"Because of you." Jian looked through the deck she cobbled together. She didn't have much context besides the instruction manual, what she thought looked good on the cards, and her own past experience with boardgames. "Well, not entirely because of you, more our parents, grandparents, ancestors."
She put her tokens on the board, seeing how they interact with the tutorial dummy. "Shen Zhou was the first star
system colonized by the Old Regime, those people who created your Mother, your Empress,
Zhuli Number Four, while
Li Ming was a comparatively latter effort. We had a lot of the Old Regime here, more than Li Ming, so quite a bit of that thought process remains: state before the people, greater good, all that bullshit. Then there's the fact we're closest to Ping Qiong, you, who've gutted the Old Regime and completely changed the course of our history through a lot of rolling heads. What made Shen Zhou,
Shen Zhou, to put it bluntly, is that you didn't kill
enough."
Jian paused and scoffed. "The Zhuli didn't have much of a presence here, unlike in Sol. There were even less of your predecessors in Li Ming, but it also lacked much of the Old Regime in the first place. So what we have here is a perfect mix of a very violent nextdoor neighbor and enough of the Old Regime who survived who not only remembered what you did, but were enough in number to create spawn and influence their children and grandchildren for decades to come." She paused again, starting up a player vs. player game. "You aren't the only monsters the Old Regime created. Plus, you have good VR tech and you pay traitors well."
She let out a cold laugh. "I've said enough to get shot four times over." The woman played her first card and put down her first piece on the board. "Your move."