Chapter 149: 18 Billion, Spanning Five Astronomical Units

Human United Era Year 64.

While Human Civilization maintained communication and contact with Stuo Civilization,

Human Civilization, having previously completed development and construction within the orbital domains of Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt,

now expanded its efforts to Jupiter’s Orbit and Mercury’s Orbit.

This development phase also finally concluded within this year.

For Jupiter’s Orbit, development primarily focused on Jupiter’s main moons.

On the surfaces of Jupiter’s Moon Io, Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede (and others), Human Civilization built several stellar cities and established zones for smart extraction of raw materials and resources.

The goal of developing Jupiter’s Orbit was mainly to support the needs of residents living within these stellar cities on Jupiter’s moons,

while simultaneously preparing to develop and build territories further out, beyond Jupiter’s Orbit within the Solar System.

The development of Mercury mirrored the strategy used for Venus.

No stellar cities were built on Mercury’s surface; instead, massive swarms of smart machinery were deployed, covering nearly the entire planet to extract Mercury’s resources.

Meanwhile, on Mercury’s synchronous orbit, a Mercury-orbiting smart industrial zone was constructed to process resources mined from Mercury’s surface and produce the intelligent machinery required for extraction.

Products from this Mercury-orbiting smart industrial zone were mainly shipped to humanity’s major hubs—Earth, Mars, and the Moon.

Thus,

the domain of Human Civilization, which began with its homeworld Earth,

now spanned

from Mercury, the innermost planet near the Sun,

successively covering Venus’ orbit, Earth’s orbit, Mars’ orbit, the Asteroid Belt, and finally Jupiter’s orbit.

This vast cosmic space stretched across nearly five Astronomical Units (AU), carrying a diameter exceeding five hundred million kilometers. It bore the distinct mark of Human Civilization,

overflowing with traces of activities originating from humanity.

Meanwhile,

because even during the arrival of Stuo Civilization,

Human Civilization did not significantly slow its population growth,

by this year, the total population of Human Civilization had reached 18 billion.

The majority still lived on humanity’s homeworld Earth, with others distributed on the Moon, Mars, and other extraterrestrial locations developed earlier.

A small portion resided near Jupiter’s Orbit, the outermost edge of Human Civilization’s domain, furthest from Earth.

The arrival of Stuo Civilization,

marking humanity’s first encounter with another extraterrestrial civilization,

also clearly generated significant impacts in another aspect within Human Civilization.

As the population reached 18 billion,

the Negentropy Research Institute (NRI), the core of Human Civilization’s scientific research,

also saw its cumulative research teams’ numbers break past three million, reaching 3.3 million researchers across its institutes.

From this perspective,

after encountering an extraterrestrial civilization for real, coupled with the previous measures employed by the Human Coalition and the NRI,

Human Civilization had emerged from its prior inertial state.

Put simply, greater momentum was now driving the civilization’s overall development and advancement.

For the entire Human Civilization, this was naturally a positive development.

…

Human United Era Year 65.

Not overly concerned that Stuo Civilization remained at the Kuiper Belt’s edge,

after developing Jupiter’s and Mercury’s Orbits,

Human Civilization chose to continue its expansion outwards towards Saturn’s Orbit, and further to Uranus’ and Neptune’s Orbits.

Regarding territorial expansion, it remained a complex conflict for Human Civilization.

After Stuo Civilization’s visit to the Solar System, proving extraterrestrial civilizations indeed existed,

people grew more cautious about expansion in the cosmos. They sought to minimize signs of Human Civilization’s cosmic spread that might attract other extraterrestrial civilizations.

After all, even though contact with Stuo Civilization this time went smoothly, even yielding significant benefits for humanity,

there was no guarantee the next civilization encountered would also be open to genuine communication.

In the vast universe, exposing your civilization could draw friends or foes – it was uncertain.

From this perspective, Human Civilization needed to be far more cautious about expanding its territory.

Yet on another front,

Stuo Civilization itself hadn’t arrived because of Human Civilization’s expansion.

The evident superiority of Stuo Civilization also served as a stimulus for humanity.

If Human Civilization didn’t urgently develop and become stronger,

then the next civilization encountered, whatever the reason, would likely be even more powerful than humanity.

That feeling of being utterly powerless “meat on the chopping board” experienced during initial contact with Stuo had been deeply unsettling.

If Human Civilization proved weaker than every other civilization it met,

it meant humanity’s fate rested solely in others’ hands.

This was unacceptable.

However, for a civilization to grow stronger, territorial expansion, and indeed, contact with other civilizations, were unavoidable necessities.

A civilization needed more resources to become mightier.

Humanity’s population was large now, but advancing to a stronger phase required more brilliant minds contributing.

Such an abundance of talented researchers needed a much larger base population.

Sustaining an unimaginably vast population, however, demanded equally unimaginable resources.

It was unknown whether civilizations existed in the cosmos that grew immensely powerful while remaining confined to their home star.

Yet for Human Civilization in its current state, this seemed unlikely.

Essentially,

Human Civilization faced a duality: needing to avoid overly conspicuous expansion to prevent drawing attention from more extraterrestrial civilizations,

while simultaneously requiring expansion to increase its strength and confront potential threats arising from outside humanity.

Thankfully,

expanding within the Solar System, completing its development, had always been part of Humanity’s established plan.

Since the domain already reached Jupiter’s Orbit, expanding further to Neptune’s Orbit wouldn’t make much difference in scale.

Furthermore, Human Civilization genuinely required, at minimum, the resources of the entire Solar System; resources within Jupiter’s Orbit alone were insufficient for its next evolutionary stage.

Therefore,

this phase of Human Civilization’s expansion within the Solar System could proceed without excessive internal conflict.

Primarily mobilizing resources and productivity from

Jupiter’s Orbit,

the Asteroid Belt, and Mars,

with the Earth-Moon System’s productivity serving as support,

the further expansion of Human Civilization’s domain towards the Solar System’s edge began.

Due to distance constraints,

development within the orbital realms of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune

would prioritize starting with Saturn’s Orbit.

On Saturn’s moons,

as intelligent machinery arrived from Human Civilization’s developed territories,

the overall landscape of Saturn’s Orbit began to undergo change.

The number of starships traveling between Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt gradually increased, making the spaceways ever busier.

In the same year,

both civilizations had digested the Artificial Intelligence and Computing Power Technology exchanged during prior dealings.

Naturally, a new round of technological exchange between the two civilizations commenced.