Black Star Army

The Black Star Army is the organization through which Han Xiao turns personal foreknowledge and mechanical skill into durable galactic power. It begins with forty-seven newly registered mercenaries, most of them players from Planet Aquamarine, and no completed missions or active region. It becomes a mass faction because Han Xiao combines two populations that ordinary organizations struggle to use together: permanent galactic personnel who provide continuity, and “Immortal” players who revive, grow rapidly, and return in enormous waves whenever a new version begins. (Chapters 332–334, 408–440, and 508–591)

By the end of the story, the Army is no longer adequately described as a mercenary company. It possesses planets, fleets, factories, logistics networks, subordinate branches across Star Fields, Beyond Grade A officers, business monopolies, research capacity, and a population large enough to sustain internal competitions watched across the universe. It serves successively as Han Xiao's shield, laboratory, player faction, political constituency, and territorial foundation. Yet it does not absorb every institution he later leads: the Crimson Dynasty remains an allied civilization, the Beyond Grade A Association remains an independent association, and the Supers Holy Land is deliberately separated from Army governance. (Chapters 770–933, 993–1207, 1248–1318, and 1446)

Structure and operating principles

The Army Commander

The organization is founded around Han Xiao's code name, reputation, and faction interface. He chooses the contracts, controls the central faction store, sets contribution requirements, appoints senior officers, directs strategic expansion, and supplies the personal combat power that initially makes a small mercenary group credible. “Black Star” is therefore both the founder and a brand that assures clients that the organization can complete work beyond the ability of its nominal grade. (Chapters 332–359)

As the Army expands, Han Xiao stops supervising ordinary missions. Phillip sorts requests, officers manage departments, branch personnel handle local work, and fleets operate according to standing objectives. The mature organization can continue expanding while Han Xiao spends years in seclusion or works through the Beyond Grade A Association. This transition from personal labor to delegated capacity is one of the clearest measures of its growth. (Chapters 591–653, 688–738, and 1218)

At the final handover, Han Xiao judges it inappropriate to remain the active commander while serving as supreme leader of the Supers Holy Land. He appoints Nero acting Army Commander, while retaining the Army Commander title in name and requiring reports. This is not a complete transfer of ownership or a dissolution into the Holy Land. It preserves the Army as a distinct organization while reducing the appearance that one Army controls the new civilization. (Chapter 1446)

Administrative and operational leadership

The Army's officer corps changes over time. Early companions perform multiple roles because there are too few people for specialized departments. Later, command becomes institutional.

Titles should be tied to their period. Herlous, Sylvia, Hila, Aurora, Lagi, Feidin, and others all become important officers, but the final structure removes several Beyond Grade As from Army posts so they can lead the Supers Holy Land without implying that its decisions are Army orders. (Chapters 633–766, 925–993, 1235–1250, and 1446)

Contribution, rewards, and mobility

The faction interface lets the Army measure individual contribution and relationship status. Missions, purchases, training, and promotion become visible to members rather than depending on personal access to Han Xiao. This transparency is especially important to players, who can see that completed work changes their standing and can plan for knowledge or equipment in the faction store. (Chapters 332–334 and 591)

Han Xiao deliberately balances cost and attraction. Advanced knowledge, mechanical products, class instruction, Evolution Cube use, consumables, and specialized services make membership valuable. He sometimes charges money, sometimes experience, and sometimes contribution points depending on which resource the organization needs. The system is mutually exploitative in a productive sense: players call Han Xiao generous because they obtain scarce advancement resources, while Han Xiao gains experience, money, labor, and loyalty at a scale no ordinary non-player faction can reproduce. (Chapters 508–577, 688–738, 808–829, and 899–919)

Promotion is not limited to seniority. The Black Star Cup is explicitly created so that capable newer members have another path to rise while veterans have a reason to improve. Branch service, difficult missions, and combat performance also produce officers. The organization uses competition to find talent in a membership too large for the central administration to know personally. (Chapters 1089–1141)

Professional personnel and Immortals

Players are central but never the Army's only members. They disappear during version updates, pursue personal entertainment, and may choose other factions. Han Xiao therefore uses player performance and publicity to attract permanent free mercenaries, technicians, pilots, administrators, researchers, and local recruits. Professional personnel keep bases, industry, and diplomacy operating during player absences. (Chapters 408–440, 591–652)

The Immortals contribute qualities permanent staff cannot match: revival, accelerated growth, willingness to accept repetitive or dangerous work, and the capacity to mobilize through shared game incentives. Their guilds retain internal identities while joining the Army; this makes them both members and semi-autonomous subgroups. Han Xiao guides them through profitable objectives rather than expecting military discipline to eliminate player behavior. During large wars, their ability to return after death makes them a strategic arm with no conventional equivalent. (Chapters 645–653, 716–738, 808–832, and 1152–1209)

The source also distinguishes full members, who obey Army orders, from semi-members, who work for the Army while retaining broad freedom; mercenaries are the typical semi-member case. Players can choose either relationship, so “player” is a type of participant rather than a third formal obedience tier. A player guild may preserve its own leadership and still contain Army members, while accepting Army benefits alone does not make every allied or client organization a full subordinate. (Chapter 812)

Business, force, and reputation

The Army operates through a circular model. Successful contracts create credibility; credibility attracts members and clients; more members allow more contracts; mission records and media increase reputation; reputation supports better partnerships and territory; territory and technology produce goods that make membership still more attractive. Han Xiao's personal victories accelerate the circle, but administration converts each temporary victory into permanent capacity. (Chapters 332–416, 557–630, and 688–738)

Force and commerce remain connected. The Army sells equipment, protection, transport, knowledge, Evolutionary Totems, and other services while fielding fleets capable of enforcing its contracts. It does not need to choose between a corporation and a military because each side protects the other. Its mature public image as an “ally of justice” is also an asset: good will gives it what the narration calls public-opinion armor, allowing minor scandals or player antics to be treated more forgivingly. (Chapters 899–919, 1089–1141, and 1126)

History

Founding at Juberly Hub

After leaving Planet Aquamarine for the galaxy, Han Xiao registers a mercenary group under his code name. The Mercenary Alliance permits almost anyone without a severely disqualifying history to create one group, and Han Xiao uses that existing institution rather than inventing a private legal framework. The initial record lists forty-seven members, credibility ten, no missions completed, and no active region. Thirty-seven members are Class C. (Chapter 332)

Players receive membership and contribution through the faction interface. The first batch gains an immediate relationship increase, then discovers that work for the group opens rewards unavailable to unaffiliated individuals. Han Xiao summarizes the culture through two deliberately simple principles: those who follow him eat well, and Han Xiao is always right. The joke expresses an actual bargain—he offers information and opportunity in exchange for confidence in his direction. (Chapters 332–334)

Building a mercenary record

The early group needs proof that Black Star's personal reputation can protect a team. Missions around the Sunils, the rescue of the Silvers, cooperation with Sky Ring, and clashes with DarkStar place its name in regional records. Han Xiao uses foreknowledge to select work whose danger is matched by unusual strategic value: valuable allies, faction reputation, blueprints, or future story access. (Chapters 335–416)

The Sunil relationship is especially important. Herlous follows Han Xiao because he promises to bring enough Supers to address the recurring Catastrophe, and the group later fulfills that promise. Sunil becomes a source of recruits, missions, and a place for an Army branch. The relationship illustrates the Army's preferred expansion: solve a civilization's problem, obtain local legitimacy, establish infrastructure, and make that infrastructure useful to players and residents alike. (Chapters 336–351, 591, and 616–628)

Return to Planet Aquamarine

During the Mutation Disaster, the group returns with galactic medicine, transport, and combat capacity. Han Xiao recruits the huge Planet Aquamarine player population while protecting the planet and maneuvering DarkStar into exposure. He also declares Planet Aquamarine associated with Floating Dragon, using Ames and her organization's deterrence to prevent outside powers from casually claiming it. (Chapters 508–576)

This association does not make the Black Star organization a permanent department of Floating Dragon. Han Xiao is one of Ames's officers, Planet Aquamarine receives Floating Dragon protection, and the relationship enhances his early political status. The Army later becomes independent and maintains personal ties with Ames, but its chain of command is its own. (Chapters 576–605, 765–770, and 904–905)

Renaming as the Black Star Army

After recruiting more than ten thousand members, Han Xiao changes the faction's registered name from Black Star Mercenary Group to Black Star Army. Only a large mercenary organization would credibly use “Army,” and the new scale justifies the claim. He tells the players that their contribution enabled the change, deliberately creating the feeling that this is a faction they helped build. (Chapter 577)

The renaming also announces departure from Planet Aquamarine and entry into the wider galaxy. Han Xiao places Advanced Pugilist and Esper knowledge in the store for experience rather than money, presenting it as a benefit for new mercenaries while using the transaction to accumulate the experience he needs for his own advancement. Identity, recruitment, and resource extraction are designed together. (Chapter 577)

Base No. 1 and the main-city model

Base No. 1 on Planet Golden Gate becomes the players' new main city. Its hangars accommodate large fleets; Phillip's subprogram verifies member identity, maps the facility, searches the database, displays tasks, and records individual credit. Tens of thousands of newcomers can therefore use the base without demanding an explanation from Han Xiao. (Chapter 591)

The main-city model turns a headquarters into a player-development hub. Members receive missions distributed across galactic locations, learn the setting by working, return to repair or buy equipment, and see their accomplishments added to the Army record. Han Xiao reserves only high-paying, difficult, or strategically important work for himself and senior officers. Base No. 1 is thus both a home and a routing mechanism for expansion. (Chapters 591–599)

DarkStar and the Mutation Disaster settlement

Han Xiao's intelligence exposes DarkStar's hidden motherships, while the Army participates in the conflict and the relief of Planet Aquamarine. The resulting awards, media coverage, salvage, captured ships, and regional gratitude sharply increase its standing. By the time the immediate disaster ends, Black Star is no longer an obscure subordinate of a larger mercenary alliance. His organization is a recognized regional force. (Chapters 534–590)

The aftermath creates long-term territory. Planet Aquamarine, Planet Sunil, Base No. 1, and the Black Spirit Race provide different forms of connection: homeland, allied population, headquarters, and a species whose growth Han Xiao can guide. None is merely a painted point on a map. Each supplies missions, labor, strategic depth, or future political legitimacy. (Chapters 591–630)

Crimson Tide and division building

The Crimson Tide floods the Shattered Star Ring with conflict and employment. The Army divides work among players and professional units, opens or strengthens branches, and uses war income to build industry. Divisions let local commanders operate without requiring every mission to pass through the central base, while a ten-year development plan bridges the players' version absence. (Chapters 631–716)

During the patch, permanent members continue growing. New officers rise, Sylvia's administrative machinery develops, and the Army accumulates clients and assets. When players return, they find a faction that has not waited for them. That contrast is essential to Han Xiao's design: Immortals accelerate expansion when present, but the organization compounds gains while they are gone. (Chapters 648–716)

War with Bloodshed Land and independence

Competition with Heber and Bloodshed Land becomes the central regional struggle. Purple Crystal uses the Army in Secret War, while Han Xiao uses the campaign to train players, recruit displaced talent, and raise his own status. The Black Star Guards are organized as an elite regiment around this period, giving strong recruits and Calamity Grade officers a defined place near the commander. (Chapters 716–766)

Han Xiao then announces independence from Floating Dragon. The decision is not a hostile severing of personal ties with Ames; it recognizes that the Army has grown beyond the plausible status of one Floating Dragon field unit. Independence allows it to negotiate openly with civilizations and to make Han Xiao's coming Beyond Grade A status the center of its own political identity. (Chapters 765–773)

Beyond Grade A and the Crimson Dynasty

Han Xiao's rise to Beyond Grade A changes the Army from a major regional organization into the force of a universe-level individual. The Crimson Dynasty offers alliance, Ultimate Knowledge, and access to the Flickering World. Han Xiao accepts because civilization backing, new territory, and technology will let the Army grow far faster than regional mercenary revenue alone. (Chapters 770–808)

The Army remains distinct from the Dynasty. It is an allied Beyond Grade A organization, not a state ministry. The Dynasty provides strategic rights and resources; Han Xiao fulfills alliance duties and participates in campaigns; the Army retains its own officers, businesses, territory, and faction members. Later disagreements and sanctions are possible precisely because the partnership joins separate interests. (Chapters 796–808, 869–905, and 1218–1301)

Pioneering the Flickering World

The Army becomes one of the earliest and most important developers in the Flickering World. Exploration fleets map routes, establish strongholds, contact native civilizations, build stargates and logistics, and reserve valuable systems before the region opens generally. Players serve as a massive pioneering force, while professional fleets and administrators turn their discoveries into permanent holdings. (Chapters 808–933)

Early entry produces territory rather than only contract rights. Black Star Palace becomes Han Xiao's central headquarters, while planets such as Black Gate guard routes and the Sigma Star System later serves as a logistics center. Army subdivisions spread from the Flickering World into other Star Fields as business and political influence mature. (Chapters 919–993, 1134, 1206, and 1248–1249)

Evolution Cube and industrial expansion

Control of the Evolution Cube gives the Army a service desired by civilizations and species across the universe. Han Xiao charges for access, negotiates alliance benefits, and later develops Evolutionary Totems that can distribute related benefits without surrendering the Cube itself. Demand produces wealth, leverage, and diplomatic traffic through Army territory. (Chapters 726–808 and 899–910)

The organization also manufactures conventional and extraordinary technology: spacecraft, mechanical suits, weapons, artificial intelligence services, mechanical lives, and large engineering projects. Personal creations such as the Divine Mechanical Throne, Emperor's Cape, Spacetime Amber, or Celestial Punishment Edge are associated with Han Xiao and should not all be listed as standard Army issue. The Army's resource is the industry capable of supporting such research, not communal ownership of every prototype. (Chapters 810–910 and 1093–1108)

Black Star Cup

The first Black Star Cup is an internal competition conducted at universal-public scale. It includes many professions and activities rather than only duels, allowing the Army to identify talent among hundreds of millions of members. The public watches through continuous broadcasts, and average regional ratings are surpassed chiefly by news from the three Universal Civilizations. (Chapters 1089–1137)

The Cup serves three purposes at once. Administratively, it creates a promotion route for capable newcomers. Militarily, it reveals specialists the Army can deploy. Culturally, it turns an enormous dispersed faction into an audience that recognizes common champions and rituals. Even the closing-ceremony incident in which players mistakenly try to “save” Han Xiao from an imagined impersonation is absorbed into the Army's public image and increases attention. (Chapters 1097–1141)

Intelligent Plague and public responsibility

During the Intelligent Plague, the Army supplies technology, investigation, containment, and Han Xiao's expertise to a problem that threatens galactic civilization. The campaign is not simply another paid mercenary job. It establishes that a private armed organization controlling enormous resources is expected to assume public responsibility. A later peace award speech cites the Black Star Cup, Holy Light Emissary project, and plague response as evidence that the Army uses resources to improve its environment rather than merely hoard power. (Chapters 1100–1153 and 1126)

The public image has strategic value, but it is not entirely fabricated. Han Xiao calculates returns and rarely contributes without compensation, yet the institution repeatedly does work whose benefits extend beyond a client. Profit and public responsibility become compatible because a safer, more developed universe is also a better environment for the Army's long-term growth.

Beyond Grade A Association and organizational reach

Han Xiao helps establish the Beyond Grade A Association and later becomes its president, but the Association does not become a Black Star Army department. It is a multi-organization interest network in which strong members supply services and weaker members receive support. The Army is one of its major facets, qualified by size and industrial reach. (Chapters 993–1015 and 1207–1270)

The distinction protects both institutions. Han Xiao can use Army technology and influence in Association policy, but other Beyond Grade As retain their organizations and votes. When the Association develops into the Supers Holy Land after the World Tree war, Han Xiao again separates Army titles from the new body's leadership instead of claiming that every allied Super has joined his private force. (Chapters 1207–1318 and 1446)

Conflict with the three Universal Civilizations

Sanctions and political pressure against the Beyond Grade As place the Army in conflict with the universal rulers that once accelerated its rise. Its diversified subdivisions, territory, businesses, Immortal manpower, and alliances make it difficult to isolate. The Army's existence gives Han Xiao an independent material base from which to reject policies aimed at restoring civilization control over individual power. (Chapters 1267–1318)

At the same time, Han Xiao avoids treating the confrontation as an excuse to overthrow galactic order. Negotiation, deterrence, Sanctum Revival, and the discovery of the World Tree change priorities. The Army's force supports the independence of Supers, but survival against an external civilization becomes more important than winning the internal dispute. (Chapters 1270–1333)

World Tree war

The World Tree invasion mobilizes every layer built since the Juberly Hub. Army fleets, mechanical forces, branches, logistics, Beyond Grade A officers, players, allied populations, territory, and intelligence all enter the defense of the explored universe. Han Xiao's personal abilities reach far beyond what the original mercenary faction could support, but the Army makes prolonged universal war possible without requiring him to be present at every front. (Chapters 1286–1444)

Its history of integrating players proves decisive. Immortals can fight with extreme aggression, return after death, and absorb missions at continental or planetary scale. Professional commanders make that persistence strategically useful, while the Army's stores and industry re-equip losses. The same “leek” system once designed to farm experience becomes a civilizational defense mechanism.

The Galactic Alliance Army is the wartime coalition formed by the three Universal Civilizations from the explored universe's combined forces. The Black Star Army contributes personnel and assets to it, but the similar names do not make the galactic coalition a larger branch of Han Xiao's organization. Its military regions, headquarters, and overall command belong to the universal war structure. (Chapters 1403 and 1413)

Postwar handover

After Han Xiao subdues the World Tree and establishes the Supers Holy Land, many senior Army Beyond Grade As move into the new civilization's five class departments. Aurora gives up the Deputy Army Commander title; Hila and other officers likewise hand over Army positions. Han Xiao explains that remaining publicly tied to the Army would make the Holy Land appear privately controlled even when the individuals' loyalties do not change. (Chapter 1446)

Nero becomes acting Army Commander. Han Xiao remains commander in name, receives reports, and retains the relationships and authority built over centuries, but no longer handles daily affairs. The Army therefore ends the supplied story as a mature organization capable of surviving its founder's promotion beyond the role for which he created it. (Chapter 1446)

Chapter 1459 separately visits the Mechanical Civilization's Holy Planet and the Black Star Army's new headquarters in the Supers Holy Land. The first is a society of mechanical lives created by Han Xiao and later allowed to develop its own culture; it is not another name for the Army. The second is shown bustling with working members and veteran administrators, confirming that the Army remains active after the handover rather than surviving only as a historical title. (Chapters 811 and 1459)

Major operations

Resources and capabilities

The Army's military resources include conventional fleets, elite officers, Black Star Guards, mass-produced machinery, remote mechanical units, planet-scale defenses, branch garrisons, and player armies. Its logistics include shipyards, factories, warehouses, repair bases, transport routes, stargates, and Phillip's information network. Its economic resources include mercenary income, manufacturing, knowledge sales, Evolution services, licensing, territory, and partnerships across industries. (Chapters 591–738, 808–993, and 1089–1249)

Its political resources are equally important: Han Xiao's personal deterrence, Crimson Dynasty ally status, relationships with Ames and regional civilizations, standing in the Beyond Grade A Association, and goodwill among ordinary galactic residents. These layers let the Army survive changes that would destroy an organization reliant on one sponsor. When a partnership cools, it still has territory; when players disappear, it has permanent staff; when Han Xiao withdraws, it has administrators. (Chapters 605–770, 796–905, and 1218–1318)

External relationships

Planet Aquamarine

Planet Aquamarine is the founder's homeland, the source of the first player wave, and a protected political symbol. The Army recruits heavily there and returns during crises, but the planet's governments and population do not become indistinguishable from the Army. Han Xiao's arrangement with Floating Dragon and Godora gives it protection while allowing it to remain a civilian world. (Chapters 508–590)

Floating Dragon

Floating Dragon supplies early deterrence and Han Xiao's prestigious officer identity. Ames's tolerance and personal bond let him use that umbrella while the mercenary group is vulnerable. Independence later acknowledges that the Army has become a peer-scale organization. Their alliance survives because it rests on personal trust and shared history rather than forced subordination. (Chapters 353–391, 576–605, 765–770, and 904–905)

Purple Crystal and the Crimson Dynasty

Purple Crystal employs the Army against Klent and Bloodshed Land, accelerating its regional military rise. The Crimson Dynasty later offers a far larger alliance and Flickering World rights. Neither civilization owns the Army. Each partnership is an exchange of service, territory, technology, and political support whose terms can be revised when interests diverge. (Chapters 631–796 and 796–933)

Beyond Grade A Association and Supers Holy Land

The Army gives Han Xiao the resources and constituency to help unite Beyond Grade As. The Association then protects the wider class of individual power, including organizations that compete with Black Star. Its successor, the Supers Holy Land, becomes a civilization with its own class departments and citizenship. The final personnel separation is deliberate evidence that these institutions are allied and overlapping, not the same body under three names. (Chapters 993–1015, 1207–1318, and 1446)

Mechanical Civilization

Han Xiao creates mechanical lives and initially directs their civilization as a source of production and soldiers. Those beings fight beside his wider forces, but their creator relationship, reproductive society, and later home on Holy Planet are distinct from Army employment or player faction membership. After the World Tree war, Han Xiao ends their standing troop-production order and allows the civilization to develop freely, while the Black Star Army continues operating from a separate headquarters. (Chapters 811–812 and 1459)

Identity and legacy

The name “Army” begins as an aspiration made credible by ten thousand recruits. It eventually understates the institution. A mercenary army normally sells force; Black Star's organization builds societies, operates markets, develops Star Fields, trains generations of Supers, negotiates with universal civilizations, and maintains enough internal life to produce its own sports culture. Its growth tracks the story's scale from one planet to the fate of the universe.

Its defining innovation is not a single machine. Han Xiao recognizes that players are neither ordinary soldiers nor an inexplicable nuisance. He gives their resurrection and desire for rewards a place inside an organization whose permanent personnel can survive their absences. The result is a faction in which play, profit, loyalty, and genuine responsibility reinforce one another. Members may join for knowledge or excitement, then defend the organization because its victories became their own history.

The final handover confirms that the Army is more than an extension of Han Xiao's hands. He no longer needs an external organization to support his personal position, and his new office makes direct command politically awkward. Instead of dissolving the Army, he appoints Nero to work as acting commander and lets senior officers move onward. The institution he created to carry himself into the galaxy remains behind as a self-sustaining galactic power—and, when the dark universe finally reaches the real one, Army fleets are part of the history anchored to Black Star's return. (Chapters 1446 and 1463)