Chapter 33 32:
"from there Emperor Argal emerges.
He was born, well, we do not know exactly at what moment he was born, it is believed that he was immortal, along with a bunch of super fantastical stories even for us who can break mountains and fly. But I believe, and I hope to be right, he was born more than 4200 years ago. He may have many more, but there is no record that supports it.
Anyway, as I was saying, he was born within a low military hierarchy family of the Eastern State. Unlike the later hagiographic narratives that present him as a predestined figure, the available documentary analysis suggests that his emergence as a unifying leader was the contingent product of three interrelated factors:
His early experience as a combatant on the southern border provided him with practical knowledge of eastern tactical weaknesses, while his later scientific self-education allowed him to conceptualize these deficiencies.
By not belonging to the traditional elite of the Eastern State, whose power was based on preexisting military lineages, Argal operated from a peripheral position that allowed him to question the established paradigms without the restrictions.
The "Great Last War," prior to unification, was the most significant defeat of the Eastern State in territorial, economic and demographic terms, which coincided with Argal's intellectual maturity.
At this point, I can only suppose that humiliation served as a motor for self-improvement.
And that motivation took shape in a very particular political party.
The Eastern Progress Party.
Unlike previous political movements on Viltrum, which operated as factions within existing state structures, the Eastern Progress Party used a cellular structure of vertical communication to resist infiltrations and internal coups. The ideology cultivated efficiency and rejected "warlike stagnation," differentiating itself from the traditional elites who only opted for equilibrium. It had a technical meritocracy without considering lineage, capturing marginal talents.
Discipline demanded absolute loyalty to Argal as "the first among equals" to maintain internal cohesion.
The Eastern Progress Party, instead of seeking state power, chose to capture the institutions they considered key. Such as scientific academies, then military research centers, later schools and only at the end, the state population.
From there were born the key figures who, under Argal's leadership, revolutionized all of Viltrum until catapulting them toward an unprecedented advance, and everything was made possible under the foundations of a single investigation.
The Smart Atom.
It is necessary to say that the Viltrumites, as a race, obtained an overwhelmingly superior advantage over other races due to their evolution in a process of hundreds or thousands of orbits. But something was very clear, that evolution had been completely forced, combining the very physiology of the Viltrumite with that smart atom.
The research on "quantum organic enhancement" was entirely original to Argal himself. Accompanied by five super states, of which there was still one left alive, they had dedicated substantial resources to Viltrumite genetic optimization programs for centuries, with marginal results.
Argal proposed what at that time, was barely an emerging system, a self-replicating quantum structure that did not "program" the organism, but rather established a continuous feedback loop between consciousness and matter.
Without going into technical details, the so-called "smart atom" operates under three primordial principles.
The molecular structure of the Viltrumite maintains a "record" of its most optimal configuration. Deviations from this configuration, such as wounds, diseases, aging, among others, activate restoration mechanisms.
The organism does not depend exclusively on internal energy sources, but can access the zero-point energy of space-time, explaining the capacity for interstellar flight and extreme resistance.
Once integrated into the genome, the smart atom replicates itself into the offspring with high fidelity, generating an acquired inheritance, hence the strong dominance of every Viltrumite.
Obviously, this incredible revolutionary invention implied grave sociopolitical consequences for the era. Like your annoying neighbor, instead of using stones for fighting, suddenly comes out with some weapon of mass destruction out of nowhere, while everyone else is still using stones.
The implementation of the smart atom was not of immediate application either. Argal first prioritized its application in the military Elite of the Eastern Progress Party, creating a technically superior warrior caste, among whom, he was the first to use the original strain to set an example.
Then he applied them in his regular forces of the Eastern State, to expand his technological advantage, and lastly, it was among the civilian population itself, opting for a policy of generalized optimization.
The result was the obvious rupture of the multipolar equilibrium. The other four states, which lacked the scientific infrastructure developed by the Eastern Progress Party, for decades, could not replicate the advance.
The unification war was technically unequal.
Viltrumites were not born with monstrous strength, the smart atoms made it possible. Viltrumites were not born with the capacity to fly. The smart atoms were responsible, nothing a Viltrumite was capable of was possible prior to the creation of the smart atoms.
So the result was to be expected.
Eastern casualties were below 0.3% of their forces, while enemy coalitions suffered annihilation rates above 60%.
Thus the empire was born.
But unification under Argal did not imply immediate integration. The period 500 after Argal, was characterized by strong centralization.
Argal maintained the administrative structures of the former states, replacing only the ruling elites with loyalists to the Eastern Progress Party. This had the objective of minimizing any type of resistance in addition to saving resources, as well as preserving institutional capital, since the bureaucracy of the era, although politically hostile, were functionally efficient.
The technological leap enabled by the smart atoms allowed Viltrum to surpass the interstellar barrier, managing to project its power beyond the stars closest to the home system.
The Viltrumite expansion model presented distinctive characteristics in three phases. In the initial contact, it demonstrated overwhelming force that achieved a 98% immediate surrender. During integration, it maintained local elites as administrators, with a variable success rate from 40 to 70% depending on the system. But regarding the third, assimilation, it was expected that programmed mixes with dominant Viltrumite genetics would be implemented, since it was theorized that hybrids, over time, thanks to the dominance of their genetics, would eventually become pure Viltrumites. But this latter was never achieved, and everything was due to the ideological transformation that had emerged.
That was the empire's first setback."