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Despite the devastation and decreases in quality of life- keeping your population <span class="mu-i">growing</span> is important to balancing your budget and reclaiming critical brainpower resources that were lost during the Alavis crisis. Science is, naturally, at a standstill in the reclamation effort- at least on Jaxt.
The culture and government of the Hegemony has also changed somewhat subtly. There has been a rising wave of authority in the aftermath of the crisis- luxuries, free time, and resources are being more tightly controlled. But the AI network is taking time too. You are at the unenviable position of needing more control then ever, but having less automation and oversight to actually accomplish this control. The vast majority of Jaxtian citizens, naturally, obey- and morale is still pretty high, though the humdrum of life under so many little restrictions and with so little good news of conquest on the frontiers of space are staring to wear down the people a bit.
At the same time; the lack of government control in the form of AI has meant many openings for criminal and underground activity. Alavis destroyed the entire centralized banking system- deleted and scrambled records and logs of transactions. The money of every citizen was lost or at least inaccessible for a time- your digital economy naturally collapsed instantly. <span class="mu-i">Physical currency</span> had to be produced- and with that came an entire black market. The trading of luxuries, “real food” merchants, and illegal services for anti-social behavior.
People are profiting, in both ways, from this period. Many citizens were asked (or required) to grow food or other necessities. Many mothers are assigned worker uniforms to sow their buttons on, community washing and cleaning services take care of jobs once assigned to laborers- who are too busy rebuilding torn asphalt and pushing wheeled vehicles out of the ditches that Alavis drove them into.
Over the next <span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-i">five years</span></span>, the situation in Jaxt slowly improves, and you have grown quite a lot too. Not to brag, but with the combination of your young start and extended lifespans- it is an inevitability you could be one of the most experienced Supreme Ruler in history at some point in your reign. Kimnan II has grown similarly- the top of his class in flight school, but he doesn't try to crush all the old records like the previous one did.