Thought of the day: Waiting is a virtue, but being waited for is not. (Dawu)
Calvin knew that Constantine's return would definitely bring with him the greatest resources he could leverage.
But when he walked out of the official residence and looked up at the apocalyptic scene in the sky, he was still shocked by the heritage of these mechanical priests in the Order of Omen.
Hundreds of black dots appeared from the end of the sky, and magnified visibly to the naked eye in the eyes of people on the ground, and then magnified again, and finally turned into steel palaces one by one. And they gathered in groups to block Calvin's entire field of vision, as if they were blocking the sky.
, as if mechanical power was used to create a cosmic spectacle like a solar eclipse.
That's not all, more small spaceships are raining down behind these large ones. The source is a faintly visible black cloud on the horizon, which is countless times bigger.
You cannot describe the magnificence of this scene in words. This is the embodiment of the highest essence of human industry since the Dark Ages. It is also a scene that people who stay in the ignorant era on this planet cannot understand.
People within a hundred kilometers can see this scene of doomsday divine punishment. Faced with this horrific scene beyond their knowledge, they can only kneel down and pray to calm their fears.
Fortunately, those who came were friends rather than enemies. Calvin's eyes were locked on the forerunners among them, and he penetrated the flames that were still burning against the air on the steel body and found their unique marks.
The golden outer ring has sawn teeth, and a lion of the same color and texture raises its head and roars. This is the exclusive emblem of the Order of Omen, an organization under the Emperor's throne that is different from Mars and exists independently.
"Constantine!" Calvin chanted.
"Constantine!" Elvis' figure appeared behind Calvin at some unknown time. He did not know the relationship between these outsiders and Calvin. He just held the weapon taken from the Chapter's mothership in one hand.
The personal communicator spoke to Calvin in High Gothic that was difficult for the locals to understand.
"The other party calls himself Father Constantine and is searching for your location through a global clear text broadcast."
Elvis's eyes were fixed on Calvin's reaction in order to make the fastest choice.
If these outsiders are part of Calvin's plan, then everything will be easy; if not, then he will have to discuss with the adult in front of him how to escape.
After all, even the Primarch without the support of the Legion would still be unable to stop the power of the Mechanicus.
"Reply him, I'm right here." Calvin's voice made Elvis breathe a sigh of relief. He converted Calvin's words into a communication code and sent it out with the instrument in his hand.
As expected, he, Calvin and others soon saw one of the forerunners descending on the spaceship, turning and heading in their direction under the second adjustment of the rocket engine.
"Good day, Lord Calvin. Thanks to the Emperor's blessing, I have been lucky enough to fulfill my mission."
The figure of Father Ursula Constantine appeared from the corridor on the lower deck of the spaceship, and behind him were several colleagues also wearing red robes.
The red robe he wore only allowed Elvis to understand his identity, but it was the consecration prayer that was completely different from the members of the Mechanicus he had seen before when he spoke that made the Apothecary of the Astartes truly remember
This special priest lives here.
Compared with fifteen years ago, the priest's figure has changed dramatically. His face remains the same, but his height has become almost the same as Calvin's. The three-meter-tall burly body is hidden in a red robe.
Below, one wonders how much of it still belongs to native humans.
This mechanical priest, who had obviously experienced many changes, had the same impression as Calvin, and was not too polite. He said directly to Calvin:
"According to our plan, we now have two options. One is to completely intervene on this planet and adjust its continental plates to suit our next development; the other is to completely abandon this place and start a new one on another nearby planet.
, to adapt to the subsequent industrial nest layout and orbital factory deployment."
"Choose the second one. Move the agricultural population here to the new planet and serve as the initial population for the industrial labor force. As for the northern peoples, leave them to the war groups as a source of recruitment."
In an understatement, Calvin decided the fate of hundreds of millions of people here for thousands of years. Such decisions came from his understanding and evaluation of the environment here over the past ten years.
This is not suitable as an industrial planet to undertake production tasks. Not only is the minerals on the entire planet lacking, this will not be a problem with the subsequent addition of mining planets.
Its real problem lies in the lack of primitive petrochemical energy and promethium, the real industrial blood of the empire. This will greatly slow down the initial industrial deployment and industrial upgrading, and considering that there is already a huge population here
Therefore, how to carry out large-scale continental plate adjustment on the basis of avoiding major humanitarian disasters will also be a huge investment.
"Your will." Constantine nodded, then took two steps back to introduce several of his colleagues to Calvin.
"Solan, the Vice-President of the Foundry, rules over the Great Sage, and is the supreme leader of the order under the jurisdiction of 300,000 Titan Guards and nearly 1,000 Covenant Priests."
Constantine succinctly selected the more useful (useful to Calvin) parts of Solan's countless titles, and then told Calvin.
Calvin also clearly smelled a familiar smell called "full of martial virtue" from the opponent's normally armored Astartes warrior-like huge body.
Not to mention that as a mechanical priest, Constantine’s rigor in data can absolutely be trusted.
Since he is said to be the leader of 300,000 Titan Guards, the man in front of him can definitely provide him with 300,000 warriors made of titanium alloy. The number will be more, not less, and the combat effectiveness will not be compromised at all.
.
"The Emperor's blessing, sacred Primarch. May our meager strength be put to good use by you."
This mechanical sage with a strong military character took two steps, and after greeting Calvin politely, he returned to his seat.
"Dewey Watson, the great biological sage, is a great geneticist and alien sage. He is the strongest person in biological modification in the Order. His representative works are the 22nd version of genetic modification and improvement, biological modification of beasts of burden, etc..." The sage, who had no obvious traces of transformation and retained more of the characteristics of his original human body, also walked out of the procession and bowed slightly to Calvin.
"Lorenz, Lord of the Forge, Mechanical Prophet, Lord of the Force, and person in charge of the maintenance and upkeep of all Titans in the legion."
Another red-robed sage walked out of the ranks.
Unlike the previous ones, judging from the fact that the gear mark on his body occupies the entire outer edge of the Order's emblem, this is a rare fundamentalist who has an understanding of the Emperor's faith and the teachings of the Mechanicum.
Being so different will make Calvin need to be careful with his words when communicating with him in the future.
"As for the remaining two..." Calvin followed Constantine's gaze to the two remaining silent figures, waiting for the former's narration.
"They used to be the sect's exclusive mystical expanders. Together with me, they were responsible for the statistical management of the sect's data, and participated in the translation and interpretation of the language in the machine soul. But now, they are my clones. If you have any questions
If you need consultation, you can look for them when I am not around."
As Constantine's words fell, the two bodies that also had Constantine's consciousness opened their eyes and looked in the direction of Calvin.
"Confirm identity, confirm authority...Good day, Lord Calvin." The same voice said from their mouths.
Okay, now Calvin somewhat understands the reason why Constantine's body has changed and why he is stuck at the agreed deadline.
Opinions within the Order of Omen were not unified, and Constantine also experienced a fierce battle before finally gaining a majority among the top leaders of the order.
These two mechanical sages whose consciousness has been annexed are undoubtedly the original opponents, and now they have been placed in front of Calvin as trophies.
I just don’t know what price Constantine’s side has paid in this internal game...
The conversation at the first meeting ended here. Calvin learned from Constantine that this time he had almost wiped out all the available resources in the Order of Omen and moved them all here.
In addition to the large-scale construction ships and transport barges used to open up space for material transportation and build a star port from the ground to orbit, there is also one of the housekeeping treasures of the Order of Omen on the orbit:
A small mechanical ark is waiting for orders.
Mechanical Ark, Calvin didn't actually understand this term, so there was no intuitive feeling. However, after following Constantine back to orbit later, Calvin looked at the diameter in front of him from the perspective of the transport ship.
The irregular space city of more than thirty kilometers asked Constantine in surprise: "Is this the "small" Mechanical Ark you call?"
"Yes, it is indeed small..."
Compared with Calvin's surprise, Constantine seemed much calmer.
This is a cognitive difference caused by the isolation of the priests of the Mechanicum from outside information. Calvin would misunderstand the size of the Mechanic Ark, which in his opinion is natural.
Unlike the ordinary Imperial Navy warships and the battle barges of the Adeptus Astartes, the warships of the Adeptus Mechanicus rarely appear on the frontline battlefields of the Empire against aliens and Chaos.
As one pole of the Empire's double-headed eagle, their core value has always been weapons and equipment support for the Empire's armed forces, as well as technical support for some of the planetary worlds conquered by the Empire in the early stages of colonization.
These "technical geeks" in the eyes of other forces in the empire, except for very few exploratory outings, can hardly be seen in various territories of the empire.
But this is definitely a wrong perception.
In fact, these "tech geeks" of the Mechanicus have absolutely no shortage of reasons to go out, whether it is the research of alien technology, the recovery of a lost STC, or even the research of special "special cosmic physical phenomena" in certain areas.
, for which they are willing to pay time and financial costs.
The reason why it is not known is simply because these studies are too dangerous most of the time. The mechanical priests who repeatedly jump between aliens and heretics will naturally avoid the attention of other departments of the empire.
Their true attitude towards the laws of the empire is far less respectful than they appear.
This point does not need to be mentioned, it can be seen from the elite servitors of unknown origin in the Mars Skitarii. (It is rumored that an Astartes who disappeared on the battlefield was found after the transformation of the servitor army was completed.
in.)
What fits their low-key but frequent need to go out is that from childhood to adulthood, they correspond to warships of various levels in the Imperial Navy.
Anyway, the construction technology of the imperial warships is already in their hands: they have what the navy has, and what the navy doesn’t have, they just have it.
In the eyes of these tech geeks who are good at technology, use productivity as a weapon, and turn around and explode if they disagree, there is no mobile interstellar factory like Mechanical Ark that is more suitable as a mothership for their travels.
Yes, Mechanical Ark. As the name suggests, it is first of all a large factory carrying most of the technical production capabilities of the sages of the Mechanicum. It carries the ability and hope to theoretically build a world system alone. And then
, is its function as a battleship.
There is no unified specification or standard for this kind of large ship. They vary in size according to the different backgrounds of the worlds in which they were built.
From the famous "Hope", a giant that covers the sky with a continental plate, to the 30-kilometer-long "pocket ark" in front of Calvin, they are all within the scope of the term "Mechanical Ark".
But there is one thing, no matter how small an ark is, it is still an ark.
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The industrial system installed on it has at least multiple categories and a complete system: from ore processing to smelting and casting; from energy collection to refining and recycling.
Complete self-circulation, and become a temporary war engine when necessary; under sufficient resources, supplying at least the medium and long-term war materials required by a galaxy is the minimum standard for a mechanical ark, and it is also what Calvin faced.
The true face of a space city.
"What's its name?" Under Constantine's explanation, Calvin understood the true meaning of this giant beast that was not directly used as a weapon.
Against the background of the black universe, this mechanical city is brightly lit.
Across the cold and dark space, Calvin could not hear the never-ending hammering sound of the forges and smelters, but just the smoke and dust discharged from those towering exhaust pipes made him appreciate the joy of this place.
The vitality of the city.
That is the power of industry, that is the power of civilization.
With it, Calvin can free the planet under his feet from ignorance; with it, all the plans in Calvin's heart become possible.
This was the last possession that the priests of the Order of Omen treated as a housekeeper after they became independent of Mars with the support of the Emperor. It was also the biggest surprise that Constantine brought to Calvin after his return.
He turned around excitedly to thank Constantine beside him, and once again asked him the name of the city. "What is it called?"
"San Cristoto." Constantine responded pointedly.
PS: Christo means a pure person, but the abbreviation of Chris in life has the meaning of "savior" and "patron" in Christianity.