Chapter 108: The Strong Human Civilization

Of course,

the Negentropy Research Institute decided to keep building on the Lunar Surface. Besides big-picture thinking like what Academician Qin Yu presented,

there were also some specific reasons.

Academician Qin Yu and Negentropy Research Institute researchers all planned for the worst in this matter.

Meaning, the collision of Asteroid 2801 with Earth was actually messed with by an unknown force.

With that in mind,

looking at how fast the asteroid came and where it probably came from,

the time when Asteroid 2801 was set on its path as a weapon

didn’t match up with when people started building big projects on the Lunar Surface.

Used as a weapon, it was affected even before then.

So that meant no matter what people did on the Lunar Surface, that rock would still hit.

So obviously, human civilization just had to push ahead with the Lunar Surface plan.

The second specific reason was,

if there really was some unknown force using Asteroid 2801 to attack human civilization,

thinking about how they used an asteroid smash,

this unknown force was probably stronger… but not overwhelming.

After all, a rock from space? People understood that threat.

Faced with this situation,

instead of just sitting around waiting,

human civilization’s best choice was to quickly get stronger, not knowing if another asteroid would hit later.

With Academician Qin Yu leading, Negentropy Research Institute researchers felt pretty confident about this.

…

So, under this decision,

people kicked off the huge project to build and develop the Lunar Surface.

Like building Surface Cities, setting up Lunar Surface Cities and developing the moon is a snowballing process.

As planned,

human civilization first increased Helium-3 mining and took out more moon minerals in key Lunar Surface areas.

Smart factory gear made on Earth by Intelligent Industrial Clusters was shipped to the Lunar Surface by Electric Propulsion Spaceships.

This gear was just for immediately processing Lunar Surface minerals and ore,

so people set up some Smart Industrial Clusters for moon resource processing right then.

With way more Helium-3 coming in,

people on Earth could build more Helium-3 Fusion Reactors to power stuff.

The energy from these Helium-3 Fusion Reactors powered up the Smart Industrial Zones inside Surface Cities,

letting those zones make even more stuff.

Building more factories churned out more Smart Machinery needed for Lunar Surface building.

Plus, more Electric Propulsion Spaceships could be built much quicker.

Enough Helium-3 meant those ships could run more Earth-Moon trips.

And more shipping power? That sped up the whole Lunar Surface building mission.

By now,

things were rocking – Earth’s Intelligent Industrial Clusters fed the Lunar Surface mining, and the moon sent back Helium-3 to Earth. It was all working smoothly together.

That year, the official start of big Lunar Surface building and digging meant big changes.

Not just on the Lunar Surface either,

but massive growth for all Earth’s Surface Cities too – human civilization pumped out way more than before.

And during all this,

the Negentropy Research Institute pumped out some solid breakthroughs, even in areas where Academician Qin Yu wasn’t involved as much.

…

First up, wins from the Energy and Power Research Institute.

Looking at the existing DT03 Electric Propulsion System,

bunch of super-smart top Human Civilization researchers squeezed more power out of it.

It wasn’t a huge leap like moving from DT02 to DT03,

but it definitely let newer Electric Propulsion Spaceships lift more stuff when taking off/landing inside Earth’s air,

which made shipping stuff Earth-Moon way cheaper.

This upgrade from the genius team? They called it the DT03-1 Electric Propulsion System for now –

the first version bump from the original DT03.

Also, ready around this time was wireless power transfer tech.

A team from the Materials Research Institute and the Energy and Power Research Institute started it,

then the Physics Department joined in too.

Now they handed over a finished, reliable wireless power system ready for massive rollout.

By now, cities on Earth already use it widely.

It might not crank out more stuff overall, but it definitely changed everyday life.

In the cities, every gadget, machine, screen – all their power? Now free of battery limits.

Smart cars now ran way longer on city roads.

Same went for smart air taxis, delivery drones, and helper robots scooting around towns.

This wireless juice flowed into people’s personal gadgets, streetlights, everything really.

Look ahead, easy guess –

except moving power really far, normal daily power needs in all cities will get met wirelessly.

Beyond that,

one or two years prior brought another huge tech jump,

from the Information Denoising Institute. Its work now went way past just writing code like it started.

This break stood firm on hardware land.

In the field of human-shaped robots, the Info Denoising Institute sharpened the hardware itself.

Their upgrade let newer human-shaped, Bipedal Robots get way more joints, letting them do trickier moves.

Basically, it laid stronger groundwork for the whole Intelligent Era.

And that meant ripples elsewhere.

All across Smart Machinery tech fields – from the Info Denoising Institute over to the Materials Research Institute –

people kept racking up hardware wins.

That gave the Strong Artificial Intelligence inside the Brain Intelligence Project more room to move as it managed production chains everywhere.

Meanwhile, people also noticed

how in fundamental theoretical fields like physics and mathematics,

eye-catching new theories and ideas frequently appeared in relevant academic journals within the HCC.

Qin Yu occasionally browsed these conscious papers published in such journals.

In the years since returning from underground to the surface,

it became evident

that not only was HCC’s intelligent industrial production rapidly expanding,

but scientific research realms were also advancing at lightning speed.

Even sectors Qin Yu hadn’t directly involved himself in brimmed with activity.

On the surface,

it seemed Human Civilization as a whole had proven the saying “after surviving a great disaster comes great fortune.”

But fundamentally,

this momentum resulted from dual influences: the progress in education and the gradual establishment of social structures after productivity liberation in the Intelligent Era.

The thorough, top-down adoption of AI Teaching Robots

ensured every child born under the Social Upbringing Bureau received ample educational resources.

In this era, any individual with genuine talent simply could not be overlooked amidst such saturated educational support.

Over these years, the educational capabilities of AI Teaching Robots continued to be refined.

Beyond the Strong Artificial Intelligence from the Brain Intelligence Project constantly gathering data on the educational system’s operations,

similar to the “Food Research Institute,” the education sector also had its dedicated “Education Research Institute” conducting ongoing studies in the field.

By now, AI Teaching Robots could provide personalized, one-on-one teaching tailored to each child’s abilities.

With ample resources and productivity,

anyone willing to learn could pursue education indefinitely.

Education still followed stages like elementary school, middle school, and college.

However, for example, one could complete middle school in one year or stretch it over six years or more.

Passing assessments—available anytime upon request—enabled progression to the next level.

In this era, theoretically, one could remain in school, studying forever.

Even within the Negentropy Research Institute,

many researchers existed—some beginning with sociology, then switching to mathematics, and finally diving into biological studies.

Back in “Professor Qin Yu’s” time, people would have been astonished that someone who first studied philosophy ultimately shifted to biological research.

Nowadays, people only found that very astonishment puzzling.

Starting with philosophy, then discovering an interest in biology, and finally pursuing that field—wasn’t that perfectly normal?

Couldn’t you simply swap the module of the one-on-one AI Teaching Robot in school?

Furthermore,

the full liberation of productivity had reshaped society.

Freed from obligatory production work, people naturally needed new pursuits.

Those pursuits emerged as research.

After years evolving through the Intelligent Era, those born after its arrival had grown up.

Human Civilization had now established new social divisions of labor.

Not everyone possessed the talent for profound research; not every researcher boasted the exceptional gifts of those at the Negentropy Research Institute.

Yet, when the total number of researchers across all fields and sub-disciplines within all of Human Civilization reached the billions,

even with natural talents distributed in a pyramid model, this immense base layer inevitably produced far more top-tier genius researchers than ever before.

Even researchers near the bottom of that talent pyramid, incapable of solving era-defining problems,

would ultimately contribute something.

And now,

the vibrant dynamism across all academic domains was the product of these contributions.

Additionally,

at this moment—barely surfaced after escaping the Doomsday Crisis from the Underground Shelter Cities—

peoples’ drive to advance and strengthen Human Civilization burned with fierce positivity and ambition.

The continuation of Collective Social Rearing also ensured society maintained robust vitality throughout this journey of expansion.

…

Time

marched forward as all of Human Civilization flourished with this vigorous momentum.

Third year, Human United Era

Two to three years sufficed for Intelligent-Era societies to complete 225 massive Surface Cities.

By this year, already twelve months had passed since humanity officially resumed development and construction on the Lunar Surface.

Changes there, naturally, were striking.

First,

even with HCC prioritizing Lunar Surface resource extraction over city-building,

even the incidental upgrades had massively transformed the former Lunar Bases.

Where a small town-sized Lunar Base once stood,

a facility now worthy of being called a Lunar Surface City had emerged.

The scale of these Lunar Surface Cities ballooned rapidly, almost like successive leaps forward.

Moreover, cities like this weren’t singular; instead, ten were distributed across the Moon’s near and far sides.

Three completed their initial construction phases this year; the other seven had reached considerable size.

The completed three were named in sequence: Moon Palace, Moonlight Chill, and Moonflower.

Each Lunar Surface City drew power from Helium-3 Fusion Reactors, relied on Computing Power Towers for computation infrastructure, and employed Intelligent Programs for basic city operations.

The three fully operational cities housed an average of over 200,000 permanent residents each; populations within the seven partially built sites were smaller,

yet Lunar Surface residency already approached one million people by year three of the Human United Era.

Nearly a million souls called it home: some were specialized researchers, including numerous teams from the Negentropy Research Institute residing on the Moon for projects,

others were volunteers choosing lunar life.

Currently, Earth’s Surface Cities presented zero housing pressure,

though many citizens dreamed of off-world inhabitation.

When formal Lunar Surface development was announced,

HCC had already decreed Lunar Surface Cities would hold equal status to terrestrial Surface Cities—

all integral components within Human Civilization’s network of settlements.

Under these conditions, people on Earth could migrate to live on the Lunar Surface as long as they were willing to spend their currency on spaceship tickets to the Moon.

Just like moving between cities on Earth.

However, during this period, most transport capacity between Earth and the Moon wasn’t used for passenger travel. Tickets were a bit hard to get.

Housing in the Luncar Surface City was also more expensive than on Earth.

Of course, it was expected that most people wouldn’t stay on the Lunar Surface for long.

After all, apart from being “on the Moon,” living in a Lunar Surface City versus living on Earth offered no real differences or advantages to people.

The permanent population on the Lunar Surface was destined to fluctuate repeatedly, gradually growing despite these ups and downs.

…

That year, driven by the lunar development and construction plans,

and due to the overall expansion of Human Civilization’s productive capacity,

Electric Propulsion Spaceships traveling between Earth and Moon became incredibly frequent.

Above the Stellar Ports located in all 225 Surface Cities on Earth,

Electric Propulsion Spaceships could constantly be seen taking off and landing.

To accelerate the lunar development and construction plans,

the Negentropy Research Institute’s Energy and Power Research Institute,

based on the DT03-1 Propulsion System,

designed and commissioned the Intelligent Industrial Cluster to build the largest transport spaceship Human Civilization had constructed to date.

This spaceship was completed in Earth’s outer atmosphere.

It was equipped with over two hundred Electric Propulsion Engines from the DT03-1 Electric Propulsion System.

After assembly was finished in space, it began operating between Earth and Moon.

Though called a transport spaceship, it was more like a massive, self-propelled space platform.

Material limits and physics theory meant it couldn’t enter the atmosphere.

It solely travelled between Geosynchronous Orbit and Lunar Orbit.

But in the space environment, its single-trip cargo capacity was staggering, even shocking.

People gave it a name:

They called it the ‘Ferry’,

or could also call it the ‘Starship Ferry’.

Like a ferry boat, it traveled between two places, but it wouldn’t “come ashore” as long as it could still operate.

Loading and unloading of cargo and supplies was handled entirely by smaller Electric Propulsion Spaceships.

During Human Civilization’s lunar development and construction process,

the Ferry Spaceship played a significant role.

Therefore,

the very next year,

the Negentropy Research Institute provided the Strong Artifificial Intelligence with a new production plan,

ordering the construction of one more Starship Ferry.

As many had anticipated,

early in that next year,

the permanent population on the Lunar Surface surpassed the one million mark.

It continued fluctuating but was charging towards even larger numbers.

That year,

in terms of total resources controlled, industrial scale, and industrial productivity,

Human Civilization kept getting stronger.