Chapter 95: Transportation Issues

June.

With the scale of Smart Industrial Clusters inside various Underground Shelter Cities gradually recovering closer to pre-Doomsday Crisis levels,

And the further expansion of space within them,

The Underground Shelter Cities were slowly moving out of the emergency Doomsday state.

The rationing system used during the crisis was shifting back towards the old way where Strong Artificial Intelligence planned production based on people’s actual needs.

For people, the most direct change was that the ‘money’ they held, which had mostly lost its use, became useful again.

It was no longer like before, where the Underground Shelter Cities’ systems only gave everyone basic survival supplies.

Now, they had more choices for daily products.

Shelves filled with products designed by different innovators and researchers, made by the Smart Industrial Cluster system, were ready for people to pick.

In July and August,

Things improved even more.

Universities inside the Underground Shelter Cities started teaching classes again.

In this era, people graduating from university usually worked in research fields, even if they didn’t join the Negentropy Research Institute.

Now, the slowly returning production power was finally enough to support most of Human Civilization’s research work.

These people gradually went back to their jobs and research, fulfilling their roles in the new society.

Also, the early retirement plan, which had stopped during the emergency,

Started again in August.

Researchers at the Negentropy Research Institute looked at the data and decided to lower the Doomsday retirement age from 160 back to 100.

But over the next few decades, they planned to gradually raise it to 130 years old.

If human lifespans didn’t change a lot, it would stay at that age long-term.

There was a reason for this age.

After the start of the Intelligent Era, everyone worked mentally, not physically.

According to current human standards, people over 130 are considered very old.

Their thinking skills, logic, and other abilities get weaker.

There’s really no need for them to keep doing research work.

Of course, if someone still wanted to keep working voluntarily, with the plenty of supplies in the Intelligent Era, there was no reason to stop them.

For now, retirement age was set at 100.

This was mainly because it hadn’t been long since the world entered the Intelligent Era.

If not for this Doomsday Crisis, Human Civilization would still be adjusting to this new era.

Many people, whose older jobs were taken over by Intelligent Machinery before the crisis, lived on generous help during that time.

Now, after the Doomsday Crisis, things were finally returning to normal for Human Civilization.

Why was the recovery so fast, even trapped underground?

Mainly because,

During the crisis, Human Civilization didn’t lose any production technology.

In fact, dealing with the crisis actually helped create even more advanced technologies earlier than expected.

With only the scale of production temporarily reduced, Strong Artificial Intelligence helped it bounce back quickly.

…

September.

In the newly expanded areas of the Underground Shelter Cities,

Besides growing the Smart Industrial Clusters, the ‘Vertical Farms’ inside them were also made bigger.

Backed by huge amounts of energy and run by Intelligent Machinery, the Vertical Farms in Underground Shelter Cities started producing grains, vegetables, fruits, and even poultry meats steadily.

Compared to earlier times, the biggest advantage during this crisis was the Intelligent Machinery and the huge energy from Controlled Nuclear Fusion Reactors.

The pressure to use up pre-stored food supplies was gone now.

The massive Vertical Farms provided enough for everyone’s survival inside the Underground Shelter Cities.

All parts of Underground Human Civilization society,

From farming and making things to services, recovered quickly as the Smart Industrial Clusters expanded.

“…Got assigned a new living space today. Still not as big as my old place on the surface, but it has a bedroom and its own bath. The bedroom wall even has a ‘fake window’.”

“Even though we’re underground, sometimes I feel dazed, like nothing happened. The Doomsday Crisis feels like a bad dream, and we’re still living on the surface.”

“Friend, don’t hurry. Our civilization has moved out of emergency mode. Soon, we’ll be back on the surface.”

“I’m not in a hurry, just thinking… These Underground Shelter Cities feel so huge now, sometimes I forget we’re underground.”

“…Lately, I visit the public activity space often. Those screen ceilings showing fake skies look really real. Blue skies, white clouds. But thinking the real sky above isn’t that beautiful anymore sometimes makes me sad.”

“In the Capital Underground Refuge City. Did Zone 02 shake twice yesterday? I woke up startled last night.”

“Yeah… It did. The ground’s still active, tremors keep happening.”

Even then, many people discussed these things online within Human Civilization.

Also in this month,

The Negentropy Research Institute prepared to make Helium-3 Fusion Reactors common.

This was a more efficient energy source than the old Deuterium-Tritium Fusion Reactors.

Using Helium-3 Fusion widely would give Human Civilization even more energy.

Returning quickly to the surface would mean rebuilding a planet with a harsh environment.

That needed much bigger industrial production inside the Underground Shelter Cities to achieve.

And that required an enormous amount of energy.

So, even as Helium-3 became common, the old Deuterium-Tritium reactors weren’t shut down.

Since getting Helium-3 material was still a problem, spreading Helium-3 Fusion Reactors through the Underground Shelter Cities would happen slowly.

It was also around this time,

People noticed another problem, or rather, one issue became much clearer.

—How to move between different Underground Shelter Cities.

…

Now, after the crisis, isolated deep beneath the surface,

Each Underground Shelter City mostly sustained itself: its own energy, industry, Vertical Farms.

They had some connections again, and strong AI ran all their basic functions,

The huge distances made travel between these cities extremely difficult.

The underground shelter cities were not isolated or disconnected from each other.

Basically, they were still running normally according to the plans proposed by the Negentropy Research Institute and some earlier emergency procedures created before the Doomsday Crisis.

However, even though people across the cities felt connected through information exchange,

practical material exchange between these underground cities became a major problem during this time.

Common transportation methods—whether on the surface, underground, through rivers and oceans, or in the air—

all faced huge challenges in Earth’s harsh post-Doom environment.

Digging tunnels to link the cities underground was possible with the current production capabilities of Human Civilization.

But with constant geological activity shaking the Earth, any new tunnels would likely collapse quickly.

The situation was no better for building rail or land routes on the surface.

Besides volcanoes erupting, heavy geological movements made land travel extremely difficult.

Water and ocean systems were also unstable. Rivers and lakes were disrupted by earthquakes, and the oceans remained rough.

Finally, air transport struggled too. Airplanes powered by jet engines couldn’t handle the overload of particles in the atmosphere.

Plus, with oxygen levels much lower, engines relying on combustion fuel faced extra problems.

Helicopters or propeller planes were one option for transporting goods, but their carrying capacity was very limited.

This meant that Human Civilization urgently needed a new way to move things—

something that didn’t rely on the ground, oceans or atmosphere.

To keep the underground cities connected.

…

This was now a serious, pressing issue.

Before the Asteroid 2801 Impact Crisis,

Human Civilization could rely on its Smart Industrial Clusters to build a Helium-3 Fusion Reactor on the Moon in just months.

They turned the detailed blueprints for Humanity’s first Helium-3 Fusion Reactor into a reality.

But now, inside the shelter cities, things were different.

With goods unable to move between locations, Smart Industrial Clusters in separate Underground Refuge Cities

couldn’t coordinate through Strong Artificial Intelligence.

Each cluster could only produce what its own city needed.

And to set up a Helium-3 Fusion Reactor in every shelter city,

each city would need a complete industrial chain for production—

a whole system for building the reactor.

Even if this approach were practical,

in the short term it would surely slow down the recovery and growth of Human Civilization’s capabilities.

The solution though,

was already taking shape in the halls of the Negentropy Research Institute.

If transportation couldn’t rely on sea, land or sky,

that only left one option:

space.

Cargo transport in space.

Before Asteroid 2801, Human Civilization used chemically-powered rockets for space missions.

But shipping supplies between cities via rocket—launching into orbit only to land again at another shelter—

seemed impractical even ignoring the rocket’s limits,

mainly because the costs would be sky-high.

The issue of transportation costs

was exactly the problem the Negentropy Research Institute’s Qin Yu had looked into.

His solution then

was using “Electric Propulsion” spacecraft.

Helium-3 Fusion tech was key to solving humanity’s energy crisis,

but it was also the gateway to advancing Electric Propulsion Technology.

The same was true for the SW182 material innovation.

Before the asteroid crisis, at Qin Yu’s urging,

several research teams at the Institute of Energy Dynamics had started laying the groundwork for Electric Propulsion.

If not for Asteroid 2801 interrupting everything,

they would probably have Electric Propulsion vessels ready already.

It’s just that

no one ever expected

that after the Doomsday Crisis,

the Negentropy Research Institute would refocus on this tech so urgently—

or that Electric Propulsion Vehicles might find their first use

inside Earth’s atmosphere.

Not that this dampened hopes for the future.

Electric Propulsion Ships still held promise for space exploration too.

Breaking through the Electric Propulsion Engine tech could even speed up reestablishing transport routes

between Earth and the Lunar Base.

…

October.

The Negentropy Research Institute was finally back to full operations.

Research divisions across the institute were mainly working on projects started before the crisis,

or ones focused on restoring Earth’s ecosystems for humanity’s future return to the surface.

But the team Qin Yu was driving forward,

especially those at the Energy and Power Research Institute,

were diving deep into Electric Propulsion Engines.

After Helium-3 Fusion became a reality,

the final breakthroughs for Electric Propulsion were close at hand.

Under Qin Yu’s leadership, Researchers set their focus on one core goal:

getting the Electric Propulsion System’s thrust-to-weight ratio above one.

Meaning the engine had to generate enough force to lift more than its own weight—

the absolute minimum for flight within the atmosphere.

November.

The Institute’s Electric Propulsion Engine project wasn’t starting from zero.

Neither was Qin Yu’s personal involvement in shaping it.

For over two centuries—even during the age of chemical rockets—

scientists had kept exploring Electric Propulsion Technology.

That said, by the time the Energy and Power Research Institute formed,

Electric Engine advancements had barely moved past their earliest stages.

They were only useful for things like keeping Space Stations in orbit…

and even then, they barely provided any thrust.

Later, some teams at the Institute of Energy Dynamics began researching the tech at Qin Yu’s direction.

While Helium-3 Fusion research progressed,

other groups quietly laid the groundwork for Electric Propulsion.

So now, building on that strong foundation,

with new energy and material breakthroughs at hand,

pushing Electric Propulsion forward felt like things were finally falling into place.

Especially with Qin Yu working directly at their side.

Many Researchers at the institute sensed the project advancing at an unexpected pace.

The knottiest remaining challenges—the stubborn problems that had halted progress for years—

were tackled like unstoppable currents surging past obstacles

with Professor Qin Yu guiding them.

December.

Research groups across the Negentropy Research Institute’s Energy and Power division,

with Qin Yu leading them,

embarked on the full design of a brand-new Electric Propulsion Engine.

True to form, Qin Yu oversaw the main vision and direction,

while teams of Researchers handled the detailed subsystems.

As for whether this challenge could really be overcome,

those Researchers had more confidence than Qin Yu himself.

Everyone at the institute had blind faith in Academician Qin Yu—

and history showed why.

When it came to scientific breakthroughs,

Academician Qin Yu had never failed.