Chapter 225: Under the Order
The broadcast ended, and the city fell into a forcibly constrained silence. The neon lights still flashed, but the disorderly clamor of the past had been replaced by a cold sense of order.
On the streets, apart from the heavy footsteps of Secutarii squads and Kang Tao military forces on regular patrol, there were only sporadic figures rushing to their designated workstations.
People hid in their homes or collective dormitories, receiving cold work instructions and precisely calculated rationing notices through their terminals.
Amidst the fear and confusion was a submission to the instinct for survival, but the surface was not entirely without ripples.
Deep in the back alleys where neon lights couldn't reach, sporadic gunfire and explosions occasionally tore through the silence of the night—it was certain street mercenaries or stubborn gangs unwilling to be "compiled," attempting futile resistance in the only way they knew how.
However, this resistance was like a stone thrown into a deep pool; it only stirred up a few splashes at first before being rapidly smoothed over by the Secutarii's efficient, ruthless suppression operations, leaving behind only more charred marks and warnings.
A new social structure based on absolute rationality and efficiency was forcibly reshaping Night City's once-chaotic body like an irresistible torrent of steel. But beneath the crushing weight, undercurrents were still surging.
High-level executives of Militech and Kang Tao, within their respective command posts, analyzed these cold regulations that integrated survival, labor, and efficiency.
They clearly realized that this "Sage's" control over the city went far beyond military force. His management logic was more like a highly centralized production system optimization algorithm, treating humans as allocatable components.
Although cooperation continued, the doubts and calculations in their hearts became more complex.
Militech's strategy department was evaluating the stability of this system. They doubted whether a model that completely stripped away personal freedom and was driven solely by survival could be maintained long-term, especially in a place like Night City where the gene of rebellion was etched into the bone.
But what they feared even more was the army in Joric's hands that they had never seen before, whose technological lineage differed from any known system on Earth. The energy supply, weapon principles, and even the very form of existence of those "Secutarii" drew countless guesses and unease from intelligence analysts.
Kang Tao's technical experts attempted to parse the operational mode of the "Administrator" AI. They marveled at its efficiency in processing massive amounts of city data, while simultaneously feeling a chill at this governance style completely unaffected by human emotion.
On one hand, they hoped to learn something from this efficient management; on the other, they worried whether collaborating with an entity that "instrumentalizes" everything was wise in the long run.
They were equally curious about the source of Joric's technology. Those shields and energy weapons that were far ahead of the times represented a technological prowess that was both coveted and terrifying.
Arasaka's temporary retreat did not mean they had vanished. Their remnant forces were like a wounded viper, licking its wounds in the shadows. Hatred, and the chaos brought about by the new order, were the breeding grounds they could utilize.
All factions understood that any future interaction must strictly follow this new "Efficiency First" rule. Any attempt to retain redundancy or inefficient links might violate a taboo.
But beneath this superficial obedience, seeds of doubt, fear, greed, and resistance had been quietly buried in the soil covered by the steel order, waiting for unknown variables.
Meanwhile, in the Badlands manufactorum, Joric was evaluating whether the operation of all this had met his expected goals.
On the main console, data streams representing city operational efficiency, resource turnover rates, labor attendance rates, and health indices leaped steadily, set as background processes.
He had successfully transformed Night City into a large-scale social experimental field, observing how human society is reconstructed and operated under absolute rationality and a "Contribution-Distribution" model.
The takeover of the city and the establishment of the system were merely the groundwork; a stable, observable specimen had now been placed on the experiment table.
The data stream representing the city's operational status flowed smoothly like a tame creek on the secondary monitoring screen.
All key indicators showed that the system was running according to the parameters he had set.
Kei Arasaka—or rather, the "Administrator"—was efficiently fulfilling his duties with the absolute rationality and faithful execution of underlying logic with which he had been endowed.
For Joric, controlling a city was not to satisfy a lust for power or to accumulate worldly wealth.
These low-level desires belonging to organisms had long been peeled away and faded during his centuries of service in the Adeptus Mechanicus and the magnificent Great Crusade across the stars.
He even deliberately recalled parts of his human memory data from before his trans-migration to maintain the anchor of "humanity" in his self-perception, avoiding a complete slide into becoming like his colleagues whose last sparks of emotion had extinguished, leaving them as pure logic machines.
However, this did not mean he would be swayed by it.
Power, money, lust... these variables carried no weight in his decision matrix.
He viewed Night City no differently than he viewed a complex machine awaiting maintenance, an ancient star chart needing analysis, or an experimental field full of variables to observe.
The unique value of this city lay in its "independence" and complexity.
It was not governed by a single nation or traditional political entity. Major corporations played games here, and the underclass struggled to survive in the cracks, forming a unique, inefficient, chaotic social ecosystem.
Now, he had the opportunity to bring this chaotic system under control, apply an absolutely rational dominant variable—AI management—and observe its evolution.
His core purpose was clear and pure, fully serving the grander principles of knowledge exploration and efficiency.
Night City, to him, was a tool to achieve two more valuable goals.
First, this was an unprecedented social management experiment.
As a near-perfect specimen, this city demonstrated a highly complex yet deeply corrupt and inefficient form of human society.
Joric wanted to verify here whether, under absolutely rational AI governance, forcing the binding of survival rights and labor obligations through the "Contribution-Security" system could drive human society to its theoretical efficiency limit.
If this model proved capable of significantly improving overall operational efficiency, maintaining long-term stability, and optimizing resource utilization, it would possess extremely high transplant value.
He thought of the massive, fallen, and bloated Hive Cities of the Warhammer universe. The interiors of those colossal structures were filled with unbearable resource misallocation and administrative rigidities.
Those inefficiently running Hive Cities were the perfect application scenarios to verify this management model.
Reforming them would not only enhance the Imperium's resource acquisition capabilities but also provide a more stable source of manpower, perfectly aligning with the pursuit of higher-level efficiency and power.
Second, and potentially offering even greater returns, was the path to ancient technological treasures.
Hive Cities themselves were sleeping vaults of technology.
Joric knew clearly that at this point in the timeline, the probability of discovering complete technological artifacts from the depths of these mega-structures was far higher than in the future he knew.
Systematically controlling, dissecting, and ultimately excavating Hive Cities was the only way to acquire this lost knowledge.
Any discovery from the Golden Age of Humanity could bring about a technological leap or win irrefutable authority within the Adeptus Mechanicus.
(End of Chapter)