Stellaris from the Automata Era

"What do you mean by 'our military progress is going very smoothly, but the enemy's fierce resistance has made it difficult for us to move forward?'" Yan Luo raised the paper document in his hand. "Who wrote this report? The grammatical errors are so obvious?"

It seems that it is time for those humanoids to develop a formal reporting format. This is both smooth and difficult, and it is difficult for people to judge the real situation.

Hearing Yan Luo's complaint, Bobo La quickly walked up, took the paper from his hand, glanced at it quickly, and then looked as if she understood.

"Your Excellency, this report is signed 11b."

"Oh, that's no problem."

Since when has 11b become a competitor to idiots in the human psyche?

Bobo La was a little amused and helpless when she heard this, but she still patiently reviewed and polished the part of the content that Yan Luo had not seen yet after skimming through it.

"The occupation plan has achieved phased success. The enemy's weak military capabilities are simply unable to stop our advance. However, when we entered their production area, the tree people who appeared out of nowhere put up a desperate defense."

Bobola paused, her expression solemn. "Their disorganized tactics and the faith-based trajectory of their missiles indicate they're not regular soldiers. While they can't inflict significant damage on us, their recurring appearances are seriously hindering our progress."

Having said that, Yan Luo suddenly understood what the smooth and intense beginning meant.

He curled his lips. "In the end, they're sending untrained civilians into battle. I'm familiar with that."

I remember that when playing Hearts of Iron, his favorite thing to do was to train a group of gunless divisions and put them on the front line to block the enemy's attack, which was almost miraculous, especially in bad ground.

These unarmed "soldiers" combined with a small number of regular troops were actually able to stop a large number of elite troops. It can only be said that the design was worthy of being filled with numbers.

Apparently, the Tree People have now adopted the tactic of "no civilians in war", intending to drag the entire Earth onto the planet, but they are not yet so crazy as to not use weapons.

"But what's the point of doing this? The Ents can only slow down our progress and cause more trees to die. They can't prevent the planet from falling."

"Maybe they just want to delay our attack enough time. It seems that their fleet is already on the way to support us." Popola responded and made a guess.

Yan Luo's expression instantly became serious. He opened his projection panel and slid through the information one by one until he reached the bottom of the page.

After completing all this, he looked at Popola and asked, "Where did you get this information? I checked the latest data provided by the curator, and the Ent fleet is still stationary in its port."

In response to Yan Luo's questioning, Bobo La pointed her finger at the document in her hand.

"It's written in the report that many of the tree people were captured during the battle. During their interrogation, they clearly stated that their fleet would be coming to support the planet soon."

Is there such a thing?

Yan Luo's curiosity was aroused. He reached out and took the document back from Boppola's hand and looked at it carefully.

It is undeniable that he did not read the report in the document carefully just now. After all, the beginning of the report had already made him fall into great doubts.

After re-scanning the file information, he realized that he had missed a lot of content.

"Oh, I found it. The captives said that our invincible fleet is on its way. I advise you not to surrender without knowing what's good for you, or you'll suffer the consequences."

Hmm...are these tree people more down-to-earth?

Yan Luo was silent for a moment, then he raised the paper in his hand again, the doubt on his face deepening. "Are you sure these are the original words of the tree man? And not polished by some humanoid under 11b?"

"Actually, what I read to you is the polished version. It's most likely the original words of the tree man. However, considering the language conversion during the translation, it's possible that there was an error somewhere."

"Indeed..." Yan Luo nodded without denying it.

Humanoids are relatively resilient. Since their flight into space, the humanoids, whose environment has settled down, have begun to rediscover human culture and conduct more in-depth analysis.

However, their understanding is slightly different from Yan Luo's. In addition, the current official language of the earth is also processed twice, so the occurrence of various strange situations is understandable.

But these are all harmless little things.

What is more important now is whether the confession from Shu Ren is true.

Then Yan Luo quickly discovered that he had no way of confirming it.

"The information the curator gave us conflicts with theirs." Our information has never been accurate.

Yan Luo almost sighed. This was the disadvantage of backward technology. Without sufficient ability to detect several interconnected galaxies in the real-time universe, it was impossible to grasp the enemy's exact movements.

Although probes can be sent as a supplementary means of obtaining information, these are consumables with a certain lifespan.

With the continuous increase in battlefield columns and the overly distant supply lines, all these equipments will be exhausted sooner or later, and then we will become a blind man.

Also, in the case of conflicting information, Yan Luo didn't know who to believe.

After thinking for a while, Yan Luo decided to just ignore it.

"Anyway, let the frontline personnel do what they want. They'll decide what to do next. I won't interfere too much. I hope nothing goes wrong."

The current situation is unclear, so it's better not to interfere too much no matter how you look at it.

If the map was fully open and there was enough information, he might be able to give some advice, but in the current situation, he himself might not be able to fight well, so it's better to let the professionals do it.

"Don't worry. Putting aside other things, the commander probably wants to win this battle the most." Boppola smiled meaningfully.

"I always feel like you guys are selling me out?"

"What kind of joke are you talking about?"

Boppola was still quite surprised at Yan Luo's keen intuition.

In fact, she and her sister never had the chance to find time to mention the message they sent privately to the commander to Yan Luo.

But this is indeed an opportunity, and of course I have to polish and consider the words carefully as usual.

Then she immediately changed the subject.

"The Commander said she'll give you a dance when she returns victorious."

A dance? It seems possible, after all, this is actually a reward mechanism for humanoids.

Yan Luo pondered secretly.

If he still doesn't know the little thoughts of the humanoids, then he is really deliberate or slow.

Anyway, the taboo between humans and machines has been overcome, and the psychological barrier of "humans can't and shouldn't" has long become a thing of the past.

Rather than thinking about these things, what he should be more worried about now is how many rounds he can survive at the hands of the humanoid?

But come back after victory?

"I always feel like the commander is planting a flag on me."

...

"I have a bad feeling."

The commander sat in his command room, lost in thought.

As her expression became solemn, the staff-like humanoids around her all held their breath unconsciously. Of course, this sentence structure only described everyone's nervousness.

It is said that humanoid figures themselves do not breathe, but the process of human worship of them does include simulated breathing.

In short, after learning that the tree people might provide fleet support, she remained silent.

It was only until that sentence came out just now.

"Help me connect with Commander 11b."

The projection screen dedicated to the command room quickly changed. As the snowflakes that seemed to have no signal disappeared, images immediately appeared on the screen.

But this time it is not the traditional method. An information card-like appearance appears, and only voice can be heard.

This should be a live broadcast. At least the commander can see on the screen that a tree man is being hung upside down by something like a rope.

The commander guessed that this was probably a live image captured by an auxiliary machine.

As a former humanoid, 11b herself might not have a support unit, but she knew that the newly promoted numbered team led by 11b around 7b was about two hundred people.

Since it is a YoRHa humanoid pendant, they naturally have to be equipped with an auxiliary machine as standard.

Soon the commander's guess was confirmed. The tree man hung upside down on the screen was obviously being interrogated, and the whole tree swayed back and forth like a swing.

The commander immediately heard 11b's voice.

"Tell me the truth, what is the size of your fleet this time?"

First of all, I must correct one thing. The YoRHa humanoids do not know any alien language, although they can use plug-in chips as a quick way to complete language conversion.

However, YoRHa, who is dedicated to combat, has no spare slots to install such chips, and they are eager to fill them with auxiliary chips that can be used for combat.

Therefore, the communication between 11b and the tree people currently relies on the auxiliary machine for translation.

"I've already told you, how could a junior officer like me know such confidential information? Please let me go!" The upside-down tree man was obviously saying something. Although the commander herself couldn't understand, she could feel that his tone was very excited.

After the tree man finished speaking, the screen shifted to 11b. This was likely the pod's perspective, looking at 11b, and now it was the pod's turn to relay the message. "It said you were too gentle, and it was impossible to pry its mouth open."

"Trees are really tough." 11b sighed. "Why is the screen on? Oh, it's the Commander."

11b hadn't noticed the camera until then. She looked at the auxiliary device, which was projecting a picture of the commander. "What do you want from me now?"

"I heard you captured a prisoner. I was wondering if you could get any information out of him."

"I've told you everything I know. I'm sure the rest of the information I don't know is from this tree man." 11b pointed at the tree man hanging upside down next to him. "But even after severe torture, this tree man refused to speak."

It can be seen that after the translation by the auxiliary machine, the tree man is still shouting to be gentle, this is a cruel tree.

But this is also normal. Every civilized race will always have one or two people with hard kneecaps or soft kneecaps.

How did 11b encounter a tree man with such tough bones?

"How else could we encounter it? It came charging out of the production area we occupied, leading a group of Ents. They were shouting 'Long Live the Ents' and threatening to have their fleet conquer Earth and capture and publicly execute you. Honestly, I wanted to kill it, but the aux machine suggested it might have valuable information and asked me to interrogate it, so I had to let it live a little longer."

"So how long have you been asking this?" The commander was not surprised by the suggestion of the auxiliary machine. This small square-headed thing, although pronounced as auxiliary machine, is actually written as output machine.

In essence, they are often more reliable than humanoids, otherwise there would not be such a thing as an invincible auxiliary machine and its YoRHa pendant.

Of course, as auxiliary machines, they will still provide extremely valuable suggestions. This is the tacit understanding established between the humanoids and them after countless actual combat and cooperation.

"I forgot the exact time, but it should have been several hours, right?"

"Why don't we switch to a tree man? We don't have that much time to waste on it. I need more information about their fleet so that I can prepare for the next response."

Indeed, it is impossible for every tree person to keep their mouths so tight.

After such a long time without any results, 11b's patience gradually wore out. Naturally, she agreed to the commander's proposal.

But... the pod seems to have a different opinion.

"I suggest we interrogate it a little longer. The data analyzed indicates that its willpower can no longer be sustained."

"Since the pod says so, why not give it another try?"

In the end, 11b still failed to pry open the tree man's mouth. The original intention of using the auxiliary machine was that it seemed that the samples for biological analysis were not enough, and the tree man's willpower was stronger than the data showed, and it expressed deep regret for this.

ps: Is there any brother who can talk? Post a message in the forum, I feel like I am alone.

Chapter 325: The Tree Man Wants to Speak, and the Humanoid's Intelligence Interrogation Battle.

The fall of the Treeman Planet is only a matter of time.

It is undeniable that the vast majority of tree people do have extremely tenacious fighting will, and humanoids can encounter one or two armed thugs at almost every corner of the production area.

However, this cannot stop the humanoids from landing on the land, and the most fundamental reason is that this planet is not a fortress star used for military purposes.

Although they did build disciplined fortifications and recruit a small number of armed personnel, once the planetary defense circle was penetrated, they basically became fish at the mercy of others.

Even though the planetary governor was very foresighted and built many guns before the humanoids landed, and equipped them with personnel for free, they were used as consumables to maintain the front line.

However, as the humanoids opened up a gap in the planet's defenses with unstoppable force, these filling supplies began to waver to a certain extent.

"Have you heard? There may not be any fleet coming to support from the capital planet." In the production capacity area that has not yet fallen, two patrolling tree people were talking.

Due to considerations of the planet's terrain, general production buildings actually have their own specific plans. They are streamlined and modular, and can be replicated and generally scattered across the planet's continents.

This is an efficient approach for an interstellar civilization that needs to build colonies on a large scale. They don't need to use their brains to make detailed plans, they just need to use the blueprint to build.

At the same time, each production building complex also has its own defensive fortifications. For humanoids, this production area is like returning to the old era of siege and capture of cities and strongholds, and needs to be occupied one by one.

In the early stages of the Earth invasion, they did play a good delaying role. Most humanoids were obviously unable to adapt to the land warfare mode of the interstellar era, and suffered huge losses in the face of these production bases with firepower points.

They even repelled the humanoid attack at one point, and this was publicized as an example of "We have prevented the despicable Earth from approaching our home."

But as time went on, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse. When the humanoids reacted, they no longer deployed large numbers of troops to launch a strong charge.

Instead, they chose high-altitude orbital bombing to create a gap in the defense. This might have something to do with the treeman's publicity that his fleet was about to arrive. Feeling that time was running out, the humanoids no longer cared whether the production capacity buildings were intact.

In this situation, as the front-line bases fell one after another, the morale of the tree people finally began to collapse.

What’s even more terrifying is that with tens of thousands of tree people dying in battle, the tree people are finally facing the backlash of their own propaganda, such as “their own invincible fleet is about to arrive” and so on.

"Who did you hear that from?"