Starting from the Planetary Governor

Chapter 1404: Chapter 798: Savior or Usurper_2

The essence of power lies in the two words ’name and reality’.

Gu Hang’s declaration seems earth-shattering, but upon closer examination, there really isn’t much of an issue in these two aspects.

Nominally, we must note that the Empire’s highest power structure, both in name and reality, is the Supreme Council.

What is the Supreme Council? It is composed of thirteen High Lords.

And currently, in the Dark Side of the Empire, Gu Hang is the only High Lord present.

The other High Lords are isolated on Holy Terra, on the other side of the Scarlet Scar.

Only Gu Hang, this special High Lord, is on this side.

No matter how Gu Hang obtained his High Lord status, whether he genuinely had the actual power of a High Lord in the past, nominally, if there truly must be a legitimate supreme ruler of the Dark Side of the Empire, it would only be Gu Hang.

In terms of strength, the Alliance not only unified itself first amidst this darkness and disaster but also has the capacity to care for and aid other worlds—some may even interpret this as invasion. In any case, when others struggle to ensure their own safety, their ability to aid/expedite external worlds proves their formidable power.

From both perspectives, Gu Hang truly has the legitimacy to become the supreme sovereign of the Dark Side and enough strength to achieve this goal, while others are powerless to resist.

Of course, if that’s all there is, even though it’s enough, it might still fall a bit short.

Once established in name and reality, it’s essential to evaluate whether the actions are genuinely righteous.

Otherwise, being labeled as a ’tyrant’ or ’pretender’, doing anything would be inconvenient.

Since Gu Hang declares he wants to be the sovereign of the Dark Side of the Empire, his claim to legitimacy comes from being the sole High Lord; what he aims to do is save all the worlds in the Dark Side of the Empire. Whether this sounds reasonable needs some exploration. After all, plenty of ambitious individuals use this title to stir troubles.

So, is there truly a need for this supreme authority?

There really is.

In the wake of the great catastrophe, all worlds become isolated, with internally generated disasters intensifying. At this time, if someone is able to stand up and truly restore normalcy to each world, wouldn’t this justice and rationality be paramount?

As long as Gu Hang carries this goal, whether his methods are persuasion, aid, coercion, or military invasion, the disasters faced by each world are real. Eradicating the calamities will earn his High Lord status massive support across worlds. The existing ruling classes either cooperate or are replaced. Malevolent actors have no legitimate reasons to rally the vast Imperial People against the Alliance’s rule.

Nationalism is ineffective; in the current environment of the Empire, the concept of ’nationality’ has been dissolved entirely. What truly unites humanity is the common notion of humanity itself, along with the ’Emperor’ and the ’Empire’ that represent this notion.

Regional concepts have some influence but not much, certainly not enough to rally an entire world against a strong power.

As for the rest—equality, freedom, fairness and the like—they are even more meaningless in the context of the Empire. The populace neither believes in nor understands these notions.

Moreover, under the Alliance’s system, planetary aristocrats whose ruling foundations and ruling classes are much more backward compared to the Alliance, comparing themselves to the Alliance is suicidal.

In this larger context, there are many intelligent individuals.

In normal circumstances, hearing Gu Hang’s audacious declaration, one would definitely jump up to oppose Gu Hang, but after figuring out various aspects, they made some possibly drastically different choices.

Some local aristocrats send signals, praising Gu Hang as a savior, acclaiming his actions as taking charge at a critical moment, showering his rainbow farts.

Some Planetary Governors directly continue with the previous format for sending distress signals, announcing that the entire planet is willing to obey the Control Committee, while also sending messages that their planet is facing enormous disasters, requesting the Alliance Fleet to arrive soon and save their world.

Some remnants of the Star Realm Army replace recruitment advertisements with Gu Hang’s “Letter to Disaster Fellowmen”, rallying numerous slogans, each word and sentence conveying the message ’obey committee instructions’.

These are good; they’re what Gu Hang expected to see.

But there are also bad phenomena occurring.

Those who are either stupid, ambitious, or pedantic also send out messages denying the Control Committee, even radical declarations that Gu Hang is taking advantage of the nation’s crisis, being the biggest traitor in millennia, and a usurper.

Gu Hang silently noted these worlds and sent them to the Dark Side Expedition Headquarters. The list wasn’t accompanied by any handling opinions, but surely, the commanders, generals, and commanders of the Expeditionary Force will know what to do.

However, this world is not merely black and white.

The gray in between represents the majority.

An Imperial Navy Fleet named the ’Black Steel Fleet’ were once pirates, only recently conscripted. Now, they’ve surprisingly mastered some rudimentary methods of interstellar navigation and not only returned to their former profession but also hijacked three communication relay stations, using Gu Hang’s voice package to extort ’loyalty tax’ from surrounding worlds. Planets, whether clueless or coerced, indeed began to tribute them.

The Empire Commerce Guild is mass-producing forged certificates of committee cooperation, extorting high prices, profiting enormously from the nation’s suffering, even hawking ’Gu Hang concept stocks’ at the interstellar exchange.

Agricultural World Governors disguise granaries as signal stations, luring nearby contacts to land and attacking spacecraft…

Even a frenzied Religious World has emerged with deconstruction sects, copying the full text of the “Letter to Disaster Fellowmen” with virgin blood, claiming it is an extension of the “Emperor’s Holy Words Record”, while actually utilizing all this to vie for the interpretation of divine authority.

These gray and even black aspects care not whether Gu Hang is a savior or usurper—they only care about how to maximize their own interests in the current general environment.

Those flashing distress signals, fake loyalty oaths, twisted religious interpretations… they seem to prove an ancient truth: Even under the pressure of apocalypse, countless people will still ignore grand ideals and collective interests. Once the shackles of order fall away, the beastly parts of human nature, selfishness and self-interest, are instead more forcefully unleashed.

Aside from reactions from various worlds, there are even enemies of humanity mingling within.

The Dark Spirit Race altered Gu Hang’s “Letter to Disaster Fellowmen”, claiming it’s a revised version, deceiving the garrison, and invading certain worlds.

A Chaos Rebel Army emerged from the Scarlet Scar, sending fabricated Extinction Orders with genuine encrypted steel seals to border outposts, causing outposts to destroy defensive arrays in terror.

Such incidents occur day by day, one after another.

It’s a pandemonium.

Moreover, there are many things happening that Gu Hang, even in Subspace, cannot clearly see. Among his Heroic Spirits, those adept at information processing work overtime to the brink of smoking, busier than when they were alive, yet still unable to handle the myriad occurrences across tens of thousands of worlds.

Gu Hang can only pick out the important ones to deal with.

The method of handling is simply delivering the right information, offering positive encouragement, urging each planet to persevere through endless difficulties.

The “Letter to Disaster Fellowmen” certainly caused some chaos, but all of this was within Gu Hang’s expectations.

It’s not that these are necessary costs, but rather, even without this matter, those exploiting chaos, ambitious individuals, and enemies of humanity would find other means to seek profit.

The positive significance of this announcement still exceeds the negative.

It truly provided hope to many worlds in difficulty. Moreover, certain gathered collective wills are indeed forging the announcement into a spiritual anchor. Not much, but it genuinely diminished Subspace erosion.

That’s sufficient.

As for the real issues, let’s wait for the Alliance’s Dark Side Expedition to sweep away all those spirits and monsters with thunder and storms!