Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 264: Stop to Plan

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

When Yao Yuan finished reading up on all the information regarding the Homo Evolutis, or Cosmic Adapters, four hours had passed. He lifted his head and realized that many people in central command were yawning.

Actually, the many important departments on the Hope had set up a good rotating system before they left Earth. Normally, there would be four or five shifts in a day, making sure the departments were manned every minute of the 24 hours.

However, during emergencies, like wars or disasters, the worker number requirement would be unusually high since every important panel required one or two standing at the ready at every moment. This was especially true for the Hope’s central command, the heart of the ship. The workers here weren’t numerous enough to afford more than the normal day and night shifts. Therefore, most of the people there had been working continuously for more than ten hours.

At that moment, the second surveillance report had arrived. It provided the details of the space within a hundred light-years of the Hope and rough information of things that were 1,000 light years away using light scanning technology.

Broadly speaking, they were in between galaxies, so there was a lack of stars. In 1,000 light years, there were only four stars, the nearest one being more than several hundred light years away. In other words, the Hope was something smaller than a speck of space dust relative to the space around it. Therefore, it was very safe there.

There was no danger within a distance of one thousand light years. Four of the stars were stable, young stars. The Hope picked up no suspicious gravitational waves or impulse sources. In other words, there was literally nothing around them, nothing to provide resources, and at the same time, nothing to cause danger.

Currently, the Hope wasn’t in need of incredible encounters, and that could last for several decades, since the Hope’s focus then was to dissect the information taken from the space merchants and grow. With enough time to percolate, humanity would break through the 4th revolution and enter the 5th revolution and join the ranks of level 3 space civilizations.

The cosmos was a harsh place to survive, it was a jungle. From the information given by the space merchants, Yao Yuan further confirmed that the weak had no place in space. Their only use was being slaves or soul energy material. Level 2 space civilizations were the lowest in this food chain, and for a semblance of safety in space, one needed to enter Level 3.

Therefore, a quiet piece of space like this might prove to be incredibly beneficial…

Yao Yuan sent out his orders through central command, announcing that the Hope was to return from alert to a normal state. The curfews and safety protocols would be resolved. Most of the working hours would revert back to normal. Other than key departments, all the rest would return to 8 hour shifts. Everyone could finally rest.

This order made many tired faces sigh in relief. After that, the luxury items on the Hope started to sell out. Items like meats, seafood, fungus, and wine were running out. People were purchasing these items in droves for celebration.

When Yao Yuan was reading back the information on the Law of Conservation of Life and Homo Evolutis, he was treated with this news of item shortage. Thankfully, the Hope had many supplies. When they left the new planet, there was an overflow in stock, so Yao Yuan immediately had the warehouse opened and a large amount of supplies returned to the market.

For the rest of the day, Yao Yuan gave no new orders. After dealing with all the assignments that had piled up, he returned to rest. It was the day after, when everyone had rested, that Yao Yuan called for a meeting with Guang Zhen, Ren Tao, Xiao Niao, leaders from the Academy, Speaker Matt, civilian representatives, and important government officials to discuss some things in the fifth floor central meeting room.

Yao Yuan was the first to start. "I decided to have the Hope stop in this spot for quite a protracted time; it might be more than five years."

The whole room, other than Ren Tao and Xiao Niao, who nodded knowingly, was shocked. Even Guang Zhen was taken by surprise. He was the first to retort, "The closest star system to us is 100 light years away. There is no reason for us to stay, so why are we staying?"

This question was on everyone’s minds. They couldn’t understand why Yao Yuan would come to this decision when there was literally nothing around them, no benefit for the Hope to stay. The star system that was 100 light years away would require ten years of travelling to reach even if they used the newly-acquired warp drive technology. So why should the Hope stay in the middle of nowhere?

Yao Yuan was not surprised by this reaction. He knew his decision would receive many detractors. He replied quickly, "Before I explain myself, I would like to pose the room a question. What was the ultimate goal for us when we escaped from Earth? Space warping constantly and even pushing ourselves into war feverishly?"

Everyone paused to contemplate. Many different answers appeared. Some said it was to survive, others to advance the civilization. Eventually, the many answers were distilled down to one. The answer was simple, it was so that humanity could continue its lineage and for mankind to discover a new home planet, a planet that could provide them with the comfort of a wide sky and blue sea.

"That’s right, our ultimate goal is to discover a new home planet to populate and then have our future generations carry on the torch of humanity on that planet. How close are we to that goal?"

Yao Yuan continued as he looked down from his podium, "We have actually achieved that goal with the discovery of the new planet. It had a blue sea, green grass, and a perfect wilderness, but what happened? We were forced to abandon it due to the appearance of a neutron star fragment, just like we did on Old Earth. We are again a space nomads, and so what awaits us next? If we’re lucky, we might find another home planet after innumerable warps, but what if the fragment appears again? We run again?"

At this point, the room was silent. Only Yao Yuan’s voice drifted on, "Therefore, our experience tells us that the only way for us to achieve our ultimate goal is to be stronger. We have to have the 5th, 6th, 7th, or even 8th industrial revolutions’ technologies should another neutron star fragment incident arise to threaten us! Or else, this game of loss and gain will be continued indefinitely! Is that what all of you want?

"Putting all of this aside, discovering another new home planet is even more difficult than winning 10 lotteries at this point. We will have to leave that to fate; it is out of our control, but if that is the case, we should make use of this opportunity to focus on things that we can control…

"The space merchants were really something else, weren’t they? A race with more than 50 percent retards, a lack of disciplined military, a civilization that has languished for generations in peace, a civilization like that managed to push humanity to the brink of extinction. Even now, when I think about how close we were to being wiped out, my heart chills…

"They had technology slightly better than ours. In fact, they themselves hadn’t entered the Level 3 space civilization stage, and yet they could have us cornered so perfectly. Now do you all understand the power of science? It is the true power in space! To be honest, I believe there is something larger than life looking out for us, because we managed to survive after so many space warps. This time we got off lucky, but what about the time after this one? Or the one after that? Who knows where we will land next. What if it’s near a black hole? I admit the possibility of that is low, so let’s consider a scenario that’s more plausible. What if we land near or right in the middle of a Shelter?

"Do you think that with our current power we can protect our people should the worse happen? I don’t think so, and if that’s the case, that would be when we humans face extinction!

"So now, do you understand why we have to stay here?"

Yao Yuan took a pause to press something on the podium. Soon after, a giant chart appeared on the screen behind him.

"This here is our current technological tree. I will not get into the technologies from the first, second, and third revolutions. These were our own discoveries, so we have full understanding of them. The issues lie with the 4th revolution technologies. The information from the space merchants have aided us a lot in further breakthroughs, but our overall process is only at 1/10. Let’s not get started with the four technologies from the 5th revolution. We have no clue how to even approach those…

"Therefore, what we need now is time for us to crack open the mysteries of these new technologies…

"We have enough supplies to last several hundred years in this empty space. We have enough technological information for us to break through into a Level 3 space civilization. We have Homo Evolutis to evade the Law of Conservation of Life, so I have to ask…

"Why shouldn’t we stop here for a period of time and stave off the exploration of space until we become a Level 3 space civilization and have at least enough power to defend ourselves?!"