Chapter 492: The Conspiracy of the Federation Senator

"This is the Federal Television Network."

Ye Nan sat on a park bench, looking at the large screen hanging in the park, a faint smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

That morning, Kaman and Mara had run out of the laboratory and were ruthlessly mocked, while Ye Nan had stayed in the lab, chatting with other students and obtaining some useful intelligence.

The Human Federation was not the democratic system Ye Nan had imagined, but rather a system similar to militarism.

The supreme power of the military was held by the military itself; the senators had no opportunity to intervene.

Not only that, because of the military's dominance, the Human Federation's external wars were also autonomously controlled by the military. In other words, the senators had no right to interfere in any military affairs, not even regarding declarations of war or the control of funding.

In fact, every year, the military would report its military budget, and the senators had to satisfy it unconditionally; otherwise, that senator would be unable to continue in their position. The dominance of the military was evident.

A long time ago, senators occupied the mainstream on this planet, and senators were chosen by the public. However, the military suddenly took action, took over the government, formed a military government, and subsequently carried out a series of reorganizations, such as dividing people into civilians and citizens.

People were born as civilians; they possessed all rights except for the right to vote. Citizens, on the other hand, possessed the right to vote. They could elect senators, from city government senators to the senators of the entire Federation; it was the citizens who voted.

And the most common way to become a citizen was to go to the battlefield and earn military merit. In reality, this was indeed the case; 99.9% of citizens in society had once been soldiers. This ensured that the military could control the senators, even though the senators' power was already pitifully small.

Aside from the right to vote, citizens also possessed various privileges. These were originally privileges granted by the military to soldiers, which then gradually spread to the entire citizen class, such as priority in medical treatment, the privilege to access information, and so on, of all kinds.

In short, citizens were the noble class, while civilians were the poor class, even though many company bosses were civilians.

"The dominance of the military will inevitably make those senators dissatisfied. Perhaps I can make use of that."

Those who had never understood the deformed system of the Human Federation would never know the conflict between citizens and civilians. If the equality of all people in the democratic era could still be used as a facade through legislation, then the current Human Federation didn't even bother with the facade; they directly divided people into different ranks.

"Join the military."

"Young men and women all over the world are fighting for the struggle of all mankind."

On the screen, there were only soldiers, these people lined up neatly, high-spirited and vigorous.

"I want to contribute," a white soldier said.

"I want to contribute," a black soldier said.

"I want to contribute," an Asian soldier said.

"I want to contribute too," a small child popped out from behind a female soldier and said to the camera, drawing roars of laughter.

"What are you still waiting for? Join the Federal military, save the world, enlist and you can obtain citizenship," the voice-over sounded.

A recruitment advertisement ended quickly, followed by advertisements for other products.

"It looks like the front line of the Human Federation is in an emergency," Ye Nan sneered. From this advertisement, he could see that the front line was already in an emergency; at the very least, their troops were dying in large numbers, and they urgently needed new recruits to go fight and resist. Otherwise, they wouldn't have brought out the "big killer" of obtaining citizenship upon enlistment.

What was citizenship? Citizenship represented privileges, represented the noble class, and represented obtaining unimaginable resources within this Human Federation. Every civilian longed to become a citizen, but unfortunately, to become a citizen, you had to make outstanding contributions. Even in the military, which was the easiest way to obtain citizenship, you needed to earn merit.

But now, the military was throwing out the bait of obtaining citizenship upon enlistment to lure civilians into joining the military and participating in the war. This was enough to prove that the situation was unfavorable.

It was just like during the American Civil War, when the North, in a precarious situation, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, gaining the support of a large number of black people, which allowed them to surpass the South in terms of troops and defeat them.

Now, similarly, the Federal military had thrown out the "big killer" of citizenship, absorbing a large number of civilians to join, causing the number of troops to swell, wanting to use this to defeat the Zerg.

"But are the Zerg so easy to defeat?" The sneer on Ye Nan's face deepened. The Zerg were the enemies of the entire galaxy's civilization, and their forces were spread throughout the entire galaxy. Relying on a small Human Federation simply could not change the overall situation. Even if he wiped out the Arachnid Zerg on the planet, so what? The Zerg could still send new Zerg over to fight the Human Federation. The military doing this was meaningless.

"Wait, that's not right." Ye Nan suddenly stood up. He suddenly remembered something: "What if the military doesn't know the true strength of the Zerg?"

If the military didn't know the true power of the Zerg and single-mindedly believed that the Arachnid Zerg were the culprits of the war, then as long as they wiped out the Arachnid Zerg, they could completely end the war.

"Then what kind of reason caused the military's misinformation?" Ye Nan carefully analyzed it.

From the current situation, it was highly likely that those senators of the Human Federation were the masterminds behind this. After all, people were greedy. They had finally obtained power, yet they had to rely on the military's breath to survive. This was simply a humiliation, especially given that they had once truly ruled the Human Federation. This sense of humiliation and desire for revenge was particularly severe.

"And that Peters, he should be on the side of the Federal senators."

As soon as Peters returned, he directly handed Ilis over to those senators, which directly proved his stance.

The rescuers were the Federal senators', and on the surface, the Federal senators controlled the Human Federation, so the Pan-Galactic Alliance should be in contact with the Federal senators. In this way, the motive was there, and the ability was there; the mastermind behind the scenes was about to emerge.

"Using the power of the Zerg to weaken the power of the military, and even inciting the public's hatred towards the military—these senators are playing with fire," Ye Nan sighed in his heart, his mood somewhat complicated.

A large number of young men and women were dying, and parents who had lost their children would definitely blame the Zerg. But as long as the Federal senators announced the true power of the Zerg, these people would blame the military and hate the military.

And as the side being schemed against, no matter what the military said, no one would believe them. They could only swallow their teeth and stomach the pain, watching helplessly as the Federal senators snatched power from their hands.

But in this game, whether it was the Federal senators who were the schemers or the military who were being schemed against, they both treated civilians as pawns in their hands. It could be said that these civilians were slaves; perhaps their situation was slightly better than slaves.

"This is the tragedy. Clearly, they are the main force constituting this society, yet they have to endure the greatest pain. No matter who wins or loses, they cannot change their situation."

It was just like the successive dynasties in ancient China; no matter which dynasty rose and which dynasty fell, the ones who suffered the most were always the farmers. They bore the burden of feeding all the upper-class people, yet they lived the most humble lives.

Shaking his head, he cast the thoughts in his heart away. "What do these things have to do with me? Even if the public sentiment is usable, it's not for use now."

"Public sentiment is usable" was a saying from the past. In the past, public sentiment could be exchanged for soldiers and morale. But now, with one shot from a starship, tens of thousands of people were turned to dust. Public sentiment was reduced to its lowest point at this time. In this era, only technology was truly powerful.

Otherwise, why would these ordinary civilians accept the existence of a citizen class similar to nobles above their heads? It was because they were powerless to resist, because all weapons were in the hands of the military, and what could flow out was very little, and most of them were light weapons.

"However, the conflict between these senators and the military can be made use of." Ye Nan's mind suddenly became active. "I can use their conflict to persuade these Federal senators to let them open the armory."

No matter how many schemes there were, no matter how badly the military suffered, once they recovered, power would fall back into the hands of the military. All the plans of the Federal government senators would be equivalent to futile effort. Even when the military recovered, they would restrict the senators' power even more severely, and it was not impossible to even take back all power and turn the Human Federation into a complete militaristic state.

Of course, Ye Nan understood that these senators must have a backup plan. They must have made corresponding arrangements for this. Perhaps in some place, there was still a hidden army controlled by these senators. After all, the planet was so big; for the Federal senators, secretly training an army was the simplest thing.

"And what I need to do is to put them at ease." Ye Nan thought in his heart, and he even thought of the rhetoric to persuade them: Ilis could help them control the weapons.

The so-called military, its essence was weapons, and weapons were usually controlled with the assistance of computers. If Ilis controlled these weapons, the military would just be a group of tigers with their teeth pulled.

However, many weapons were on internal local area networks and did not contact the outside world at all. There were also some computers like those on starships, which were usually in sleep mode and would only be activated when necessary. Wanting to control them was harder than ascending to heaven.

But if there was the help of the Federal senators, it would be different. Senators who held certain power could easily let Ilis come into contact with these computers, thereby controlling them.

"It looks like I should go find Peters immediately, use Peters to contact these senators, and then persuade them." (To be continued.) ===== CHAPTER 493 =====