When Rostov II was developed over seventy years ago, the Department of Internal Affairs initially intended to turn it into a new Penal World.
To this end, they had a regiment of Valhallan Ice Warriors collectively retire here, and subsequently, a steady stream of criminals was transported in.
After all, this was a planet that had experienced Necrons and had a harsh environment, making it perfectly suitable for a Penal World.
However, the development of events deviated slightly from the Department of Internal Affairs' arrangements.
The Pilgrims of the Ecclesiarchy arrived.
They recognized Rostov II as a destination for their pilgrimage.
Although not many people came, over several decades, the Ecclesiarchy sent over a billion Pilgrims here, who eventually took root in this barren Gobi Desert.
They even established two massive cities in the desert.
But this did not mean that the number of criminals on Rostov II decreased.
Because the Department of Internal Affairs still used it as an important stronghold for processing criminals, a large number of criminals were sent here periodically.
These criminals mainly came from other planets in the Mariupol Sector.
They were arrested by the Department of Justice for various crimes, minor or severe, and after interrogation, were sentenced to penal servitude.
So these people were loaded onto the Department of Justice's transport ships and sent en masse to the Penal Worlds of Mariupol.
However, Mariupol did not have a dedicated Penal World, or rather, Rostov was the Penal World previously planned by the Department of Internal Affairs.
Although due to the influence of the Ecclesiarchy, this world no longer existed as a Penal World, it still bore the function of processing criminals for the Mariupol Sector.
After all, if you were to really consider it, in the Mariupol Sector, a new Sector, only Rostov had such harsh environmental conditions.
In the past, these criminals were all crammed into the desert mines by the previous Governor to mine ore.
Rostov's resources were very poor; even if these criminals worked themselves to death, they wouldn't extract much ore. It was simply to keep them busy and prevent riots.
Even so, the primary task of the Rostov Defense Force used to be suppressing the riots instigated by these criminals.
Yet, even with all that, quite a few fortunate criminals escaped the mines through riots, becoming wanderers in the desert.
These people were few in number but had no fixed abode, generally lurking around the cities, surviving on small oases, and occasionally launching attacks and raids on the city's outskirts to obtain necessary survival supplies.
The previous Governor also organized the Defense Force to suppress them, but the effect was not good.
On one hand, these guys were disorganized; as soon as the Defense Force moved, they would scatter and flee deep into the desert, making them difficult to pursue.
On the other hand, deploying the Defense Force was too costly; the movement of regular troops caused far greater losses than the raids by these wanderers.
Under such circumstances, the former Governor could only deploy the Defense Force to suppress them when the wanderers became too troublesome, to prevent them from getting out of hand.
After Alex became Governor, although the problem of wanderers still existed, for Alex, it was not his main focus and was basically handled by Rachel.
However, Rachel's so-called handling was nothing more than occasionally deploying one or two companies of the Defense Force to disperse the wanderers; truly eradicating them was still very difficult.
However, with the promulgation of Alex's new decree, and a large number of militia reservists being organized, dealing with the wanderers became simpler.
These militia reservists were trained by retired veterans of the Defense Force. After mastering basic weapon usage and shooting skills, they would be taken to areas around the city where wanderer activity was rampant to carry out purges against them.
These militiamen were not regular soldiers themselves, so there was naturally no burden of military pay.
Although issuing them weapons and equipment was an expense, they did not use regular military armaments but rather some relatively inferior gang weapons.
However, even so, these items were much better than the crude weapons in the hands of the wanderers, which were comparable to Ork's 'shootas'.
So, theoretically, the Governor's Office only needed to bear the relatively light logistical consumption of these militiamen to use them against the wanderers.
The benefits of doing this were naturally very obvious: firstly, it cleared out the wanderers and stabilized public order around the city.
Although this might not seem like a big deal, it was very helpful for the overall prosperity of the city.
After all, if a city is constantly harassed by its surroundings, it greatly affects its development.
Another benefit was undoubtedly the training of the militia force, giving them a certain amount of practical experience.
Regardless of how much experience fighting wanderers could accumulate, as long as these militiamen dared to shoot at people and had no negative emotions when facing enemy corpses, they were already qualified soldiers.
In this way, the Governor's Office obtained a very high-quality source of recruits by spending very few resources.
This was the most cost-effective way to maximize the number of recruits without increasing military expenditure.
Once these people were officially conscripted, they could be transformed into excellent Defense Force soldiers in a very short time. After a few more tough battles or with a qualified Commissar, they would quickly become qualified Astra Militarum.
For Alex, this undoubtedly greatly enhanced Rostov's war potential; even if a major war occurred, he would dare to conscript troops freely.
Of course, if Alex were ruthless enough, he could actually throw the criminals sent from other planets directly into the desert, letting them join the wanderers to strengthen the wanderers' capabilities, thereby serving as a better whetstone and forging a more excellent militia force for Rostov.
However, Alex ultimately did not do so.
After all, as an Inquisitor, he was very clear about the crimes for which people were sentenced in the Imperium.
Sometimes, just a few rude words could be classified as a serious crime and result in being sent to a Penal World.
It should be known that the Department of Justice was very busy, and often did not seriously review cases, not to mention that many Lower Hive citizens simply did not receive fair judicial treatment.
But this was not an area Alex could interfere with. The fact that he could ensure these criminals received relatively humane treatment and not be treated as consumables was already an act of mercy.
Even so, Alex still selected one hundred thousand criminals with more severe offenses and sent them to Kristen, transforming all of them into Servitors to be used as workers for the Orbital Ring.
With this batch of workers, the construction of the Orbital Ring also accelerated significantly, showing a trend of being completed earlier than expected.
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