Chapter 96: The Geological Model

Time came to the year 284.

Along with the further development of productivity within the Underground Shelter Cities,

the plan, determined earlier, to restore Human Civilization’s population growth and substantially expand the population base within a relatively short time period,

began implementation this year.

After nearly four years, the first babies reproduced using the Human Reproduction Device were born at the start of this year in the various Underground Shelter Cities.

The Social Upbringing Bureau remained responsible for raising these children.

And with new lives beginning to arrive in this world within Human Civilization,

this year, the entire Human Civilization seemed much more vibrant.

Previously, to cope with the coming Doomsday Crisis, people had halted the use of Human Reproduction Devices to produce new babies.

This was definitely the right choice, as back then the existing Underground Shelter Cities were already packed full.

However, new life often meant new hope.

With new lives being born in Human Civilization, many people naturally felt that

the Doomsday Crisis from before seemed a little further away.

Even though, at this time,

most people couldn’t actually come into contact with these newborn babies,

simply seeing this news online made them genuinely happy.

“Grow up quickly, children. You are the first newborns after Humanity’s doomsday disaster. The future of Human Civilization will eventually pass into your hands.”

“…On the other hand, I feel our plan to return to the surface needs speeding up. We can accept these children growing up within the Underground Shelter Cities, but by the time they become adults, shouldn’t we have returned to the surface?”

“Soon, soon. We’ll start preparing for the return once the surface stabilizes a bit more.”

…

This year, at the Negentropy Research Institute’s Information Denoising Research Institute,

in the Crisis Alert Program, the short-term probability of Human Civilization’s extinction, previously raised to 22%, dropped back down to 2%.

This figure essentially meant that, among the known crisis information Human Civilization possessed,

few significant threats remained that could endanger Human Civilization’s continued existence.

The ongoing disasters on the surface could hardly pose a major threat to the survival of civilization in this era.

…

Now,

utilizing Intangibility again, Qin Yu left the Underground Shelter City and arrived at the surface.

Even after nearly a year,

much of the surface scene remained unchanged.

The gray sky completely hid the sun.

Rain, corrosive and ongoing for almost a year, fell heavily.

It might have briefly stopped occasionally, but never long enough for the surface to dry out.

On the ground, cooled volcanic lava covered the land, still bearing no sign of life.

Hardly any plants could grow naturally on this scorched earth.

The air didn’t smell great either; a strong smell of sulfur mixed with other odors.

Substances floating in the air, combined with the relentless rain, obscured the view both near and far.

This made the whole world appear darker and more oppressive.

Treading over the rainwater on the ground,

Qin Yu took a short walk across the land, thinking over some matters.

Over the past year,

because the entire surface ecosystem had completely broken down, the oxygen levels in the atmosphere continued to decrease.

By now, it was down to only 7%.

Geological activity on the surface remained intense to this day.

In just the short time Qin Yu spent on the surface, he felt the ground tremble distinctly more than once nearby.

Looking toward the distance, Qin Yu paused his gaze for a moment.

Then he turned intangible again and returned to the Underground Refuge City.

…

Inside the Underground Refuge City, in Public Activity Area Zone 1 of the residential section.

Built primarily to prevent those living long-term underground from developing serious psychological issues,

it had even briefly housed many extra residents during the Doomsday Crisis.

After the crisis passed, with the development of productivity underground, this activity area had been expanded considerably.

Being inside it,

it was basically like a sizable park,

with a sloping lawn, an artificial lake, and an area of shaded trees.

The whole space felt open and spacious. Deliberate design ensured those within it couldn’t easily see the inner walls opposite them.

Above the dome arched, a highly realistic simulation of the sky.

It could be said that

staying here felt more like being above ground than actually being on the surface itself.

At this moment,

this park inside the Underground Refuge City was quite populated but still relatively quiet.

Qin Yu, having returned from the surface and changed his appearance, walked unrecognized among the people,

strolling here as well.

This, fundamentally, captured the current situation both on the surface and within the Underground Shelter Cities.

…

Time moved forward to August of that year.

The Negentropy Research Institute’s Institute of Energy Dynamics, with Qin Yu’s participation,

completed construction of the first Electric Propulsion Engine based on the Helium-3 Fusion Reactor.

Due to difficulties exchanging materials between the various Underground Shelter Cities, collaboration between their Intelligent Industrial Clusters proved challenging.

This made the speed of building this first engine somewhat slow for the standards of the era.

However, it didn’t really matter, as essentially, the Electric Propulsion Engine was developed precisely to solve this problem.

For the development of the entire propulsion system,

led by Qin Yu, the Energy and Power Research Institute team, with support from researchers of other institutes,

first implemented further improvements specifically on the Helium-3 Fusion Reactor, the power source component of the engine.

Before the Doomsday Crisis, the successful operation of the lunar Helium-3 Fusion Reactor actually provided significant data for its further optimization.

However, back then, the Negentropy Research Institute’s focus wasn’t on this.

Everything prioritized preparing for the Doomsday Crisis.

Now, with the crisis passed, Qin Yu led research teams to make overall Helium-3 fusion reactors much smaller.

They did this using data from previous lunar Helium-3 reactor experiments.

This also formed the foundation for building the first electric propulsion engine.

In the same month,

after the first electric propulsion engine was made,

the Energy and Power Research Institute of the Negentropy Research Institute conducted test runs on this engine.

……

Without considering the entire electric propulsion spaceship running on this engine,

just the electric propulsion engine alone was an extremely complex system.

For this first attempt, temporarily named the DT01 electric propulsion engine,

even with Qin Yu involved, the whole system didn‘t achieve instant, spectacular success in such a short time.

Its thrust-to-weight ratio was still far below one.

Yet, during the DT01 engine’s first test run,

Human Civilization made a historic breakthrough in electric propulsion technology.

The DT01 propulsion system generated direct thrust that reached the ton-level.

Though it was still far from lifting the engine itself, let alone a spaceship, off the ground,

this was already an amazing achievement.

In space conditions, this data had significant practical value.

If installed on large Earth-Moon transportation ships that avoid the atmosphere,

the DT01 could already meet the propulsion needs for spacecraft in space.

But right now, after the Doomsday Crisis, Human Civilization’s most urgent need wasn’t this.

The biggest problem for using the DT01 system inside the atmosphere was its own excessive weight.

Solving this problem likely required progress on multiple fronts at once.

This year, under Qin Yu‘s leadership, the Negentropy Research Institute kept working on this.

……

In Year 284,

Human Civilization completed the planned population increase of one hundred million people as scheduled.

The total population reached 2.1 billion.

It was predictable that under this rapid growth plan,

the average social age of Human Civilization would stay relatively young for some time to come.

Similarly,

as the Negentropy Research Institute’s position within Human Civilization became increasingly special,

its total of Research Institute Researchers continued to near one million this year.

Researchers in the Institute weren’t limited to just those in Research Institute 011, the Energy and Power Research Institute, the Materials Research Institute, the Information Denoising Institute, and the Geological Research Institute.

Teams in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics existed too, though dedicated research institutes hadn’t been formally established for these yet.

Human society as a whole was actually transforming into a ‘super research institute’, just as originally expected.

The best researchers entered the Negentropy Research Institute to work in key fields.

Those with average or less outstanding talents also conducted research in specific subfields outside the Institute, choosing their own branches.

……

In Year 285,

Beyond the research projects Qin Yu was mainly involved with at the Energy and Power Research Institute,

other institutes within the Negentropy Research Institute were also very busy these years.

Among them was the Geological Research Institute.

A major ongoing project—introducing Strong Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Programs into geological activity research—expanded further after the Doomsday Crisis.

The main reason Human Civilization hadn’t immediately returned to the surface to rebuild was directly linked to the Geological Research Institute’s area of responsibility.

The secondary disasters on Earth’s surface after the impact of Asteroid 2801 fell precisely under their scope.

Preventing geological disasters had been the Geological Research Institute’s core mission since Qin Yu established it within the Negentropy Research Institute.

During this time, using production resources from various Underground Refuge Cities,

the Geological Research Institute installed vast numbers of monitoring devices.

They placed them across highly active volcanic areas, seismically active zones, both on the surface and deep underground around the world.

This aimed to monitor the abnormally intense geological activity.

Ironically, the intense post-impact geological activity provided the Institute with massive data.

Using this data and integrating Strong Artificial Intelligence,

they worked to build an Earth geological activity model.

The goal was to predict near-future geological activity in different regions, based on current conditions.

This ‘near-future’ didn’t need to be long; even predicting an hour or ten minutes early held immense value.

It also monitored the overall development of Earth’s geology post-Asteroid 2801 Impact Crisis.

This provided references for Humanity’s eventual return to the surface,

and sought feasible solutions to address the anomalous geological activity.

This year,

based on the massive global monitoring data gathered by the Geological Research Institute,

one thing became clear:

The worldwide abnormal geological activity triggered by the Asteroid 2801 Impact Crisis was showing signs of gradually slowing down.

Returning completely to the peaceful pre-impact state was impossible and would take an extremely long time.

However, after the initial intense peak period,

the current trend offered hope that things could stabilize soon, relatively speaking.

For Human Civilization, still confined to Underground Refuge Cities,

this was undoubtedly good news.

When the report was shared online, people cheered.

“…Back when I lived on the surface, I took it for granted. Now that I’ve lost that chance, I really, really want to go back up there!”

“It just seemed so ordinary at the time… I feel the same. Even though the Underground Refuge Cities are improving and living conditions feel less cramped, I still want to go back to the surface.”

“And I’m a bit worried too… the next generation, growing up entirely underground in these cities. Will they have the same strong desire to return to the surface that we feel?”

……

Years 286 and 287.

Over four years after the Asteroid 2801 Impact Crisis,

the trend in geological activity monitored by the Negentropy Research Institute’s Geological Research Institute became clearer.

After introducing Strong Artificial Intelligence for initial geological activity prediction,

they built a somewhat rough model using the vast amounts of collected data.

Combined with occasional input from Qin Yu,

the Institute made a decisive prediction:

They expected that within ten years of the Asteroid 2801 Impact Crisis –

meaning in just over five more years –

the peak period of intense, concentrated Earth geological activity would end.

The planet would then enter a much quieter, ‘sustained progression’ phase expected to last extremely long.

During this period, the frequency and intensity of severe geological events would decrease.

Though inevitably, some disruptions would still occur occasionally.

But at least, it wouldn’t be nearly as extreme as before.

Human Civilization couldn’t wait for all abnormal geological activity to completely cease before returning to the surface.

Qin Yu might have patience, but most people wouldn’t wait that long.

After just over four years,

many survivors of the Asteroid 2801 Impact Crisis

were already itching to truly overcome this Doomsday Crisis.

This wasn’t just their hope; it was the responsibility and mission they bore for all of Human Civilization.

Given this,

people also needed to start planning specific ways to tackle various problems on the surface.

Among the many consequences caused by the impact,

already changed landforms and flooded coastal areas due to rising seas could be set aside for now.

But before the surface could be habitable,

the ecosystem needed restoration first, and the atmospheric environment required healing.

Currently, with the atmosphere as it was,

only Qin Yu, the Absolute Immortal, could survive exposed.

Simply put, it couldn’t support anyone else outdoors.

Secondly, the ongoing climate issues needed resolution; the acid rain lasting over four years had to end.

Finally, the problem of global volcanic eruptions also needed solutions.

As the scientific core of all Human Civilization,

the Negentropy Research Institute would also be kept very busy with these issues going forward.

……

Year 288.

Several years later,

thanks to progress in materials science and overall system design,

some original problems in electric propulsion technology were overcome.

Led and actively involved by Qin Yu,

the Energy and Power Research Institute of the Negentropy Research Institute

achieved another historic breakthrough in electric propulsion engine technology.

A new propulsion system, temporarily named DT02,

was built this year coordinated by a Strong Artificial Intelligence managing an Intelligent Industrial Cluster.