t have any consequences. I may pass on answering, but that’s just how it is. Do try to be polite, though. I may levy the consequences for being rude today, but I have a perfect mory and I will rember it for centuries to co. You do not want the first impression I have of your entire bloodline to be a poor one, or it will haunt your descendants for generations to co. As for the topic of today’s rather rushed eting, we have a bit of a situation on our hands.”
I snapped my fingers, and behind m,e the holographic replica of our Star System sprang to life. Helpful little titles floated above the sphere representing Vallia itself, and the moon we stood on.
With a wave of my hands, the hologram zood out, and a group of blinking crimson dots appeared further out into the void. The title above them simply read ‘Invading Imperial Fleet’.
“We have sothing good, sothing nice in the work here,” I said. “Which, of course ans the Imperium of Mankind couldn’t keep itself from wanting to ruin it. We have a fleet incoming with around fifty warships and plenty more smaller escort ships under the command of Lord Militant Solomon Tetrarchus. Before asking any questions, read the informative docunt I’d sent over. I am the head of your governnt, not an encyclopedia. Try to look for answers yourself before bothering with questions.”
I didn’t want to spend the next two hours parroting voidship specifications or general knowledge about Imperial battle doctrine. I nabbed so docunts detailing those from the Machine Spirit’s database instead. They could nose through the 9000 page long lexicon if they wanted to find out what type of screws were used in what type of transport shuttle or whatever.
Everyone who was in attendance had the highest level of clearance available to anyone outside of my Council, so it was fine. They could nibble on these crumbs of knowledge and feel important.
“May I ask a question then?” One of the Mayors asked, raising a hand with a neutral look on his face. I gave him a nod, and he continued. “The docunts describe what this … Imperium is, how it works, its reach and power, but it doesn’t say why they would want us dead. Is it just the fact that we are supposedly the vassals of these ‘Tau’?”
“No,” I said. “That’s a part of it, they loathe all aliens with a burning passion, almost as much as they hate daemons and cultists, but I suspect the primary reason for their invasion is to kill or enslave .”
“Can we negotiate with them? Surrender? Would they spare us if we disavow you?” The sa man asked with a carefully crafted facade of neutrality. He may have suspected I was a Telepath from so of the information in the docunts, I had made sure there was so information about Psykers in them after all, but he probably still felt safe enough sitting halfway across the world from . Not that I needed Telepathy to read his nervousness, the micro-expressions and the stiffness of his fingers all too clear to my eyes even through his holographic projection.
“You probably won’t believe when I say this, but no,” I said with a wry smirk. “You have grown up under the rule of a Daemon Prince, then willingly submitted to , a very dangerous Psyker in their minds, while also indirectly coming under Tau control. You might have had a chance in any other Sector, but the Imperial commanders of the Jericho Reach — the section of space we are in — are extrely paranoid and loathe everything even mildly stinking of Xeno or Chaos influence. You can very much expect them to go with the ‘shoot first, ask questions never’ approach.”
The man sat back, giving a polite nod and had a thoughtful look on his face. He really did try to act like a professional politician, but I felt his heart trying to jump out of his chest. He had more questions, but feared angering or annoying his peers by hogging my attention too much to ask them.
“How prepared are we to fight off fifty warships? Can your power really match theirs?” The next Mayor I pointed at asked, looking visibly nervous. He probably hadn’t been a politician before coming to this world.
“I’m reasonably confident in our chances of victory,” I stated calmly.
“What do you expect from us and our cities during this conflict?” Another asked, and I smiled at the matronly woman.
“Nothing,” I said. “Unless sothing goes horribly wrong, like things tend to do in war, you should not even see any sign of combat from your Arcologies. Even if by so horrid twist of fate the enemy fleet arrives above the world and begins an orbital bombardnt, the Arcologies should hold out unless they do sothing extre.”
“What happens if we lose?” The next one asked, this one Rachel’s Mayor, looking visibly sick as he did. “Alternatively, if we survive this … are we then at war with the galaxy?”
“If they sohow manage to kill ,” I said with a distasteful frown. “The world will probably be given an Exterminatus order, so utter obliteration of the surface world and the erasure of civilisation. They really hate and would not want a single echo of my ‘taint’ to remain in the galaxy.”
That was true too, I understood how little Solomon’s mind worked well enough to tell what he’d do if he found out about my millions of citizens. They would get bombed to shit, and when that didn’t work, he’d order the planet’s core to be cracked open like it was a coconut.
“And if we win?” I continued, giving him a dark grin. “We’d be at war with the Imperium of Mankind, though nothing would co of it. Lord Militant Solomon Tetrarchus is the Supre Commander of the Achilus Crusade and the highest-ranking officer of the Astra Militarum in the Jericho Reach. If he died here, the entire Crusade would be reeling from the loss, doubly so if the First Fleet under his command never returned. They would be left scrambling to defend themselves as their many enemies slled blood in the water and pounced on them in their mont of weakness. The Imperium may just end up entirely pushed out of the Jericho Reach if they fail here, and we’d not have to worry about them for a long while if they do.”
They made for a tough crowd, looking dubious and doubtful, so allowing them to look hopeful while others clearly saw my words as grandstanding. Others looked for scheming, wondering whether I’d just made up the invading fleet to make them scared.
I couldn’t hope to beat an actual fleet by myself if it were real, after all. Right? So I had to be lying. No one was that powerful; that would be ludicrous.
Heh. They’d see for themselves just how wrong they were, maybe not just yet, but in ti.
Talia’s Mayor had a very different look in his eyes, though; there was an intelligent mind behind them, already swirling with a dozen sches, but what made him different from the rest was his goals. The others wanted to build their influence, to sink their roots into their Arcologies and make sure they could keep the power that fell into their laps.
He, Kastor Dross, wanted to help . I peered into his mind and almost grinned; he was no fanatical believer, but he saw the good I did and wished to help . He wanted to make sure my changes stuck, that the growing pains were minimised, and that society thrived.
Nation building, eh? Can’t say I’ve put any thought into how to form a unified culture and society for my empire beyond making sure so of the worst Chaos-adjacent tendencies were kept in check.
I’ll see how well he does in his own Arcology. I decided. If he does well, he might just earn himself a position in my Council once his term is up. I need political advisors if I want this Empire I’m building not to be a smouldering train wreck.
I could feel that he appreciated ; he was smart enough to look at the benefits of my rule and do an objective pros and cons comparison. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot more pros to his people becoming my subjects than cons.
Honestly, the ‘loss of freedom’ should not even be there on the 'cons' list. These fuckers were ruled by a Daemon Prince, a few more years and their very souls would have been enslaved, chained to the dark will of their ‘Eternal Queen’.
Oh well. Better he saw so clear downsides instead of starting to think ‘this is too good to be true, what’s the catch?’. There would be no catch, but paranoid people saw sches and shadows where there were none.
I knew that from experience, though I also knew Tzeentch was a scheming bastard, so there were always sches abound that I couldn’t ever hope to see coming no matter how paranoid I was.
“What exactly gives you the confidence to say you can beat an entire fleet?” One of the dubious Mayors asked, getting a nasty look from my cute tomboy daughter sitting next to him. He jumped a little, returning her glare, and I can tell she’d just kicked him in the shin rather hard. Heh. “What even are you? You are no regular human, or even just one of these … psykers.”
“A reasonable question,” I said calmly, sending a brief note of amusent and soothing emotions towards Cassie, the tomboy daughter in question. For so reason, she picked Cassie Cage as her role model after nagging about what my ho was like and getting to give her the majority of my mories from my pre-Warhamr life. Oh well, she was cute, so it was fine. “I am quite possibly the most powerful mortal psyker alive, though I’m only top five if we count the Emperor of Mankind as alive, or if we include Daemons. I am a master of Biomancy and Fleshcrafting, every piece of organic matter is clay for to mould. I am what the Tyranids wish they were, what the Hivemind dreams of becoming. With enough biomass to work with, I can build anything, and it just so happens that I have more than enough on hand to build an entire fleet of my own Bioships. In fact, they are being built as we speak and will be ready to engage the enemy in a few days. They will be manned by , and the Orks under my command who will handle boarding the enemy ships and slaughtering the invaders.”
That was closer to the truth than the bullshit I’d fed to the Tau, but I’ll convince Aun’Saal that it’s actually the opposite. It wouldn’t do for my citizens to think they could overthrow if they could sohow steal the mysterious Artefact granting my powers. Even if it’d be funny to see their faces when they realised the Artefact in question didn’t exist.
I’ll just tell him I didn’t want my pet humans to get ideas. Yep. He’ll eat it up.
Plus, it’d do well for my subjects to know just how powerful I was. Fear and respect went hand in hand, and in this galaxy, having a powerful ruler who would ensure the protection of your way of life was extrely important.
If I were strong, I could protect them. Sure, they would fear as I proved the truthfulness of my words, but they would be glad, because my enemies would be their enemies. They would learn to love having rule them.
A magnanimous, super-powerful, and a bit eccentric Psyker Queen. That’s the image I wanted to project.
They didn’t believe . Not yet.
But they would learn in ti.
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