Why Doesn't This Stuff Just Take Care of Itself?
Why doesn't this stuff just take care of itself?
The ore-vein problem wasn't something that would fix itself just because I sat around here staring at it.
So we got moving right away, busy bodies already turning toward the next mess that needed solving.
Planet-Wide Riots
The riots that erupted on Janus, if you traced them back to their root cause, stemmed from the reckless over-mining of the ore veins.
Overwork from the brutal pace, and the destabilization of the strata itself.
Casualties mounting because of it—and instead of compensation, the government and corporations did nothing but cover it all up.
On top of that came every kind of abuse heaped on the Janidrians, whose nation had vanished after defeat in war.
And so, with the already overburdened Janidrians at the center, massive riots broke out across every corner of Janus.
Of course, I spent the time in between hitting pause and reading our magnificent status-window messages like some kind of leisure activity.
The problem was that the planetary government's response to those riots was the thorough suppression-and-extermination method that had only been used back in the days of the late Predecessor Emperor.
Even with the pause active, the moment I saw that garbage I felt the veins in the back of my head start to throb.
Are you kidding me right now?
This isn't even your game anymore.
It's basically reality—so why does it still act like a game in places like this?
Thinking that, I opened the national status window for the first time in a while, intending to check the current suppression posture.
But…
Current Suppression Posture of Your Nation:Negotiation
(Reflecting realism, some sectors must be refined directly by the player.)
Of all the useless places to suddenly chase after some half-baked "realism."
Watching it abandon its duty as a game status window, I couldn't hold back the tears.
Why is the same bastard who normally can't wait to prove this is a game world suddenly chasing realism the one time it actually matters?
Of course, no matter how much I cursed the status window, nothing came back.
So I spent a full six hours in pause mode, pouring out the absolute peak of irritation and rage.
After six hours of pure meltdown, I finally ended the pause and dragged my mental state back to reality.
Janus's Secret — Stage 1 Cleared.
To proceed to the next stage, visit the planetary administration of Janus!
And with that, I dragged our all-purpose graduate student—no, our staff—along and headed straight for the planetary government.
Or more precisely… to the mansion of the Viscount who was the real power behind the planetary government, the same man who had performed a full prostration of apology in the party hall last time.
"I have heard the reports. Is Your Grace's precious person unharmed, Duke?"
"News travels rather quickly, Viscount."
As expected of the real power-holder—his ears stretched quite far behind him.
"That such worthless commoners would dare cause Your Grace such concern…"
"…Mm."
"If it were up to me I would thrash them myself, but regrettably my age is what it is…"
"Viscount, I fully understand your feelings."
Unlike the ore-vein affair, a leisurely, unhurried conversation kept flowing on and on.
Honestly I wanted to just barge straight in, but…
Do that and before long you'd get hit with the uniquely slimy social lynching of aristocratic high society, so I was holding myself back.
From my perspective it was an extremely irritating custom, but this was the refined subtlety that every noble from His Majesty the Emperor down to the lowest baronet had mastered and internalized. There was nothing to be done about it.
Show even a hint of impatience here and even a duke would get thoroughly beaten down by the aristocratic world's underhanded social lynching.
Anyway, that was how roughly an hour passed—filled with nothing but the mining company's insane insubordination and pure nonsense.
"By the by, Your Grace… what business brings you all the way here?"
Now that the real talk was finally starting, I let out an inward sigh and began.
"Viscount, I am aware that you are the de facto power-holder in this planetary government."
Coming out that bluntly made the Viscount's hand, which had been reaching for his tea, tremble ever so slightly.
"…I am afraid I do not quite understand what Your Grace means."
Trying to take a curve here—classic Sevelian noble style.
But if I played along with the Viscount's words, that would create its own set of problems later.
Things like "The Duke followed the Viscount's lead and failed to properly carry out His Majesty's orders," and so on.
From the start, the reason I had endured an hour of nonsense was precisely to engineer this situation.
"Viscount, I do not care for attaching too many flowery phrases."
"…I have heard a great deal about that."
"Then you understand well."
> [PAUSE ACTIVE]
Sipping a warm cup of tea, I activated pause again and ordered my thoughts.
And a short while later—
> [PAUSE RELEASED]
Feeling the warmth of the tea flowing into my mouth, I opened my eyes again and spoke to the Viscount.
"The suppression posture regarding this riot… it seems to differ rather significantly from the Empire's standard method."
"What does Your Grace mean…? We have been responding to the riots in accordance with the Empire's standard suppression procedures."
At the Viscount's bewildered reaction, I held out my terminal, displaying the statutes that had been revised several years ago.
"You may not have known, so I copied the newly revised statutes and brought them along."
"Ah…"
And in that moment, the terminal updated furiously once more, and a flood of event messages filled my vision.
The Empire's standard riot-suppression procedure enacted during the Predecessor Emperor's reign.
It was a method that placed absolute priority on early elimination—stamping out any riot from the very start—and during wartime it had certainly been effective.
But time had passed, and an age of peace was approaching. For some reason, Janus was still handling riots according to the old statutes rather than the newly revised ones.
As a result, public sentiment already boiling over the ore-vein casualties exploded further because of the excessive suppression.
Like a crushed can developing multiple cracks at once, the riots erupted in a simultaneous yet scattered form under the planetary government's excessive pressure.
This fucking…
Even in the original game, if you didn't micromanage even a little the AI would just do stupid shit and ruin everything. Looks like it's the same here.
Wishing they wouldn't sync up with the original game in places like this, I kept reading the longer-than-expected event messages.
The greater problem was that the people participating in the riots were not limited to Janidrians alone.
On the contrary, as time passed the numbers of Sevelians and other aliens increased until the Janidrian ratio dropped below half.
…?
Wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean, I kept reading.
The planetary government only realized that fact after responding to the riots and protests with indiscriminate gunfire across the planet.
Only then did they grasp the seriousness of the situation and choose to report first to the Empire via the planetary governor's hotline.
Of course, a "little" seasoning was added in the process.
Similar content, though lengthy, appeared on the terminal as well, and I could see pure dismay flooding the Viscount's face.
"Y-Your Grace, this is a smear!"
"Hold on. I'm still reading."
Of course I crushed the Viscount's opinion with pure rank and kept reading the terminal and the messages…
But with the planetary government having already crossed the line, some of the local garrison forces declared they could not obey such absurd orders and instead actively moved to protect the rioting citizens.
The moment that kind of content appeared, the Viscount's face turned the color of mold gone blue with terror.
"…Ha."
How the hell was I supposed to clean this up?
This was the guy calling himself the real power-holder, playing governor of a region the Empire had conquered?
At the irritation surging in, I hit pause again and simply vented my rage inwardly.
One month later.
Still, one way or another we somehow managed to normalize this broken planet—especially by changing the stage of that damned riot-suppression posture.
The situation that had nearly escalated from riots into full-scale rebellion finally escaped the crisis phase and firmly entered the path of peace.
And the thing that would drive a stake into that path was going to be the commemorative photo of this negotiation table.
"Alright, photo time!"
"I have no intention of smiling and moving on with the likes of him."
"…Ahem."
Of course a bit of bad blood still lingered between the parties involved, but…
"…Shall we do this the easy way?"
"Hahahaha."
"Hahahahaha!"
I forced the two of them into a handshake and left behind the performance of cheerfully taking a photo right in the middle.
By personally delivering the revised statutes to the planetary government, it appears that no further harm from outdated laws will occur on Janus.
On top of that I had handled the legal issue, and I had patched up as much of the civilian suffering caused by the government's infrastructure cutoffs as possible. My work here should have been done.
"I cannot end it like this. The moment the Duke leaves, we deal with them immediately and take this planet!"
But our former real power-holder… the Viscount seemed rather terrified of being ousted as the price for this whole affair.
He even tried something astonishingly like a coup, quietly moving some of the local garrison forces he had gradually turned into his private army.
"If it succeeds it's a revolution, and even if it fails there's no real loss!"
"Oh."
Of course that attempt, regrettably, ended in a very rapid misfire.
—KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!!!
"Ow."
The 3rd Fleet, stationed in orbit.
A massive volume of orbital bombardment poured down as a warning, raining all around the units the Viscount had tried to mobilize and boxing them in completely.
"This is a bit much."
"Agreed."
And so I naturally abandoned the elite troops and space fleet that His Majesty the Emperor had casually dumped on me—leaving them on the planet under the noble-sounding pretext of long-term garrison for the stabilization of planetary politics and society—while taking only myself and the Enforcement Bureau personnel back home.