What is the most important duty of a Planetary Governor? When asked this question, all Planetary Governors have one standard answer: paying taxes to the Empire!
The galaxy-spanning Imperium of Mankind is besieged by numerous enemies. The pressure of multi-front warfare has spawned an extremely stringent tax system. This tax system is known as the Imperial Tithe, also called the Great Harvest Tax. It refers to the various resource contributions required from each world within the Empire's borders.
Two of the most important tithes are: the Military Tithe, which involves submitting a portion of a planet's population as Imperial logistics labor or recruits, and the Precision Tithe, which involves the precise payment of a planet's unique resources and wealth. The amount of the tithe depends on the type of world it applies to and can be any form of resource: food, weapons, minerals, or even human beings.
Although a vast internal affairs department has been established on Holy Terra, the Imperial center, to oversee the payment of the tithe, the vast territory and the uncertainty of Warp navigation often make the tax collection process chaotic and inefficient.
As a Planetary Governor, Ron's most important responsibility is to ensure that the tithes of his world are paid. After paying the full tax bill, he could rule the planet in any way he pleased, doing whatever he wished. Even if he enslaved the entire population, exploited them in the most extreme ways, and piled their bodies into mountains, the Empire wouldn't interfere. Paying taxes on time was the utmost loyalty to the God-Emperor!
On the contrary, any world that dared to refuse would suffer the Empire's harshest punishment, and if resistance escalated, they could very well face a planetary extermination order. If any violations or omissions were found during the tax payment process, Imperial officials would often order the local Law Enforcement Officers to execute the planetary governor immediately!
Imperial rule was utterly authoritarian and ruthless. This meant that no matter how well Ron governed his planet, if there was a tax problem, he could be beheaded! Ron felt a chill on his neck; it was truly frightening.
Linda noticed Ron's annoyance and approached, asking gently, "Are you feeling unwell?"
"Nothing, just a little cold. Hmm..." Before Ron could react, he was enveloped in Linda's warm, soft embrace.
"Are you feeling better?" Linda asked softly.
It's good, but a bit suffocating... I can't stay here for long!
Ron stood up and walked out. He planned to check if there were any problems with the tax returns for the past few quarters. If there were any, they had to be dealt with immediately. If the law enforcement officers arrived with bolters to their heads, it would be too late. His life was at stake, so no joking.
"Tell Butler Bayev to meet me at the Administrative Department!" Ron said, leaving the restaurant. But after a few steps, he turned back to Linda. "Where is the Administrative Department?"
This damn memory fog, I'd forgotten even the way!
After Ron figured out his direction, he headed for the Administrative Department. From time to time, administrative staff greeted him, though their looks were a bit surprised. For some reason, Ron felt that the Administrative Department looked different from what he remembered. Many departments were gone, and it looked much quieter.
Something must have happened...
Ron wanted to ask someone, but after some thought, he decided not to. He'd find a chance to find out more later. The most urgent task now was to understand the tax situation.
—
**Administrative Department Document Library**
The entire document library stood nearly six meters tall, the size of ten football fields, its thousands of large bookshelves stacked with densely packed paper documents. Ron sat at a wooden table, flipping through a thick file with a look of despair. Beside him was a mountain of paper documents, so heavy they could bury him if they fell.
He was completely stupefied. This was just the tax documents for this quarter; he couldn't finish them in a year!
"What era are we in? At least get a computer!" Ron couldn't help but grumble. After searching for a long time, he'd confirmed that this damned place didn't have any internet-connected devices.
That's right, in this age of technological advancement, with interstellar travel possible, the Empire forbids the use of smart devices, and artificial intelligence is absolutely forbidden! Anyone who dares to break this taboo and use artificial intelligence will likely be inquisitioned as a heretic!
Some might ask, isn't it foolish for the Empire to go so backward?
Young, or perhaps too young.
It's fair to say that behind every bizarre rule lies a bitter lesson. The Empire forbids the use of internet-connected smart devices because the electronic demons of the Warp can attack them and tamper with their data. During wartime, these erroneous data caused serious accidents, costing the Empire heavy losses.
Only the Tech-Priests of the Mechanicum are allowed to use electronic devices on a limited scale, using runic codes to combat the electronic demons. The taboo surrounding artificial intelligence stems from humanity's experience of a catastrophe known as the "Omnic Rebellion." This rebellion nearly wiped out humanity.
Humanity ultimately won the war and survived, but from then on, they labeled artificial intelligence "Abomination Intelligence" and completely banned its use.
Of course, humans do have alternatives. Ron glanced at the "human" standing motionless in the corner, his body crammed with tubes and equipped with various auxiliary robotic arms and tracks. It was a servitor, a lower-level substitute for artificial intelligence. They were typically made from criminals or flesh grown in incubators.
Through simple surgical modifications and brain programming, they became mindless "robots" capable of performing simple, repetitive tasks. For example, the document handling work in this archive was handled by servitors, but mental work still required humans.
The Empire's complex administrative issues were almost entirely handled by human brainpower, using paper documents. Remember, the Empire spanned the galaxy, encompassing millions of planets!
This also led to the Empire's vast internal administration system and personnel. Holy Terra, the Empire's central city, had a population of hundreds of billions, and a significant portion of this was occupied by administrative personnel, responsible for managing the affairs of millions of planets.
Their management was chaotic and inefficient to the point of being daunting. A single administrative order could take decades to reach a specific planet. And that planet had been invaded by Chaos demons hundreds of years ago, wiping out the entire population.
Even more outrageous, some obscure departments within the Empire are still calculating the material needs for a particular campaign. This war happened hundreds of years ago, and it's unclear whether they did it intentionally or by mistake.
So, the fact that this shabby Empire has managed to survive this long is truly remarkable. Joking aside, survival within such a system is difficult. Incompetent Imperial officials occasionally make mistakes, such as overestimating a planet's carrying capacity or miscalculating tax data.
The consequences of these errors often fall on the planetary governors and their respective worlds. Each miscalculation almost always leads to tragedy. Taxes far exceeding a planet's capacity often cause extreme hardship for tens of billions of people.
Even if the officials are held accountable and transformed into mechanical servitors to eternally atone for the God-Emperor and the Empire, it will be of no avail. By then, countless people will have died in agony, and even entire planets may have withered into desolate wastelands!
Truth is cruel.
Ron had to first plunder the planet's resources and population and hand them over to the Empire. Only then could he consider developing the planet, ensuring a better life for its people and absorbing the Power of Hope. But how could he develop after all the resources and population had been handed over?
He couldn't abandon the responsibility, or else the law enforcers sent by the Ministry of the Interior would send him before the God-Emperor, who would then appoint a new Planetary Governor to continue collecting taxes.
Taxes had to be collected; failing to do so would cause the Empire to crumble, and humanity throughout the galaxy would face an even harsher fate. A bug!
"Being a Planetary Governor isn't easy..." Ron sighed.
It seemed that in the brutal world of Warhammer 40,000, the Power of Hope was truly difficult to obtain. He was lucky to be alive.
After searching for a long time, Ron finally found the latest assessment report on the Tithe Tax on Erth. The moment he saw the report, his heart sank.
"According to the assessment of the Holy Terra Ministry of the Interior, the tax level on Erth has been raised from Second Special to First Superior?!"
(End of Chapter)