Cataclysm: Undead Dragons and Zero Empire

On the surface, Karen remains the Foundation's chief representative in dealing with the Undead Dragons.

However, the high-ranking envoy has not recently focused his efforts on dealing with the all-conquering "Leviathan," but has instead turned his attention to the vast peripheral sectors within the Foundation's territory.

Karen watched the wildfire that was starting there, hoping that the flames would burn brighter and brighter.

In these areas where the Foundation has assigned tax classes, most of the non-noble population is born with debt, not from their parents' unpaid debts, but because they are included in the accounts as an indicator.

The first thing all people born on colonies under the Foundation’s name do when they grow up to be working members is to pay off the birth tax. Many people at the bottom of society can’t pay it off in their lifetime. Then, after they die, their property is mortgaged, and the remaining amount is borrowed and passed down.

Of course, even if they are born naturally, have registered parents, and do not have parents to pay for their upbringing, they still have to pay the bills incurred from their growth to the present day. This kind of pre-paid upbringing has always been promoted as a charitable act of the foundation and is widely envied by the Star Sea Slave level.

Only a very small number of lucky individuals can become employees of a company. They often have to pass identity verification and hundreds of rounds of intelligent online interviews before they can be arranged for an in-person interview. Those who pass will receive their own temporary worker's license, and then they can look up and see a huge number of employees blocking their path to a bright future.

These colony models have been in operation for quite some time. The Foundation has not had the time to plan for each planet individually or develop development strategies tailored to local conditions. They mostly use the same template, with the only differences being the planet classification and the established tax levels.

Even vassal states, in order to preserve their civilization and avoid being reduced to cosmic dust in the flames of war, mostly had to sign contracts with the Foundation, accept its aid, and pledge their loyalty.

Karen was very familiar with how the Foundation operated, and therefore knew how difficult it would be to overthrow it. However, what he wanted to achieve was not to overthrow the Foundation, but merely to overthrow its brain, that rigid board of directors.

He knew very well that every civilization that could establish itself in the sea of ​​stars and possess autonomy would leave those who came after it feeling despair.

From a macro perspective, civilizations rise and fall in the universe, and grand dramas unfold on the stage. However, for each individual who experiences it firsthand, destroying or reviving the civilization before them is almost impossible.

A galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, and galaxy clusters are collections of galaxies. When the numbers are this large, inertia becomes the most powerful driving force that continues everything. The wheels of history roll over, leaving long tracks behind.

"Maintaining the status quo" is the highest praise one can give, while "expanding territory" is the deepest fantasy. The foundation is so large that the long-lived board members are trapped in the quagmire of empiricism.

It is true that the ruled curse the foundation's board of directors for their corruption, depravity, greed, and cold-bloodedness. The thoughts that flashed through their minds during board meetings could be written down and piled up into a mountain.

Often, even the board members themselves don't remember when they formed an extra private army or bought extra planets, reducing the population to slave labor for generations.

When resources become countless numbers on paper, only landmark creations like the City of a Thousand Stars can be noticed, serving as cultural benchmarks that still connect this behemoth into a cohesive whole.

Hundreds or thousands of marginal planets are in rebellion? These tiny sparks, placed on the Foundation's map, wouldn't even be marked with any warning colors at a glance.

The Undead Dragon was indeed powerful enough to surpass the scope of what the Foundation could destroy, breaking the board's long-standing and effective empiricism. However, as it destroyed galaxies one by one, the path to its end was stretched into an endless line.

The Foundation's ship production speed at full capacity is terrifying. Even if the Undead Dragons blow up the fleet into a sky full of sparks like setting off firecrackers every time, they can still send another fleet over.

The only problem was how to assemble and send these warships to the front lines; the endless struggle between different civilizations was the main factor dragging down efficiency.

The Foundation is unable to fight the Undead Dragon; their technology level is insufficient, and even realizing they can't harm Him is a difficult task.

However, that's how technology works; it only takes one step to expand the territory of civilization explosively, creating an illusion.

Quantitative change does not actually lead to qualitative change. What makes lower civilizations despair most of the time is just the terrifying accumulation of quantity. Just like comparing a rock to a mountain, their densities are not that different.

Primitive tribes that only knew how to make fire by rubbing wood lived in caves and the surrounding forests. Ancient dynasties that used bronze tools built chariots to conquer all directions. In the era when iron tools and gunpowder danced together, they could roam freely on the earth.

Having just entered the interstellar age, those sitting on ships powered by nuclear fusion engines can only slowly traverse between two star systems at sub-light speed, taking hundreds or thousands of years.

However, if one mastered the method to exceed the speed of light, one could travel freely within a galaxy, but traveling to other galaxies would likely require preparing several more stars as fuel for the journey.

With access to Stargate technology, the distance between the two locations becomes merely a number. The first step—traveling to the target star region to build a gate—becomes the longest journey of the entire process.

Therefore, in the eyes of a more advanced civilization, there is no essential difference between a superpower with hundreds of billions of star systems and a civilization that has just left its home planet, just as burning wood, burning coal, or burning nuclear fuel are all essentially boiling water.

Even though it is listed as a "Leviathan", the Undead Dragon is just an individual. As long as it does not have the power to destroy the entire galaxy in one go, the Foundation will not be afraid of it or dare to be its enemy.

However, the Foundation fears the Humboldt Consortium; a behemoth can only fear another, even larger behemoth.

This is where Karen and the board disagreed. The board did not believe that the Undead Dragon could completely destroy the Foundation, but Karen, who had personally witnessed the Undead Dragon and was the Foundation's most profound researcher of this Leviathan, firmly believed in His power.

That kind of psychic power that could manipulate stars and the moon with a flick of the wrist, that black and red flame that could end all things, was so mysterious, so fascinating to him.

Karen had always wanted the Foundation to cooperate with the Undead Dragons, but this idea gradually slid towards submission. However, he still believed that the Undead Dragons could bring the Foundation a technological leap, making it possible to rival the Humboldt Consortium.

The board of directors is accustomed to maintaining the status quo and using economic means, but the younger Karen is not that old and his thinking is not rigid. He believes more in technological breakthroughs and believes that making the foundation stronger should not be entrusted to the future.

The more the Undead Dragon annihilated the Foundation's forces with overwhelming force, the more dismissive the Board of Directors became, while Karen felt the urgency of time, especially after learning that the Humboldt Consortium had decided to personally intervene in the war.

He had to complete the great undertaking of changing the dynasty before the undead dragon became completely enraged, and sending Captain Rex was just one part of the plan.

Karen has been secretly meeting with the sector governor, local rebel leaders, and some of his trusted bureaucrats who have been placed in various administrative positions on different planets.

Karen re-enlisted the veterans who had been thrown into the trash by the board of directors, and some weapons that were still in the experimental stage were put into production and armament. He also turned a large number of fleet officers who were dissatisfied with the board's rule and were struggling to get promoted, and mobilized their fleets to set sail.

Everything was done in the name of "fighting against the undead dragons." This banner was so effective that Karen developed a new catchphrase from repeating it over and over again and reporting it to the board of directors. This caused his grandfather, who was sitting in the rotating board seat, to nod repeatedly, silently approving of his change of heart.

Like a diligent spider, the more it sees, the bigger and denser its web becomes, waiting for the high-and-mighty birds on the board of directors to fall into this web and never be saved.

Perhaps the board of directors has already noticed something; after all, with their supreme authority, if they wanted to investigate, nothing that happens within the galaxy could escape their notice.

However, the one who can defeat it will not be Karen, but only arrogance.

Karen didn't care that the board discovered his actions. He knew the brain of the foundation well, how old and sluggish it was, and how its reaction speed was no different from that of a primitive organism when it came to things outside of profit.

Now, all that's missing is an unprecedented rebellion to sound the first clarion call for a change of dynasty. Karen has already placed his piece on the chessboard of the river system.