In the Imperium of 40k, a Planetary Governor's power is, to some extent, limitless.
As long as a planet pays its due tithe on time and in full, then to the Imperium, you are a qualified Governor, having fulfilled your obligations.
On this basis, whatever you wish to do on your own planet, the Imperium will not interfere.
You can be as extravagant and debauched as Emperor Yang of Sui, as cruel and inhumane as Jie and Zhou, as diligent as Emperor Qin and Emperor Wu of Han, or neglect your duties for decades; you can even implement your own ideologies like an idealist and conduct social experiments.
Utopian Socialism, Social Darwinism, Populism, Nationalism…
As long as you wish, whether it's burning Rome like Nero, or reducing all cities to grasslands like the Mongols, or building a massive arena to watch people fight to the death every day…
All of this is the freedom of a Planetary Governor.
Even some excessive individuals, who kill their subjects for fun daily, are not forbidden.
And selling one's subjects to the Adeptus Mechanicus as Servitors can even be considered an effective means of generating income.
It was precisely for this reason that when Alex ordered the hundreds of thousands of criminals on Rostov II to be handed over to Wise One Christen for conversion into Servitors, no one, except the criminals themselves, had any objections.
As for the criminals' own objections? Sorry, they don't matter.
To the Imperium, they are merely a group of sinners who have failed the Emperor; they are worthless liabilities to the Imperium.
The only reason they are still alive is simply that the Emperor loves humanity, and even if they are sinners, the Emperor is willing to grant them mercy.
Although human lives are expendable in the Imperium, it is strangely true that in most cases, the Imperium does not carry out death sentences.
Or, to be more precise, the Imperium does not have a punishment called the death penalty that merely deprives a person of life.
Typically, if a person's crime is not severe enough to warrant repayment with death, he will often become a prisoner, serving the Imperium through various forms of labor to atone for his sins.
Although this term might be for the rest of his life, or even include his descendants, it is not a direct deprivation of life after all.
And when a person's crime is so severe that it requires repayment with death, the Imperium often does not directly kill him, but rather converts him into a Servitor, thereby utilizing his final value to provide the Imperium with the last duty he can fulfill.
The most severe of these is merely being converted into a Penitent Servitor, becoming a living corpse perpetually immersed in eternal repentance and pain.
But make no mistake, for the Imperium, being made into a Servitor is a form of punishment, but killing someone is also a form of punishment; it's just that in such cases, it's usually not just one person who dies.
Because in the Imperium, a true death penalty, where a person is genuinely killed, only occurs when their crimes are so utterly unforgivable that all traces of their existence must be erased, and they don't even qualify to be kept as a Penitent Servitor to warn future generations.
This is usually called Excommunication Executus, where the most severe offenders are executed, some with less severe crimes are converted into Servitors, and those with even lighter crimes are sentenced as prisoners.
The proportion of those executed in an Excommunication Executus, or the scope it encompasses, is unlimited.
It might be the extermination of an entire family, or the execution of ten generations based on relationships, or even the complete annihilation of an entire city, or an entire planet.
Of course, while the Planetary Governor's power is great, it is not entirely without limits.
After all, although the Imperium is too lazy to bother with your internal affairs, if you go too far, such as instigating Chaos worship or an Xenos invasion, then the Inquisition or the Adeptus Astartes will not stand idly by.
At that point, whether the Planetary Governor's head remains attached will depend on the Emperor's mood.
And usually, the Emperor's mood is not very good.
However, most Planetary Governors are well aware of their bottom line.
After all, while the Imperium's tax collectors and Inquisitors don't come often, when they do, it's no laughing matter.
Therefore, intelligent Governors usually enjoy their power while carefully avoiding the "red lines" that might attract the Imperium's attention.
And everything Alex did was exemplary by the standards of a Planetary Governor.
Thus, when the reinforcements arrived, the Inquisition did not bring him punishment, but rather an award: an Honorifica Imperialis.
This is a medal awarded to Imperial soldiers who have performed multiple acts of bravery, and everyone who receives it is considered a born Imperial hero.
Typically, this is awarded to Astra Militarum soldiers, and Alex, as an Inquisitor, was not qualified to receive it.
But due to various considerations, this medal was still pinned to Alex's chest, as a reward for his two times defending Ecclesiarchy holy sites and important Imperial Worlds.
However, this had little practical significance for Alex; even a basketful of Stars of Terra would not be as practical as two more regiments of Astra Militarum reinforcements.
But as an Imperial Planetary Governor and Inquisitor, he still needed to outwardly appear extremely grateful, as if he valued honor so much.
But these were all minor matters; what was truly important was to make appropriate strategic arrangements for this unplanned Expeditionary Force after the reinforcements arrived.
The scale of the arriving reinforcements was too vast: the Ecclesiarchy, the Inquisition, the Astra Militarum, and the Imperial Navy; just coordinating command was enough to give one a headache.
In contrast, the hundred thousand noble private soldiers mixed in with them were very easy to arrange; Alex sent them all to two other immigrant planets within the Sub-Sector.
Due to insufficient troops, Alex had not provided any reinforcements for the two newly established colonies within the Sub-Sector; they didn't even have a decent garrison.
In other words, these two planets were either safe, or if attacked by Space Necrons, they would be in a state of no resistance whatsoever.
But surprisingly, these two planets were not attacked.
Considering that these two planets might become important strategic strongpoints in the future, after the reinforcements arrived, he still dispatched reinforcements to these two Imperial Worlds, even if they were just one hundred thousand noble private soldiers.
As for the remaining one million Holy War Army and two hundred thousand Astra Militarum, Alex did not let them disembark, but instead planned to wait until the Expeditionary Force command was established and the strategic policy determined before considering the deployment of troops.
After all, they were fine staying in the transport ships for the time being.
But if they were deployed on the planet, with people and horses to feed, the consumption would be enormous.
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