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Chapter 578 Coming Out Swinging

However, the same couldn’t be said for things that weren’t reliant on the grid and couldn’t simply be unplugged. Things like airplanes, cars, other vehicles, HAM radios, and so forth were still affected. Most of those were major purchases or passion projects, so they hadn’t been replaced with newer hardware, as in the case of airplanes and vehicles, or they hadn’t been made to the exacting standards of imperial hardware, such as in the case of hobby electronics or passion projects like RC vehicles and HAM radios.

That was where the majority of losses came from on the empire’s side, as most of the citizens’ hardware had already been upgraded to the newer, more protected versions.

But the same couldn’t be said for noncitizens. Other than religious luddites like the Amish, Mennonites, and some Hutterites, or the small tribes that hadn’t even come into contact with modern technology like the Sentinelese, the rest of the world was severely impacted. Power grids were overloaded, generators failed—and in some cases, exploded—hospital life support turned into impromptu electroshock therapy devices, and even the so-called “hardened” military technology, like toughbooks, turned out to be not so impervious to EMPs as non-imperial scientists and researchers had claimed during the development and bidding processes.

But as hundreds of millions of people had finally caved and joined the empire, leaving only a little over a hundred million or so noncitizens, the effective damage was limited. Most of it, ironically, was environmental damage caused by shorts and surges. Minister Al-Mutairi had reached out through the imperial diplomatic corps with an offer to aid in extinguishing the roaring wildfires and helping with the recovery efforts, but other than the Russians, who were still led by Vladimir, most of the remnants declined the offer. Some rather more politely than others.

Still, the remnants had been chokeslammed back to before the industrial revolution and a lot of effort would be required to lift them back to what passed for modernity to them. And that was something that Aron wasn’t willing to do.

To prevent accidents and limit the loss of life to the greatest degree, the empire had issued a shelter in place order for all imperial citizens beginning three hours before the CME hit Earth. They also, through the Ministry of the Exterior, asked the remnants to do the same. And to limit the damage to the economy, the empire also promised to allow citizens to trade in any damaged goods for identical items, or for partial credit toward more advanced versions of the same things.

The shelter in place order was quite effective for the empire. They suffered almost no casualties at all; only a few hundred people had ignored the order and most of them even survived. But the same couldn’t be said for the remnants, who died in the millions when their pacemakers shorted in their chests or their hospital life support electrocuted them to death. And, at least outside of mixed cities where impies and remnants lived side by side, the material losses were almost total.

Basically, there were two outcomes of the Carrington event. Even though it had affected the entire planet, the humans living there were either completely unscathed or completely obliterated. There was no in between.

……

Two weeks later.

[Your Majesty, the crime rate has been on the rise over the past week. Especially remnant-on-citizen crime,] Gaia reported during Aron’s weekly update meeting with her, where she gave him a high-level briefing on events around the world.

“I have a wedding in a month,” he groaned. “Can’t the police handle crimes by now?” Though he said that, he knew that if it was important enough to be included in his weekly briefing, it wouldn’t be an easy problem to solve.

[We’ve caught most of them, yes. But it’s difficult, as the remnants are all anti-empire hardliners and are more than willing to shelter the criminals and help them escape. Naturally, we catch the ones who do that, but... solving the problem at its root is proving much more difficult.

[The remnants were virtually crippled by the recent Carrington event. They’re suffering hardships they weren’t prepared to deal with. Food shortages are practically reaching the level of famines, lack of transportation, lack of waste management, electricity, running water... they were basically catapulted back to the early twentieth century in terms of technology and are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new normal.

[And when you consider that most remnants can see our citizens living in virtual luxury compared to them, it becomes understandable that they’re upset. No matter how many of them we arrest, more just crop up and act out against us, whether because they’re jealous or because they’re forced to by starvation or disease.] Gaia threw the data file compiled by Nyx over to Aron.

He quickly scanned the file and asked, “What’s the damage estimate so far?”

[Mostly property damage, with a few injuries. The injuries are easily fixed, but the property damage is... less so. And it’s increasing as articles are published in newspapers, social media, and broadcast media. As you know, with tensions rising, it’s like we’ve been put in a pressure cooker with the valve stuck. Adding in the wild card that is blessings....]

“And all it’ll take is a single incident to trigger a pseudo-race war,” Aron finished for Gaia.

“What are we doing about it?” he asked.

[The imperial police agency has increased the number of patrol ships, but it’s a bandaid patch at best. Police are reactive by their very nature, and they can only catch the criminals either in, or after the act. Prevention is impossible for them, but it’s the only cure.]

“I hope the situation resolves itself,” Aron sighed and rubbed his temples. He could feel a headache coming on. “God help them if they do something I can’t tolerate. If they push me that far....” He was far from as calm as he appeared on the surface. The damage report was already beginning to make him angry, but it was still manageable as no deaths had occurred... yet.

Although he had been as benevolent as he could since the founding of the empire, that didn’t mean he was incapable of being ruthless. But people had short memories, and it was becoming obvious that they had already begun to forget what had happened during the Last War.

And though he hoped the police could deal with the rising crime rate, it didn’t prevent Murphy from coming out swinging.