The price Eden quoted for each residence was at least twenty times that of Holy Terra—virtually equal to the value of several ordinary Imperial worlds.
A sky-high price among sky-high prices.
"You're telling me one manor here is about the same value as Chogoris?"
The Khan—bona fide pauper—was dumbstruck.
Of course, he meant Chogoris's economic value, not its unique cultural or political weight.
Without the White Scars' primarch, Chogoris—tribal, resource-poor—would barely register among Imperial worlds: a rough-climate agri-pastoral planet with little worth developing.
"This patch of ground will mint staggering wealth…"
Guilliman watched the worksites and the engineering Titans kicking up dust, a rare light of anticipation in his eyes.
He could already see it: once these grand estates sold through, the resources raised would be unprecedented.
"Per the City Works Department, if this high-end district builds out successfully, its created value will equal one thousand Grade-One Imperial civilised worlds' top-tier tax yields."
Eeden pulled a holo of figures into the air and walked the two primarchs through the numbers.
"From these, you can see the obvious: infrastructure plus real estate will inject new vigor into the Imperial economy—and feed Dawn City's growth without end."
"By the Emperor…"
Guilliman's eyes widened.
If Eden's math held, this one tract alone could purchase all Ultramar's Five Hundred Worlds. And this was only one district—the Webway had more land to develop.
Both primarchs were awed—and quietly aware of the gap between them and the Savior.
The White Scar felt the sting of poverty most.
"Brother… isn't that too expensive?"
Guilliman's look carried doubt.
Would Imperial grandees really pay so much for a residence—handing over the value of several star-fiefs—only to receive usage rights?
Harsher than Terra.
Many high personages already held Terra properties as permanent, hereditary freeholds. That permanence justified the price.
But Dawn City's so-called luxury quarter? Usage only.
The Savior would not sell any Webway land—the substrate was his, or rather the Imperium's, public patrimony. Land would be use-rights only—always.
Worse (to Guilliman's ear), the Savior would levy hefty annual dues: land-use tax and estate tax alike.
Severe terms—even he found them hard to swallow.
"Old Roboute, I get you."
Eden nodded. "Webway land is permanent Imperial property. That's a red line that never moves.
"Otherwise, as time rolls on, the Webway will go the way of Holy Terra—more and more carved into private fiefs…
"…and we'll see the same land-grab, the same cramped commons."
That was one reason pre-Purge Terra had fallen into such chaos. Families and factions had all but privatized the cradle of Man—heritable offices, heritable estates, fortresses and redoubts—little kingdoms under palace light.
Not easily undone.
Yes, the Savior could purge traitors and seize their lands and vaults. But how do you strike at loyal arms that bled on the marches, held back xenos, opened new domains?
"Now the Savior's enthroned, and the first thing he says is 'hand me your deeds'?"
That would be… awkward. Like cutting the Empire's own arteries.
Some would secede in anger—or run to Chaos. Disorder would fester. Hearts would turn.
So—step by step.
Another reason to move the capital—drag the central organs out of Terra and into the Webway.
Terra's old plots? Leave them be.
Get the bureaus out; guard the Throne; and build a tighter defensive shell.
For all these reasons, Eden would sell no land and split no parcels in the Webway. He would not sow a second crop of Terra's thorns.
The Webway would belong to the Savior—and the Imperium—forever.
(And in name, the Imperium belonged to him as well; the depth of that truth depended on how far he could project real rule.)
"You think these manors are expensive; I say they're still cheap."
He clapped Guilliman's shoulder. "You've lived lean too long, Roboute. You cannot fathom how rich the high houses are.
"They are far richer than you imagine."
Pointing at Guilliman's nose without mercy: poor.
In the whole galaxy, only the Savior could get away with calling the Lord of Ultramar—a jewel of the Imperium—a pauper.
Guilliman drew a long breath and didn't deny it.
He was poor.
Ultramar was wealthy by Imperial standards, yes—but to fund the Indomitus Crusade and steady the crumbling Imperium on Ultramar's income alone?
Not close.
He'd split every coin in half to make ends meet. There had never been a season of plenty.
Meanwhile, many great personages held vast domains with little responsibility—and let their wealth snowball.
And most of that wealth was off-ledger—beyond any department's statistics.
Unseen.
"Per the latest audit pulls, the fortunes in the hands of the Imperium's high echelons are astonishing."
Eden flashed another slate—tiered estimates of who held what.
"How is that possible?!"
Guilliman and the Khan stared at the figures—shocked.
They'd never realized how fat the Imperium still was—or how fat some in it had grown.
"I was stunned too, first time I saw it."
Eden's brow quirked. "But these numbers were teased out by the Machine God—from seas of data and new surveys. The error bars aren't wide.
"The fact is this: the Imperium is not resource-poor. It's that the resources do not belong to the center."
He could read their surprise.
The Khan hardly counted—fresh from the far corners of the Webway, he knew little of today's ledger.
Guilliman had woken to catastrophe, shouldered an empire, and ridden off to launch the Indomitus. No time for accountancy—nor were there accounts to read.
Interior had no full records. In places, it ignored or concealed what it did have.
No one was volunteering this to a primarch.
The Imperium was too vast; traffic broken; data a wreck.
Without the Machine God's Webby, Eden might never have grasped the true state of things.
Now, with departmental abstracts and reports in hand—
—he could survey the realm. He could see the whole organism, its veins and fevers, and come to a deeper understanding.
His judgment now was firm:
Calling it an Empire was generous. It was less unified than many a feudal monarchy.
It looked like a hybrid: Zhou-style enfeoffment mixed with Greek city-state confederacy—each power bloc venerating the "Emperor" like a Zhou King under a shared cult—
—rendering tribute, answering levies, performing rites.
At that stage, it still worked. The Emperor's name could command; the center still held.
Then Father stepped back—hid in the palace—chased the Webway. The primarch-princes began their "loyalty wars," and, in the end, birthed the Senatorum Imperialis.
"Let Man rule Man," so went the pious line.
Lovely in theory. In practice, it stacked a broken assembly system on top of feudal-polis mix.
The Senatorum ruled in the Emperor's name—a house of many thousands of nobles, magnates, lords, and officers—
—who then elected a dozen or more High Lords to "preside," each a mast for a different interest.
Thus the center housed twelve-plus counterweights—and no single core.
Worse, assemblies need to bicker by nature. This one had no head—so it bickered harder.
The Senatorum—set in its august amphitheater—was itself a colosseum.
Power crushed power. Winners ruled.
For ten millennia, High Lords rose and fell—often by literal annihilation.
Each bout cleared half the seats. Terra's marble saw more blood than any battlefield.
If the central engine can't stabilize itself—if interests knot and choke—how can it govern the whole?
Even the Eleven Tithes leaked like a sieve—let alone control of a million worlds.
"The cruelty of the Eleven Tithes is this: what should be taxed, isn't—and what shouldn't, is squeezed dry."
Eden's verdict was cool.
Halfway through the tax reform, disclosures multiplied—and the truth of the Eleven came clear:
They squeezed the softest fruit.
Not every world in Imperial bounds pays tithe.
There are Special Exemptions.
Worlds of particular value, for varied reasons, do not pay the Eleven.
Forge Worlds of the Mechanicus. Chapter Homeworlds. They "pay" in kind.
Dead worlds, or those that cannot produce what the Imperium values, are likewise excused.
And there's the game.
If a lord is kin to tithe officials—or is a member of the same great house—he can engineer his planets into special-exempt categories.
With the administrative rot as it is, no one will spot it—unless some bored Inquisitor decides to tear up the floorboards.
And the Inquisition, usually, does not police the tax rolls.
Another move: if one world in a cluster is exempt, shift your people and reported output into that world on paper.
Presto: evasion.
Given the bureaucracy's speed, the trail goes cold before anyone reads the first report.
And no one has the bandwidth to fix it.
Worse, beyond the Mechanicus, there are more legal ways to dodge: the old houses and high void-traders who once fought beside Father Himself.
Merits writ in the blood of the stars—personally exempted by the Emperor's own handprint. Their mandalas sprawl.
Who dares dun them? "The Emperor's word fails now, does it?"
Many of their scions sit in the Senatorum. They are the government.
What—send yourselves a bill?
After ten thousand years of compounding, their coffers are mountains.
"Classics endure…"
Eden sighed, recalling a line item from the latest field reports:
Commendation.
A governor who couldn't meet the Eleven would commend his world to an exempt ancient house—"entrusting" it to them—in exchange for tax relief.
Planetary land consolidation on an epic scale.
And the Eleven? Smaller, smaller, smaller.
So yes—the Imperium of Man, with a million civilised worlds, was poor.
War and broken routes play their part. But so does the center's empty purse—the need to over-squeeze the low worlds to fill the gap—
—breeding more misery and revolt—tightening the noose.
"The Imperium sprawls over half the galaxy. It can fall into poverty—and yet, paradoxically, it's hard to call it poor."
Eeden murmured.
The line baffled Guilliman and the Khan a moment.
He had it now:
Humanity's Imperium was late-Ming on a galactic scale—central finances in collapse, heresy and xenos on every frontier—soldiers unpaid.
If he couldn't reverse the slide, he'd end like Chongzhen—begging stipends from ministers, raising a handful of coins—
—until rebels sacked the capital, and the noble houses coughed up millions from secret vaults.
Except he was not Chongzhen. He was the Savior—a dictator—with a blade still very sharp. He would not end that way.
The Savior's diagnosis left the two primarchs silent.
They'd known things were bad. They hadn't known they were this bad. How had this jalopy rolled on so long?
By rights, it should have fallen centuries ago.
"…Father, he…"
The Khan stared at the ground. If Father had handled some things differently, the Empire wouldn't be here.
The golden halo dimmed a touch in his heart.
"If only Father had been more restrained at the start," Guilliman frowned.
He thought of the powers granted, the fiefs promised—the machines they'd grown into—and his temples throbbed.
Eden, no less animated, chuckled with them.
"Eh, Father had no choice back then. The clock was brutal. He needed those blocs to counter the Mechanicus—and to fuel the Great Crusade.
"We can't exactly tell Father to write a self-critique, can we?"
He slung an arm around both necks. "Anyway, the Mechanicus is under my hand now. East means east, west means west, and they'll step where I say. The rest? Not such a problem.
"Either way, the Imperium will be great again in our hands—greater than ever. Then we punch through the warp, and push beyond the galaxy!"
The Savior blazed with confidence—verging on "step aside, Dad, we've got this."
"Hah! More glorious than the Great Crusade. Let me be your vanguard!"
The Khan was already dreaming of wars beyond the galactic rim, laughing loud.
Inside the Throne Palace, a tall golden figure who heard his sons' talk fell into deep gloom—and then, slowly, smiled.
If the Savior and his brothers could surpass Him—that, too, would be cause for joy.
He remembered their boasts, though. Next time they met, He would test those claims.
Meanwhile—
Boast finished, the brothers went back to business.
"In short," Eden answered Guilliman's original worry, "the high echelons have the money. They can pay for these manors."
He pointed at the plain. "Now it's on us to sell the sky-price estates to them—and pull the coin from their pockets.
"This is only one of the ways to harvest."
The Imperium roiled; heavy-handed confiscations would only drive the great houses to revolt—or Chaos.
He had neither time nor bandwidth to chase turncoats across the stars—and any lord could empty his vaults, light the drives, and vanish.
What then? Chase with what?
So he'd harvest the civilized way—politics and markets—slowly trimming the satrapies.
He looked from Guilliman to the Khan.
"I've sent invitations to every high presence of the Imperium.
"Once they gather in the Webway, I have means enough to make them open their vaults—
—and accept the new political and tax order."
(End of Chapter)
(End of Chapter)
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