Prime Universe, Earth.
Seen from near-Earth orbit, New Akla gleamed like a radiant jewel set into the planet's surface. Countless megastructures rose from the ground, reaching into the heavens and shimmering with a glorious metallic luster beneath the sunlight.
This city was one of the core administrative hubs of the Human Empire. Its vastness rivaled Coruscant from Universe 17 (Star Wars), but unlike that ancient capital, entirely covered in steel, every inch of New Akla was meticulously woven into a harmonious fusion of nature and technology.
Within the atmosphere, above the city.
New Akla's architectural style followed the Human Empire's "Supreme Order Aesthetic"—towering spire-like administrative centers, domed interstellar trade complexes, and undulating residential zones formed an endless vertical metropolis.
Most striking of all were the "Sky Pillars," structures thousands of meters tall. These megastructures served not only as administrative and commercial centers, but also as "electro-fields" that powered the entire city.
Their surfaces were coated in adaptive nano-glass that adjusted transparency based on sunlight, casting the city in a golden glow by day and transforming it into a sea of deep blue starlight by night.
In this steel forest, countless civilian hovercrafts buzzed like swarms of bees.
Unlike Coruscant's chaotic traffic rivers, these followed precise imperial aerial routing protocols, moving in order along preset maglev lanes.
Public transport vehicles bore the Empire's standardized black coating, with the draconic crest on their doors gleaming under the sun.
New Akla, designated a priority city even in the Atlas Era, was never a purely human city. It welcomed species from across universes.
In roadside shops, well-dressed Twi'leks haggled with human merchants, their head-tails subtly shifting with emotion. Their vibrant attire stood out vividly under the sunlight.
From Universe 08 (Halo), the Sangheili were the most common non-human species, given their vast population. Before the Empire expanded into Universe 17, the Sangheili made up about 20% of the total imperial population.
On an aerial terrace of a floating restaurant, several human officers on leave clinked glasses with a veteran Sangheili warrior.
The restaurant served traditional foods and drinks of various species, all certified by the Imperial Food Regulatory Bureau and palatable to most races.
Yet what stunned visitors most about New Akla wasn't its technology—it was its pervasive greenery.
In Coruscant, green space was a luxury for the elite, but here, ecological zones were considered a basic right of citizenship.
Every outer platform of the megastructures was planted with hardy interstellar ferns, and hundreds of floating sky gardens drifted among the towers like emerald islands.
Maintained by anti-gravity engines, these gardens hosted exotic plants from across the Empire and even featured miniature artificial lakes, whose surfaces reflected drifting clouds and the silhouettes of passing airships.
At the city's core, the central ecological dome stood as a miracle of imperial architecture—a transparent force field over three kilometers in diameter that enclosed a full forest, where oaks, red vines, and a variety of animals lived in harmony.
Beneath the dome, citizens strolled along winding crystal paths, children played near fountains, and elders sat peacefully on benches basking in the sunlight.
In such a city, public happiness ratings were astonishingly high.
The Empire's social welfare system ensured that every legal citizen enjoyed fundamental benefits.
Coupled with the Employment Guarantee Act, unemployment was virtually nonexistent.
There were no beggars on the streets, thanks to the Empire's "Service Equals Security" policy, which ensured any individual willing to serve the human race could earn a dignified life.
The market districts were perpetually bustling, with vendors selling delicacies from across the galaxy—quarantined seafood from Kamino, smoked terror-beast meat from Prosperity Star, rare fruits from Tyrella, and more.
When night fell, the city never plunged into darkness.
Building exteriors glowed with gentle hues, and hovercraft lights streaked across the sky like meteors.
Bars and theaters remained open, yet order prevailed. Imperial enforcer drones silently patrolled the streets, ensuring no criminals, nor agents of Chaos or heretical forces, could taint this prosperity.
New Akla was no utopia.
It still adhered to the Human Empire's iron law of "Might is Truth." Occasionally, black ships of the Inquisition could be seen docked above the starport, signaling their agents were executing classified missions.
But here, ordinary citizens at least enjoyed happiness under order—
Stable jobs, safe streets, clean air, and a sky of steel streaked with green when they looked up.
This was the life the Human Empire offered its people.
Looking north from New Akla's central district, a metal "skyline" stretched across the horizon like a massive wall.
It was no mountain range, but the outer defense perimeter of the Imperial Palace.
A colossal "wall" formed by ten thousand interconnected bastion-style structures, each soaring a thousand meters high, covered in honeycomb-like weapons arrays.
As one approached, the city's clamor faded, replaced by the low hum of machines.
Military maglev highways carried armored transport trains at precise intervals, their hulls marked with the imperial dragon crest, stark against the gray background.
Every five kilometers stood a checkpoint, guarded by golden-armored Imperial Guards.
Three meters tall, they stood motionless like statues, only the red glow of their visor optics proving they weren't ornamental.
Beyond the seventh defensive line, the view opened dramatically.
The outline of the Imperial Palace appeared through the morning mist like an awakening Titan.
This "metal marvel" stretched across New Akla's northern expanse, reshaping the geography of the surrounding 300 kilometers.
The main complex merged with the horizon at the visual limit, its living alloy walls shifting with sunlight—cool iron blue in the morning, solemn dark gold at noon, and deep violet at dusk, as if the palace itself breathed the colors of the sky.
Above it, a psychic barrier created a clear-sky domain over 100 kilometers wide, pushing the clouds into perfect circular vortices.
Beneath this "man-made" sky, three archways each three kilometers tall formed the main entrances.
Each entrance was flanked by two rows of towering statues—guardians carved from obsidian-like crystal.
These engineering and psychic masterpieces scanned every millimeter with their cybernetic eyes. The dark gold iris patterns instantly parsed gene sequences and psychic signatures.
Any unauthorized lifeform stepping into the archway's shadow would be reduced to basic particles by the disintegration fields hidden in the statues' palms.
The outer walls weren't just fortifications, but a three-dimensional epic of conquest.
Tens of thousands of reliefs were nano-etched into the living metal surface, each depicting the advance of human history and the glorious campaigns of imperial fleets incinerating xenos and heretics.
Viewed from specific angles, plasma fire in the reliefs emitted real light effects, and starship engine trails produced dynamic visual afterimages.
These masterpieces of holographic interference technology turned cold metal walls into a ceaseless epic of light and shadow.
At the core lay the relic zone.
Seventeen spatial gate arrays, each six kilometers square, formed the dimensional hub of this multiverse.
Arranged in three concentric rings—three in the inner ring, six in the middle, eight in the outer—each gate was linked by a crisscrossing maglev rail network of suffocating geometrical precision.
The transport network connecting these gates was an engineering marvel.
Fractal-structured superconducting tunnels 200 meters wide wove layered paths across various altitude levels, creating what appeared to be an infinite-dimensional traffic system.
Silver-white maglev trains cruised through the pipes at 0.75 Mach, their streamlined hulls leaving behind trails of soft blue light.
Viewed from the observation platform, these unceasing light trails looked like living star rivers, weaving lattices of light within the steel jungle.
Each track junction had a circular hub two kilometers in diameter, where countless spherical drones flew like worker bees, coordinating, assisting, and scanning.
The sight of an active space gate could overwhelm any observer.
When activated, the air inside a gate rippled like water before bursting into blinding white light.
Then, freight trains kilometers long emerged swiftly from the luminous curtain.
Atop the palace was a five-kilometer platform holding the main body of the palace and the meditation chamber of the Golden Throne.
The chamber roof was embedded with crystalline matrices, which, along with the Golden Throne, projected the Emperor's will across the imperial domain.
The warriors patrolling this area were a moving wall of steel.
The Imperial Guard's armor shimmered like liquid gold in the sun, while the Salamander Legion's dark green power armor gleamed like emeralds in a gold vein.
As they walked, their backpack vents emitted scalding exhaust that condensed into momentary steam vortices.
At dusk, thousands of intelligent lighting systems enacted a breathtaking symphony of light.
Along every eave and column, gold and blue lights pulsed like veins, while the building's phosphorescent crystals shifted colors with energy fluctuations.
Seen from near-Earth orbit, this metal behemoth throbbed with life—its precise light rhythm forming the grandest totem of human civilization:
An iron heart that never stopped beating, pulsing resolutely in the dark.
In truth, it had been over a decade since the Empire opened the spatial gate to Universe 17 (Star Wars).
In that time—enough for a generation to come of age—the expeditionary forces of the Scourged Sons, Fists of the Empire, War Hounds, Iron Warriors, Lamenters, and Night Lords reshaped the order of Universe 17 through steel and blood.
Their strategy became a textbook example of conquest.
They adopted a finely tuned classification system for each species.
The Twi'leks became ideal vassals of the Empire. Kaminoan cloning tech was integrated into the Bio Division's research.
Threatening species like the Hutt criminal syndicates were struck with thunderous force.
Statistics showed 972 Exterminatus orders were executed, eliminating roughly 4.3 trillion hostile lifeforms.
This uncompromising brutality yielded tremendous deterrence—rebellious systems submitted 47% faster than expected.
Simultaneously, the Ministry of Order's policy of orderly dividends brought unprecedented stability to compliant worlds.
Crime rates dropped 89%, food production rose 320%, and basic education coverage hit 75%.
As a result, the Empire's population exploded.
The Galactic Empire had once held over a million star systems and 20 quadrillion inhabitants. With the combined domains and species—including those of the old Republic and Rebel Alliance—the total population of Universe 17 reached 100 quintillion across 50 million habitable worlds.
Following years of unification wars, the Human Empire absorbed the Galactic Empire's legacy and integrated many factions of the old Republic and Rebel Alliance, raising its total population to 40 quadrillion.
Notably, the former Rebel-controlled outer rim worlds showed unexpectedly high loyalty, with enlistment rates surpassing the core worlds by 12%.
Meanwhile, a unique Force-psychic military force, led by Master Yoda and Chirrut Îmwe, experienced a new rebirth.
Master Yoda, that millennia-old Jedi sage, now sat within the sanctuary beneath New Akla's central ecological dome.
During the Empire's unification of Universe 17, all surviving Jedi Masters were gathered and reorganized under the Empire's new Jedi Order.
The Empire recruited many Force-sensitives from Universe 17. Among them was Anxi Securt, a Twi'lek rescued by the Iron Warriors, who joined the new Jedi ranks.
Moreover, the Empire screened youths with psychic potential from the Prime Universe and others, training them under Yoda and Chirrut Îmwe.
To date, the Empire had cultivated 40,000 new Jedi Knights, all under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.
Finally, calendar reform was crucial.
The Empire abandoned the Prime Universe's Gregorian calendar, establishing "Imperial Year One" as 1993—the year the spatial gate opened.
And today is May 1st, Year 0050 of the Imperial Calendar.
(End of Chapter)
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