625 Chapter 625 Dark Truth
The Steel Rebellion was the downfall of humanity's greatness after what they considered to be their strongest weapon and ally turned their back.
To explain it simply, the Steel Rebellion was the age where all of humanity's artificial intelligence malfunctioned and attacked their masters.
At that time, Artificial Intelligence were used in every technology imaginable an had helped humanity from day to day activities or fighting an all-out-war.
For decades humanity had depended on A.I. They never had considered a time in the future where they would stop using it. The created intelligence were so advanced and adaptive that an entire war cost humanity zero lives because their personnels were only comprised of robots, mechas, and spaceships fully controlled by A.I.
Without the need of food, morals, ethicals, and psychological interferences, the generals and the warmasters were able to create a grand strategy unlike ever before.
Using these technologies, humanity cleansed through the galaxies, defeating every oppositions that dared to challenge them.
However, their technology backfired. Their most depended and strongest weapon, pointed its sword to the humans.
The result was catastrophic. Humanity experienced significant technological regression. Many advanced technologies and knowledge were lost or forgotten, leading to a massive decline in scientific knowledge and understanding.
This technology regression led to territory isolation. With transportation and communication technology all over the galaxy became unusable thousands of worlds who depended on trades suffered great consequences. This was because some worlds were only designed to create weapons or to train massive armies, and the lands on their planet were unable to grow crops. These types of planets must import food for survival.
"So that's why I did not see any fully automated machines," Aldred said.
Since he arrived in this galaxy, he realized that the technology here were far more advanced than Earth. So he imagined this galaxy to be the future.
And everyone basically predicted that everything will be done with A.I in the future. He thought it was weird that he did not see any A.I at all during his time here.
Now he knew.
It was not that people did not want to use A.I, they were terrified of it.
'Come to think about it, there are hundreds of movies with the theme of A.I betraying humanity. I guess those movies were right after all.'
In the end, humanity could not depend on other, even on something they created. They had to be the one who held the steering wheel.
They'd learned that lesson.
'But my golems and undead were fully under my control,' Aldred thought. He hadn't create any golems or undead in this galaxy, because his power had not returned yet. Currently, he could only use his elemental magic with fire being the most prominent, but the magic in his eyes, and his physical prowess seem to return as time passed.
Even the Phantom Doomblade could be summoned.
After talking for a while, Elralya decided to leave and rest in her own room.
With everyone else leaving, Aldred had a time to think to himself.
He learned a lot of stuff today about the landscape of the galaxy. Still, he had so much more to learn. But now, he became a lot calmer because he began to understood the culture here.
Most people here, not only human, put more efforts into war.
All of their creative thinkers, philosophers, and artists were all put into contributing for battles. This culture set a problematic culture where animosity would definitely grow on every race.
And Aldred wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of low-class citizens in every race living in extreme poor condition.
Curios of this, he checked the Galactic Net to look for any news about the low-class people.
There were none. Only news and narrative about supers, admirals, generals, soldiers, and heroes fighting demons, monsters, and xenos for the prosperity of the Imperium.
Aldred frowned. He expected the situation to be bad, but not this bad. The media clearly hid the low-class citizen from sight and only highlight the valor of the warriors.
The hatred between races in this galaxy did not stop not because the races did not want peace, but their government systematically growing animosity between their people.
"Why?"
That was the first question Aldred ask before he almost hit himself in the face for asking such a foolish question.
The answer was obvious: Power.
By creating an enemy, the government can reach out their hands to the citizen and pretend to be their allies. By showcasing the enemy, the citizens became distracted of the corruption of their government.
"I bet those who had positions of power lived a life of excess and pleasure," Aldred said.
Suddenly, someone knocked on his door.
"Mister Aldred. Are you in there?"
"Yes, I am. Who are you?"
"Mister, Baron Octavious Drakon Shoss Datt would like to meet you."
"Let him i—" Before Aldred could finish his sentence, a tall, slender man with sharp features abruptly entered his room.
He dressed in extravagant, tailored garments, adorned with jewelry and symbols of his noble status. His eyes were cold and calculating. Even though on his face was a smile, Aldred did not feel that this man was friendly at all.
"I have actually requested this meeting right after the xenorph queen was eliminated, but apparently some of your friends chase away my messengers. They said you're not healthy enough to receive a guest."
Lord Drakon stood beside the bed. "I hope you are now."
"Thanks for worrying about me. My wounds are almost healed."
The lord laughed. "That is good. It is good that you happen to be in this ship. The guards are useless in eliminating the aliens. Even my own guards are killed because of their incompetence. And some even dare to refuse my command in this situation."
"What was your command?"
"I told them to get me a bag of chocolate milk down at the hallway. They used the aliens as an excuse to not execute my order. I call that insubordination, so I kill them with my own hands. But, do not worry. Their lives only cost a few gemstones at best."
"What?" Aldred was confused. Nothing this man said made any sense.
"Enough of me babbling. Aldred, I come here to recruit you. I see you are a promising warrior that is worthy enough to work under me. I shall give you riches only unimaginable to poor people like you if you agree."
"Come again?"
"I don't like to repeat myself. You should know that about me since it will be very important when you work under me."
"Wait a minute. I don't understand anything you said."
Lord Drakon sighed. "I guess the aliens hit you in the head quite hard." He snapped his finger and a man handed the lord a piece of paper.
"Sign this contract, and you will be working under me. Wealth, power, resources, and influence. I can give them all to you."
"I don't ask for this."
Lord Drakon frowned. "You haven't even read the contract yet."
"I don't need to. I have somewhere else to go."
"Don't be so quick in deciding your decision. I will leave. You read the contract. Later, my subordinate will come and confirm your agreement."
Lord Drakon walked out of the door immediately after saying that statement.
The subordinate bowed towards Aldred before closing the door.
"What the fuck just happened?" Aldred was left speechless before he looked at the contract in his hand. "I can't believe they still use paper. Whatever, let's try reading it."
Aldred read the contract and his eyes widened. "If you sign this contract you will be given 30,000 slaves, 10 worlds, and you may pick 5 Octavious-House trained pleasure woman with you. The contract requires your life-long loyalty and commitment to Octavious' interest and cause…"
There were more absurds statements below, leaving Aldred dumbfounded. "This is madness. They openly offered me slaves. Not just one or two, but thirty thousands of them. How can they do this?"
Aldred tried to search the word slavery in the Galactic Net, but nothing appeared except some stories about how the xenos races enslaved and tortured the captured human.
"This is too much. The government has the media fully under control. But still, how could they do slavery and offer an entire planet as offers? I have never seen a planet for slaves before."
The answer went inside his mind a second later. It actually made perfect sense. The galaxy was vast. Mindblowingly massive with each star had great distance over each other.
reality of what was being offered to him sank in. The very idea of slavery, of treating fellow sentient beings as property, made his stomach churn. It was a reminder of the dark times Earth had once faced, a reminder of the Steel Rebellion, and how far humanity had come since then.
The audacity of Baron Octavious Drakon Shoss Datt shocked him. It wasn't just the contract; it was the entire culture that allowed such propositions to be made. The skewed moral compass of this society appalled him. For a moment, he wondered if he was the only one who saw the madness in this offer.
