Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 265: Arrangement

Even though the Hope had a democracy, as long as it didn’t involve something humongous, Yao Yuan had the power to decide everything on the Hope. Of course, Yao Yuan knew there had to be limits to his power. Therefore, other than emergency situations like war, famine, or disasters, he would not rely on his power. Instead, like this time, he would convince the crowd with his words, and many did end up agreeing with him.

One of the first reasons was the wealth of supplies on the Hope. When the Hope planned to leave the new planet, a variety of minerals were mined, smelted into ingot form, and stored. For example, the most important metals were distilled into their purest form using electrolysis from the 4th revolution. Materials such as these were innumerable on the Hope.

After all, the Hope was 35,000 meters or 35 kilometers long. Furthermore, after the latest upgrade, the Hope had added several new levels, making it about 800 meters tall and 2,400 meters wide.

Of course, compared to the space merchants’ mother ship and the junkyard civilization’s main battleship, it was relatively tiny, but this was the biggest size mankind could achieve with 3rd revolution technology. In other words, this was the biggest mechanical creation in human history. For the people back on Earth, the Hope would be something akin to a miracle.

Thus far, the Hope’s population was at 217,000 people, including the newborns. Realistically, the 90,000 children did not occupy much space, but from this perspective alone, it could be seen that the future population of humanity would have an exponential increase. Due to this, when mankind left the new planet, they basically carried with them everything they could and more. With the advent of the 4th revolution, many materials could be recycled, and the materials on the Hope could be used for at least 100 years as long as the population maintained at below 300,000 people!

Therefore, stopping for five to ten years in space was a non-issue.

The second reason would be the necessity of stopping in space. Just like how Yao Yuan described it, the cosmos was too dangerous a place for humanity to wander around aimlessly. Even after taking the technology left behind by the junkyard civilization, the Hope still fell into dangerous situations many times. In fact, mankind should count themselves lucky that they stumbled into the space merchants that were on the downward spiral, or else extinction would have awaited them. Therefore, stopping for five to ten years in relatively peaceful space to improve humanity’s technology was beneficial and necessary.

Just like that, the proposal to stop for five to ten years was quickly approved. In truth, many people sighed in relief when this proposal came to pass. After all, the incident with the space merchants had scarred many people due to the war. They wouldn’t mind having a breather period to bolster the strength of humanity first.

A period of peace had arrived. Even though the peace was temporary and precarious, many, especially those that were fatigued from war, had the best sleep they had ever had in a long time. Of course, while the civilian sighed in relief, the same couldn’t be said for the government.

After the proposal was passed, there were many things for the government to handle. The first was arrangements of work and rationing of resources.

Stopping in space meant no exploration and space warping, so there would only be a decrease in food and energy and no increase. Therefore, a deficit was inevitable. Of course, the government had to make sure that the market wouldn’t collapse from inflation. However, steps like limiting monthly purchases of luxury items had to be done. Of course, while the limitations wouldn't be too severe, one couldn’t buy them limitlessly like before.

Secondly would be arrangements of occupation. Since they would be stopping for a long time, stations for the purpose of war would gradually be cut down and the people would be siphoned into service roles that would increase during peace time. There would also be a general lowering of working hours so that the citizens had time to attend school or seminars to improve themselves.

The last and definitely not least was the scientific knowledge system. The current scientific knowledge system used by mankind could be roughly sourced from three origins. First was all the knowledge below the 4th revolution that was brought from Earth.

Second was the 4th revolution technology taken from the junkyard civilization. However, since parts of that civilization had already been demolished, the technology wasn’t complete. Parts of the information were missing. Therefore, mankind needed to use deduction to study and aid the missing technology before they could be used. This was because the Academy predicted mankind needed another 50 years before they could use weapons like the Genesis.

The third would the technology given by the space merchants that bolstered the 4th revolution technology tree and four 5th revolution technology pieces. The Academy couldn’t tell for sure whether this meant that the 4th revolution technology tree was completed or not, but it was undeniable that the scientific knowledge they got from the space merchants was a lot better than the ones from junkyard civilization. Now they only needed to study both in earnest.

Above were all the scientific basis humanity currently had. They were also the reasons Yao Yuan decided to stop in space. According to his discussion with several leading scientists, in around 3 years, mankind would successfully entered the middle stage of the 4th revolution, and another 5 or 10 years after that, mankind would reach the peak of 4th revolution and they would be able to create and work with technologies from the 5th revolution.

Therefore, Yao Yuan poured a lot of effort into the advancement of science. He fulfilled the Academy’s every demand, like building new scientific devices, sending them more materials, and permission to use the central mainframe. Other than that, a new group of interns would be added into the Academy to breathe new life into the system.

The last would be the arrangement of the three Whisperers. Since they were different from normal scientists, having them research and study existing information seemed to be a waste. Therefore, all three of them were tasked with researching the higher end of the scientific spectrum. Their research direction was different according to their fields of expertise, but the unifying similarity was that all three of them were researching technology from the peak of the 4th revolution or early 5th revolution.

Yao Yuan had done everything he could about the sciences, bar getting into it himself. While it was true that he had part of the Whisperer’s power, it didn’t seem like it did anything for him. Scientific research was not combat, and it required a large amount of scientific knowledge and a drive in research. Yao Yuan could understand science but not do research on it.

When all of these decisions were made, the Hope had stopped in the area for three days. Finally, Yao Yuan and the government officials could sigh in relief. However, this was not break time for Yao Yuan yet. For the past three days, every night he returned home, he would pull out a large amount of reading material given by the space merchants to study. Gradually, his understanding of the wide cosmos increased.

The morning of the 4th day, he called Ren Tao and Xiao Niao to his room. He needed the two Thinkers’ help to categorize the information.

"First, about 60 percent of the information can be released to the public or even kept in the public e-library. At least the public can familiarize themselves with the cosmos, to prepare themselves for our future contact with other space civilizations…

"Another 30 percent will be locked behind a higher reading privilege, viewable only by senior government officials, representatives, ranked soldiers, and scientists.

"The other 10 percent will be completely sealed with confidentiality above grade A. Only the speaker of the house, military majors, and the highest government officials can view them…"

Yao Yuan turned to the two. "This is the reason why I called for the both of you. I hope you can help me improve these demarcations, and another thing is…

"I think I’ve found the Hope’s future target, or rather, I’ve found the fastest way to become a Level 4 space civilization!"