Chapter 117: Virtual Reality Device

The Social Philosophy Department of the Negentropy Research Institute participated in pricing the Virtual Reality Device.

When making the Virtual Reality Device available to the public, it was priced far higher than its production cost.

Also, the age for using the Virtual Reality Device was restricted.

Any person under the Social Upbringing Bureau and education system who was not yet an adult could not use the Virtual Reality Device outside of educational settings.

Even so, this did not stop the Virtual Reality Device from spreading widely among the public, starting from this year.

This happened because this latest type of Virtual Reality Device matched people’s expectations for it so well.

……

During this year, Qin Yu also tried out a set of Virtual Reality Devices.

The whole Virtual Reality Device was made up of a Virtual Reality helmet and a set of motion-sensing garments.

The full set of Virtual Reality Devices could simulate visual, auditory, and tactile sensations, even olfactory senses, in the Virtual World.

Among these, the visual effects were the best because they directly seized the brain’s visual signals.

The full set of Virtual Reality Devices certainly could not fully simulate or trick all the senses of the human body.

The level of realism provided by the Virtual Reality Device for the Virtual World might only be seventy to eighty percent, so users could still clearly feel the difference between the Virtual World scenes and reality.

But when users relaxed their minds and focused on immersing themselves, the feeling of immersion from this set of devices was still amazing.

The images projected to the brain by affecting the visual nerves might not be very detailed.

But the sense of immersion, compared to old screen displays, was still worlds apart.

The precise consciousness control system also allowed people, after getting used to it for a while, to directly control their Virtual World bodies with their thoughts.

A Virtual Reality Device at this level could be said to be the virtual reality technology people had long dreamed of having.

……

Lingchuan University.

A researcher working in the field of physics,

By now, it was late at night.

Wearing a Virtual Reality Device, he was lying flat on his bed playing in a Virtual World.

A pre-set alarm rang in his ears.

Staring at the Virtual World displayed by the Virtual Reality Device, he hesitated but then logged out of the game and took off his Virtual Reality helmet.

Seeing his clean, tidy bedroom, he stood up, went to the window, and glanced out at Lingchuan City, still bustling at night.

He let out a tired sigh.

“Sir, I have prepared your night snack in advance as you requested. Would you like to eat it now?”

“Not yet. First, give me a shoulder rub. Playing a game made me a bit tired.”

The researcher said this to his home service robot.

The home service robot followed his command and rubbed his shoulders.

He reached out and flipped through some news of the day shown on his personal terminal screen.

“HXNA News: As more resources are transported back each month from areas like Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt, the Smart Industrial Zones in surface cities like Lingchuan City will see a new wave of continuous expansion.”

“A research team from the Negentropy Research Institute reported: Using a Strong Artificial Intelligence for analysis, compared to last year, the industrial scale and productivity of Human Civilization continue to double, total computing power is still growing rapidly, and per capita disposable productivity within Human Civilization is doubling again.”

“…According to related information, the HCC development and construction of regions like Mars and Venus are expected to be initially completed within twenty years, allowing for large-scale construction of extraterrestrial cities in those areas.”

“…This year, under the HCC plan for the Lunar Surface, the new birth population is set to reach eight million. Within twenty years, as HCC develops regions like Venus and Mars, the Moon’s permanent population is expected to exceed one hundred million.”

The researcher looked at these news stories and sighed deeply again.

He then glanced briefly at his Virtual Reality Device placed beside the bed.

The Virtual World presented by the Virtual Reality Device was truly nice, and those fantastic Virtual Reality game worlds were quite fun.

But it wasn’t so addictive that he lost himself in it.

Because even the real world of Human Civilization at that moment was very beautiful.

He enjoyed the plentiful productivity and many benefits of the Intelligent Era.

Human Civilization was also advancing powerfully toward the universe, completing the great mission of conquering the cosmos and the Solar System!

He just felt a bit of a headache thinking about how he had to continue tomorrow with his research topic, which had gone on for a long time without finishing.

He sometimes doubted it.

Even though he chose to spend his life doing research in physics, could he really produce results?

He sometimes thought about giving up research altogether, since spending a life on it might not yield any outcome.

Not doing this research work wouldn’t have much impact either.

At that thought, the researcher scratched his head.

……

From year 21 to year 25 of the Human United Era (HUE).

The HCC development and construction of Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt region by the Negentropy Research Institute was still moving forward quickly.

Over these five years, Electric Propulsion Spaceships traveling between the Earth-Moon System and Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt became more and more frequent.

Flight routes from Earth-Venus, Earth-Mars, and the Earth-Moon System to the Asteroid Belt were already extremely busy.

Even though trips between Earth and places like Mars took about a month for a round trip.

But with large Electric Propulsion Spaceships arriving at Stellar Ports all the time fully loaded, the length of travel time didn’t have much effect on Human Civilization’s development plans for larger spaces in the universe.

Over these five years,

Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt basically served as resource stars, or resource mining areas under HCC.

A large amount of resources, raw minerals, and materials mined from Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt,

After being transported back to Earth and the Lunar Surface,

One part was used for daily needs in the Earth-Moon System society, and as consumption for research in various fields of Human Civilization.

One part was used for making the Smart Industrial Zone sizes in surface cities and Lunar Surface cities grow even more dramatically.

The rest were used by surface and Lunar Surface smart industrial manufacturing to build all kinds of equipment and Intelligent Machinery needed for the development and construction of Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt.

This portion was then further divided into two parts.

One part was directly used to expand the scale of resource mining on Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt.

Five years passed,

On the surface of Mars, which was most convenient for Human Civilization to develop,

Large-scale Intelligent Machinery activities and signs of Human Civilization’s large-scale resource mining on Mars were now visible everywhere.

Even from the sky around Mars’ synchronous orbit, you could clearly see the fast changes happening on the Martian surface under Human Civilization’s amazing industrial productivity during these years.

As for Venus, its harsh environment slowed down Human Civilization’s resource mining efforts there.

But Human Civilization continuously produced huge amounts of large and small Intelligent Machinery for resource mining in the Earth-Moon Smart Industrial Areas.

This still formed a massive scale on the surface of Venus, creating large resource mining areas all over the planet, covering the whole surface.

The other part,

Naturally went toward building Intelligent Industrial Clusters in the Venus, Mars, and Asteroid Belt areas.

The surface of Mars was considered the most suitable place beyond Earth’s system for Human Civilization to develop and build within the Solar System.

The Negentropy Research Institute held significant expectations for Mars while planning further development of other Solar System planets and bodies.

This effort aimed to provide more resources and space to accommodate a larger population base for Human Civilization, as proposed by Academician Qin Yu.

After Mars was fully developed and built, its cities would likely host the Solar System’s largest permanent population outside of Earth’s surface.

Currently, near suitable locations around target resource development zones on Mars,

Human Civilization had established numerous Smart Industrial Zones made of Intelligent Machinery all across the Martian surface.

By now, these Smart Industrial Zones on Mars could handle the initial and secondary processing of most resources mined locally.

Simultaneously, they utilized direct resources from the Martian surface, supplemented by resources shipped from the Moon and Earth,

to directly manufacture the Intelligent Machinery needed for Martian resource extraction.

Though not yet capable of the fully independent expansion of industrial scale on Mars,

they could already achieve the reproduction of some Intelligent Machinery within the Martian surface Smart Industrial Clusters.

This reduced the proportion of production capacity Earth-Moon Smart Industrial Zones had to invest in such tasks,

consequently speeding up the development and construction on the Martian surface.

These gradually completed Smart Industrial Zones

would later become integral parts of Martian cities themselves, just like Lunar Surface Cities.

The Martian cities where people would live were also built directly near these Smart Industrial Zones.

Similarly,

though no Smart Industrial Zone was directly built on the surface of Venus yet,

Human Civilization had created a ‘Venus Synchronous Orbit Smart Industrial Belt’

at the position of Venus’s synchronous orbit.

At full scale, this Smart Industrial Belt orbiting Venus

would encircle Venus like a thin ribbon.

While not yet complete,

it already possessed substantial industrial power, capable of manufacturing some Intelligent Machinery needed for Venus resource extraction.

In the area of the Asteroid Belt,

due to its vast expanse,

Human Civilization focused development only on resource-rich clusters.

While mining there, it built Smart Industrial Zones resembling massive Space Stations and platforms

at several key nodes.

However, differing from Venus and Mars,

the primary goal for these Asteroid Belt Smart Industrial Zones was just partial processing of extracted resources.

They weren’t designed for independent production and expansion.

Plans indicated that most resources mined from the Asteroid Belt would be transported to Mars or elsewhere for further processing and use.

Five years passed.

Human Civilization’s development of the Asteroid Belt, Venus, and Mars officially entered a fast track.

Even though Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt were farther from Earth and involved significantly larger areas than when Lunear Surface development began,

the pace of progress didn’t slow.

From this perspective, in the Intelligent Era,

Human Civilization expanding outward resembled locusts:

with sufficient resources, its population and industries seemed poised for near-infinite expansion,

thereby enabling the acquisition of even more resources.

…

In the 26th year of the Human United Era (HUE).

By this year,

within Human Civilization, the resources consumed for daily operations, research, and projects

saw only a small percentage now directly originating from Earth or the Lunar Surface.

Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt now provided over half of all consumed resources.

It can be said, to a great extent,

the HCC’s development plans for other Solar System planets

had brought substantial feedback and benefits to Human Civilization as a whole.

By this year,

Human Civilization as a whole still flourished.

The visual neural interference technology previously used in Virtual Reality Devices

ultimately wasn’t mainly applied to the blind.

After the secrets of visual nerves were cracked by Research Institute 011,

a different, more suitable technology emerged for restoring sight to the blind: the autologous gene-specific eyeball transplant surgery.

Growing eyeballs using Human Reproduction Device-like technology was already mature.

With the mysteries of visual nerves solved, it became directly usable.

Furthermore,

Research Institute 011 had long been working on the ‘Human Enhancement Research Project’.

By this year, its project to enhance human regenerative capabilities

was also fully realized.

Effects akin to “regrowing lost limbs” were presented through their efforts.

While the regrown limbs couldn’t match the original ones in flexibility,

and this technology could only be used on future generations, not those already born,

there might come a day within Human Civilization

when a remarkable medical scene became common: after limbs necrotized for some reason, a Medical Robot would simply cut off the dead parts, and new ones would grow back.

Of course, this technology still couldn’t create ‘superhumans’; too much blood loss remained fatal.

Healing might be faster, but a smashed head or body would still mean death.

The refined consciousness control technology developed by the Information Denoising Institute of the Negentropy Research Institute, originally intended for communication, was now applied as planned.

On the personal terminals everyone used,

direct control and input using consciousness were achieved—though it required wearing a matching device on the head.

For those who enjoyed interacting with friends or strangers online, this efficiency boosted it significantly.

The Information Denoising Institute

also tried connecting this technology to Intelligent Machinery control,

allowing people to issue commands to household service robots or city-wide smart infrastructure without speaking.

For now,

this technology seemed somewhat useful, but its immediate larger value remained unclear.

Nonetheless, it became part of the era and the historical process.

This year,

from Earth to the Lunar Surface,

the total Human Civilization population soared past seven billion.

People generally felt little impact.

Most of the new population was young and not immediately integrated into society.

Moreover, rapid growth itself didn’t significantly affect life in this era.

Perhaps more people would just join one’s specific research field –

which would be great if it meant solving the field’s problems faster.

Any beneficial impact to Human Civilization would eventually reflect back and benefit everyone.

In the same year,

the total number of Researchers at the Negentropy Research Institute grew, surpassing 2.2 million.

Then,

the next year,

news arrived: the first Martian cities had completed their initial construction.

People willing to move could apply to reside there.