Stellaris from the Automata Era

"He's from the same branch as me. He's the commander-in-chief's messenger. He said the commander has sent communications to the capital more than once, asking when support will arrive, but he's never received a definitive answer. Have we been deceived?"

Strictly speaking, tree people do not have brothers or anything like that. They are all asexual beings, so vegetative people should not actually have the so-called concept of family.

However, because they have direct descendants above them, they are generally given special names similar to their father's or mother's generation, such as branches.

The original meaning of this is "the bloodline inherited from the branches of a certain tree man". It is precisely because of this special way of reproduction that the tree people in the wild period have the characteristics of living in groups and have stepped onto the stage of becoming an intelligent tribe.

"This is the fifth time I've heard a similar story. The last time, he said his brother was a kitchen helper, responsible for cultivating fertile soil for the Chief Officer." The tree man sighed. "Don't any of you work directly with the Chief Officer?"

"If I were in such a position, would I accompany you on patrol?"

"makes sense.."

The patrolling tree people fell silent. In fact, the fact that there was no support should not be a rumor.

Thanks to the Tree People's small land area of ​​only 7 star systems, fleet support should be a very quick matter, especially since the capital star is actually only two super-time and space star systems away from them, which is almost equivalent to the fleet arriving as soon as they leave the house.

However, with the destruction of the planet's outer air defense network and the landing on Earth to fight the offensive and defensive battle, so much time has passed, and the tree people still do not see any signs of disorder in their Earth fleet in the sky, and they are still bombing the ground regularly.

The tree people also had to consider the reality of the fleet coming to support.

Even the bravest creature will panic when it knows it is facing a desperate situation. This is an emotion chosen by the body's genes for survival.

In particular, most of the tree people on the planet are not regular troops. After the initial battle, their enthusiasm, which was boosted by various factors such as "past glory" and "former overlord of the universe", instantly cooled down.

Now I have to face another choice, that is, whether I can survive.

Once it reaches this point, no amount of publicity and encouragement will have any effect. The selfishness of life will make them choose a way of survival that seems more reliable.

For example, digging a cellar and hiding in it is better than going to the battlefield and dying.

The morale of the tree people also began to collapse step by step from this mentality.

I heard that the Shuren General also wanted to stop the spread of rumors and restore the already low morale. After all, its front lines rely on mobilizing millions of Shuren civilians to fill the gaps in defensive forces.

However, as the number of casualties increased and one area after another fell and communication was lost, it was actually difficult to reverse the decline.

Especially since the attitude of the capital towards him has become more and more perfunctory, and recently they even hinted that he should be loyal to his tribe, which made the chief officer unwilling to face everything in front of him.

They and the planet may indeed be abandoned.

"Man-eating machines are approaching our home."

This is a very old 'nursery rhyme' of the tree people. When the new generation of tree people are still in their seedling stage and their minds are still incomplete, their superior branches will instill in them a magic spell to make them obedient.

Its prototype itself stems from the 'Extermination Order' of the previous era. "Leaving no one alive, no response, overwhelming the sky, planetary collapse. I always thought it was a distant legend until the round head projected from my memory into reality."

"It seems...the guy opposite us isn't Round Head?"

"That's not important!" the tree man retorted. "It's all Earth anyway, so there's not much difference. Anyway...what was I going to say?"

The tree man who retorted seemed to have forgotten what he wanted to say for a moment because he was interrupted, but he might not have the chance to say it anymore.

Its body was weighed down, and a tingling sensation spread from its back to every sense in its body.

By the time it came to its senses, it had already fallen to the ground, and the weapon it was carrying had fallen to the side due to the pain. When it wanted to reach out to pick it up, a black boot suddenly appeared and kicked the gun away.

Then the tip of a knife came down vertically, piercing the layer of soil in front of it, and the blade was less than a few centimeters away from it.

"If you don't want to die, just be quiet." It was an unfamiliar language, but the tree man soon heard the mechanical translation.

Only then did it realize that it was attacked. When it carefully turned its head and looked to the other side, it found that the companion it had just patrolled with had also been knocked down. Now a petite human figure was stepping on the companion's back with one foot, trying to suffocate it.

Unfortunately, the opponent didn't use his knees, but the same standard long black boots with high heels as the ones that just kicked away his gun. I guess there must be several holes in the back.

After both tree people were knocked down, this conversation began.

"You looked very skilled at that tree-jumping stun just now!"

"Strictly speaking, I didn't kill it. I just jumped down from the tree and stepped on its back. But these tree people's bodies are quite strong. How could we not crush them to death after falling from such a high altitude with our weight?"

The tree people naturally couldn't understand this conversation.

In fact, they were still in shock from being killed instantly. Because they were vegetative people, they retained a large amount of vegetation on the planet, many of which had been modified by tree-man genes, so many original trees were tall and big.

Even tree people have the habit of using these trees to build houses.

But I didn't expect that someone would use the height of the trees to bypass the security line of sight, and even shamelessly launch an air raid to knock people down directly.

The most important thing is that the place they patrol belongs to the outer area, which is so small that as long as the opponent is strong enough, they can be dragged away and disappear without a trace.

What's even better is that given the current overall situation of the tree people, they don't care about having a few fewer patrol personnel in their organization.

In fact, with the decline of morale, the occasional desertion has become a normal occurrence. No one should expect that the unit, which was still a civilian unit not long ago, would have any strict discipline.

Judging from the scene, it was basically a foregone conclusion that the two tree people would be captured. Of course, they actually had another option, such as shouting for help.

However, looking at the knife in front of them, they wisely concluded that by the time other tree people came to rescue them, they would have been dead.

Now it is best to just follow what the other person says without making any movements or sounds.

...

"It seems that capturing a live person this time was surprisingly smooth." 11b looked at the two tree people hanging in front of him with a satisfied expression.

As the army advanced, the tree people's production capacity buildings began to fall into the hands of the humanoids.

Unfortunately, due to the differences in civilization and technology, they found that these production buildings were useless. The buttons and operations of the treeman factory were completely incomprehensible and inoperable to the humanoids.

At this time, we still need to use the manpower of the tree people. Fortunately, after the initial madness ended, the tree people are now in a stage where they are becoming easier to fight.

For some unknown reason, those fearless armed thugs began to die out gradually, so compared to the previous period of time when they were stuck in a quagmire, the humanoid army's marching speed now can be said to be on a bright road.

More importantly, some of the tree people have unconsciously surrendered to the humanoids, and now they have returned to their factories to work overtime.

As of now, a small amount of production capacity has been put into operation and is being used by humanoids.

Of course, relying solely on this small amount of production capacity is not enough. Due to the recent threat of the Treeman fleet, the commander has been continuously launching countless probes into the surrounding galaxies.

You have to know that this thing is originally a consumable. In the past, the commander was able to use it up when leading the fleet in silence in deep space. On the one hand, she used a small amount each time, and on the other hand, she brought enough supply ships.

Unfortunately, after these few months, it should have been almost used up. As for the fleet brought by 11b, Yan Luo probably did not expect much results, so naturally it was not equipped with much supplies.

Therefore, as the use of various consumables increased during the siege of the planet, everyone soon found themselves in a resource crisis.

It is said that in order to cooperate with the commander in the periphery surveillance and detection, the N2 side has already removed the round heads from the weapon positions on their warships and thrown them out as a warning.

Therefore, the speed of the army's occupation becomes a crucial point.

If you want to preserve the enemy's production capacity and then occupy it for use, you can't use orbital bombardment to break through the defense like you did in the early stages of the siege.

Then 11b needs the regional deployment of the tree people and their specific strength. Because of the decentralized regional modules of the tree people, it is impossible for each base to communicate with each other's deployment information.

So we can only use the humanoid stealth skills to capture their personnel on the spot for questioning.

Although there might be some problems that lead to mission failure at the beginning, after a few times, the 11b team around 7b seems to be becoming more and more proficient in this business.

At least not long after she gave the order she saw two tree men hanging in front of her.

"Then let's go through the process first." 11b pulled out his knife and swung it hard. The side of the knife hit the tree man's head-like position hard. As the steel of the knife collided with their tree trunks, a "ding ding" sound was heard.

It sounds like hammering iron, but this method really makes the tree man dizzy and his body swings like a swing.

After it recovered, it heard the translation voice of a machine.

"To say or not to say?"

"General...you haven't told me yet, what do you want me to say?" The tree man, who was shaking and had not yet completely stopped, asked cautiously.

Unfortunately, 11b ignored its words, but walked up to its other companion and hit it hard.

It seems that saying she wanted to go through the process at the beginning was not just an excuse, she really wanted to complete the process!

"I admit it all, General, please ask!"

Chapter 326: Did you lead the Earthlings here?

"So this is the reason why you disappeared before?" The treeman captain looked confused.

To be honest, judging from the two tree men in front of it, with countless pieces of bark missing from their bodies (similar to bruised faces and noses), they didn't seem to be telling lies.

But the idea of ​​being abducted by Earth seems a bit ridiculous. "Actually, if you make up a story about someone having a change of heart and turning back, planning to live and die with us, I won't say anything. Or maybe you just run away and never come back. That's the prevailing environment anyway."

The Treeman captain cast a scrutinizing gaze at the two, his words becoming more stern. "But your fabrication that you were captured by Earth is truly despicable. Don't you know they're man-eating machines? No one in the occupied area could escape, and you certainly don't have the ability to do so!"

The captain's words made sense. The two tree people exchanged a glance, and a hint of sincerity appeared on their faces. "Captain, our main goal is honesty. We were once captured by the Earth."

"Then tell me how you escaped?"

"Actually, we didn't run away..." They had just finished speaking and were about to add something when another tree man came running and stopped in front of the captain.

"Captain, this is bad. A large-scale Earth force has been spotted in our forward defense zone."

As the tree man who came to report the news finished speaking, the ground immediately shook, and then the tall trees that served as greenery fell down one by one.

After all this was over, they saw a huge black mechanical creature appear before their eyes. It was a military artwork with four slender legs and an obviously top-heavy design that was extremely unreasonable.

"That's Earth's land colossus! Quickly notify the control room to operate the artillery to intercept!" The tree man, who had a little more vision, finally recognized what was in front of him. "Tell them to attack their legs first!"

After all, as the battlefield expands, the eager Earth has already used up all the army equipment it can currently use.

Naturally, such giants have appeared before. The early tree people did not take the existence of the giants seriously at first. They thought that these things looked like works of art or huge sculptures.

In addition, its size is taller than their buildings, making it an obvious sitting duck.

Then the dark magic armor and the explosive effect of the two rays combined told the tree man what a war machine is.

Even though its shape does attract hatred, it can still withstand a round of bombing and then fight back, often taking away a large area of ​​the treeman's defensive positions in just one blow.

Now the best chance the Ents have against the Colossus is to use their massive cannons to kill it with a single shot to the head, or to paralyze its fragile leg joints, rendering it unable to move.

In general, the idea was correct, but as the vibrations of the colossus walking on the ground became louder and louder, and its body got closer and closer, the captain finally realized that something was wrong.

"It's almost approaching us, and will soon exceed the effective firing angle of the defensive turrets! What are those people in the control room doing? Why are they just watching?!"

It was only then that the two bruised and battered Tree Men finally broke in on the tense atmosphere. "Captain, is it possible that the people in the control room have been taken down?"

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! The control room is underground inside the base. As long as our front line is not breached, it is absolutely safe. How could you have such an idea?"

"Because we just saw a group of humanoids from Earth approaching us." After thinking it over again and again, the two treemen decided to tell the truth.

When they finished speaking, the Treeman Captain immediately became indignant. "What do you mean you just saw it? If you could spot the Earthlings sneaking in, then they also spotted you. You should have been..."

The captain hadn't finished speaking before the anger on his face turned into doubt. He seemed to have thought of something and re-examined the two humanoids in front of him who claimed to have escaped from Earth.

Perhaps its gaze was too intense, and finally one of the tree people couldn't bear the pressure anymore and whispered, just loud enough for those around them to hear. "I happen to know a small path."

"You are the ones who led them here!" The captain finally understood why they were captured by the Earth and were able to come back alive.

Fundamentally, these are two leading parties!

"Master Wang won't eat people this time. I've seen the occupied areas, and everyone is alive and well. As long as you don't resist, you won't die."

"Of course I know these machines won't eat people!" Saying that the Earth is made of man-eating machines is actually just an old rumor.

Any tree person with a little intelligence can know the original prototype of this sentence.

Because of the tenacity of the tree people, the two sides had already clashed in a real fight in the war in the last era. As time goes by, the Earth side may have completely lost patience.

With the arrival of their doomsday weapons, they offered the final conditions to all tree people: live on your knees or die standing.

The natural tree people chose the latter, and then officially announced that the war had entered a stage of comprehensive purification.

Therefore, what the tree people fear is not the other party's "cannibalism", but the extermination order without any bottom line. At least that's what the lower-level tree people think.

The ground was shaking louder and louder, and everyone knew that the Earth's war machines were getting closer and closer. Those over a hundred meters tall could cover a distance of dozens of meters with each step.

Even though the movement seems slow, it is definitely not something that can be run by feet.

"So Earth machines really don't eat humans, right?" the captain asked.

Its eyes shifted from the traitor to the direction of the land colossus, staring at it intently.

After all the defensive batteries were silenced, it became almost impossible to stop the Earth's occupation of the area.

In fact, even with fortifications, they cannot be stopped. The fall of most production bases has proved this.

Next, instead of giving it a try to show the courage and glory of the tree man, it is better to think more about how to pursue the meaning of life.

Moreover, after the two traitors were used, they were not silenced. It seems that as long as the right decision is made, there will still be a chance to track them down in the future.

After figuring it out, the treeman captain immediately threw away the weapon in his hand, then reached out and grabbed the two traitors, while not forgetting to give instructions to the other treemen present.

"Keep an eye on them! If we're attacked, we'll take these two traitors with us."