As the PROJECT forces continued advancing through Idaho, neither the state government nor the military showed much will to resist—especially the military.
When the PROJECT troops arrived, there was practically no resistance at all. Units simply surrendered on the spot and obediently waited for PROJECT to take over.
At first, Chris and Boros suspected it might be some kind of trap. They broke up the surrendered units and assigned guards to watch them. But after the same situation happened several times, they began investigating.
The final result left Chris somewhat speechless.
The main reason for the military's passive attitude was simple: most of Idaho's key government officials had already fled. Only a few insignificant figures were left behind. When the major interest groups realized the situation was turning bad, they quickly transferred their assets and ran off to the New United States.
In other words, they had practically handed the entire state of Idaho over to PROJECT.
Chris was more than happy with this outcome. He immediately accelerated the takeover process, and Idaho—something that might have taken considerable time to secure—was fully absorbed in less than a week.
Now he was simply waiting for reinforcements to arrive so the remaining cities could be completely taken over. At the moment, Chris had only secured the major urban centers, and even there he hadn't made any administrative changes.
After all, they would soon be marching again. There was no point wasting time dealing with those matters. Managing cities had never been his strong suit anyway—that kind of work could be left to others.
Right now, he only had one thing to focus on: preparing for a new war against Oregon.
Without interference from the New United States this time, he was confident he could take the state within a month—even without Oblivion stepping in.
Of course, if Oblivion did intervene, things would be even faster. It might take less than half a month. But that was just wishful thinking, since Roland was Oblivion's pilot.
The only thing that truly concerned him was Washington State next to Oregon.
Washington was different from the other states. Even the New United States was reluctant to openly provoke them.
The reason was simple…
They had nukes too.
So once Oregon was secured, he would have to start thinking about how to deal with Washington's presence.
In contrast to PROJECT's favorable situation, things were far less pleasant on Militech's side—especially for Myers.
Ever since she made that decision, domestic public opinion and impeachment efforts had not stopped for a moment. Even within her own faction, dissenting voices had begun to appear, and some people had even switched sides outright.
But there was little she could do about them.
Just dealing with the impeachment and public pressure was already enough to overwhelm her.
If it were only public opinion, it would actually be manageable. She had ways to stabilize it. Although this campaign had failed, the achievements of the Unification War were undeniable. As long as that point was emphasized, public dissatisfaction could be eased fairly quickly.
The real problem was that someone behind the scenes was deliberately stirring things up—and doing so aggressively.
Whenever Myers began gaining the upper hand in public discourse, the other side would immediately pour massive resources into crushing it.
As a result, the situation had turned into a full-blown media war, with both sides burning money like crazy.
But Myers was already starting to feel exhausted.
Because the money wasn't just being spent on public opinion. Handling the impeachment required paying an even greater price.
In fact… it might even require giving up shares.
Myers knew exactly who had initiated the impeachment.
Rocco.
He probably hadn't intended to bring her down completely this time, but he was certainly using the opportunity to severely weaken her influence.
Judging from the current situation, his strategy had worked extremely well.
Her influence within Militech had shrunk by nearly a third, and within the New United States government it had been cut almost in half.
Her defeat in the war had alienated the hawks, while the anti-war and neutral factions showed her no mercy either.
It could be said that the tide had already turned against her.
Unless something unexpected happened, she would most likely be replaced in the next term.
Thinking about this, Myers rubbed her temples with a headache.
Did she love her country?
Of course she did.
Otherwise she would never have pushed for the Unification War. Even if part of her motivation was personal ambition, she genuinely cared about the New United States.
Yet now, seeing these people still busy fighting internal power struggles instead of paying attention to PROJECT…
The thought alone made her head ache even more.
But soon she let out a long sigh.
If there was truly no other option, she would simply step aside and leave this mess for whoever came after her.
...
"The situation in the New United States has basically stabilized. Next, PROJECT will probably take the five northwestern states."
After reviewing the intelligence reports in his hands, Encryptus spoke to the colleague beside him.
"Mhm. After that, send people to continue making contact with them. It would be best to deepen our ties."
Opus nodded as he rubbed his face, a trace of helplessness flashing in his eyes.
Roland had kept his promise. The technologies he had agreed to provide to the Highriders had already been handed over, and they had begun secret research while keeping everything hidden from the European Space Agency.
When the first experimental micro-damage weapon was successfully produced, they were ecstatic.
It meant PROJECT hadn't deceived them.
But their excitement didn't last long.
They quickly realized they were powerless to develop higher-powered weapons.
The energy requirements were simply too enormous.
The only energy source they could realistically rely on was nuclear power. But nuclear power…
Their real limitation was energy output efficiency.
While nuclear energy could theoretically reach extremely high output levels, the problem was…
Whether they could actually control it was another matter entirely.
So they ended up stuck in an awkward position.
"We should help them resolve the remaining states as soon as possible."
"What about Washington?"
At this, Opus's eyes flickered slightly. He glanced at Logan Doyle beside him and saw the other man nod.
"Don't pressure Washington. Pressuring Oregon will be enough."