Deep Space Wandering Fleet-Chapter 550 - 547: Zhang Yuan’s Last Words

"We shouldn’t have to do this," she said. "We’ve struggled for a thousand years, including our previous generations, our ancestors. They, like you, harbored a burning anger in their hearts, yet they endured it, solely for the success of this plan. This is a belief, a human belief."

"But even this belief can’t withstand the passage of time..."

"Generation after generation has drained it completely."

"We promise, in the next 40 years, to expand the population by 40 million and resolve the current population crisis. During this period, we will transform the former Radiant Galaxy into a spaceship suitable for long-distance travel, sending those who wish to leave to the vicinity of a star more than 1 light year away."

"There should be a planet suitable for living there. You can start a new life."

"The entire journey will take about 300 years."

"I hope everyone will do their job well for this period... In 40 years, you will be free." After announcing this decision, the female captain began to wipe away tears.

The people had won!

A tidal wave of cheers burst forth from the crowd. Even though a minority were dissatisfied with having to work another forty years, most were content, for if they ran now, they would inevitably start a war with the Tos Civilization, and by then, who would live or die was uncertain—people were shrewd!

As for the 300-year journey, they’d hibernate through it, and wake up on another planet, where they could live as they wished, no longer having to maintain their jobs like zombies, dispirited and grimy.

What would be the point of being an interstellar civilization if it couldn’t maintain a prosperous and comfortable life?

Even the young leader of the radical faction clenched his fist. He believed... that this should have been done long ago!

Whether the next generation would still adopt a 10-hour workday was no longer within their consideration.

Humans are such beings—if someone must suffer, it is enough that it’s not oneself.

What would happen to the future 40 million youths, and what did it have to do with them?

They had struggled for so long and had already acquitted themselves.

Watching the vast discussion and cheering on the internet, the woman named He, the female captain, slumped into a chair.

This was undeniably the worst case scenario!

Worst to the extreme!

Now a single sentence had placated the people to continue their work and relieved the strike crisis, but what about later? Promises must be kept, but who would want to stay here then? Would the future 40 million youths be willing to stay? People are not robots, after all.

"Damn it, all of them will probably be scrambling to get on the spaceship and head for another planet!" The military commander said angrily: "They’re deserters, deserters!"

"A bunch of cowards!"

The captain sighed again. A great schism was already emerging in the entire civilization, but the higher-ups should not give up just because of this.

The entire civilization was swept by a wave of strikes, but there were still those who silently persisted in their work. These unknown individuals simply hadn’t voiced their stance.

She looked at everyone in the conference room and silently took out a data storage device, then played a video on the screen.

It was the founding leader who had formulated Plan 17, leaving behind the video file.

Zhang Yuan was already a senior leader of the whole civilization by then, and he had personally formulated many plans.

His hair had turned gray, his face lined with deep wrinkles, after a lifetime of striving for his cause.

The "Hidden Magnetic Field Perception Technology" now commonly used during the infant growth stage was invented by the team led by Zhang Yuan.

"Hidden Magnetic Field Perception Technology" refers to infants having a faint magnetic field perception ability before the age of one, with these infants recognising the world through magnetic field perception before their first birthday.

But afterwards, it naturally degrades.

Don’t underestimate magnetic field perception existing only before the age of one. Such an approach had a significant impact on the development of the brain itself, significantly enhancing the innate spatial sensing abilities of humans, and after degradation, it does not affect subsequent daily life.

This was an incredible technology that had raised human Intelligence by a hard-earned 10-15%! Even in a Fourth-level Civilization, it was worth 8,000 and even upwards of 10,000 AmiBa Points!

Almost everyone recognized this highly respected elder statesman.

Zhang Yuan smiled on the screen and said, "Greetings, friends of the future. Now is Epoch 6809, the fourth century since the launch of the Planet Engine project. Our plan is progressing smoothly, and with the push of the Planet Engines, the entire planet has already begun to move slowly."

The screen displayed a bustling scene, with massive excavations underway and towering Planet Engines rising from the ground.

A huge population had been born over these years, bringing the population of the New Human Civilization to an unprecedented peak. Many children looked up at the engines spewing violent ion flames, then cheered excitedly.

But this was already a story from six hundred years ago...

Every person in the conference room felt a bit sentimental, time flies, and now the number of Planet Engines on the entire planet was much more than initially, just a little longer and the entire plan would be completed.

But it was precisely at this moment that a bit of a mishap occurred.

The female captain sighed.

Who had built these engines?

Of course, it was thanks to these hard-working masses cheering loudly below.

It would be inappropriate to blame these individuals for the failure.

Zhang Yuan continued in the screen, "However, the development of a civilization is not always smooth sailing; there will be twists and challenges. Our current prosperity does not guarantee your future thriving. After four hundred years of effort, I’ve found that our people have begun to grow weary; they’re no longer as ambitious as they once were, and even I am feeling a bit worn out myself."

"Our economic system is a planned economy, where most of the productive forces must be invested in this work. This aspect won’t change in the future..."

"Only a nationalized system can accomplish this work—a free economy could never complete even one-tenth of it in one hundred million years."

"This video is a prediction of some possible future directions of development... for reference only."

With that, everyone perked up slightly.

Although many believed that Zhang Yuan could not propose any good solutions... otherwise, people would have already adopted them.

"Our current population has reached 106 million, our industrial strength is formidable, and our workforce is abundant. Only with such a population can we complete the whole plan on time and in full. In the past four hundred years, we have already completed more than 50% of the engineering work. You must continue to complete the remaining 50% in the next eight hundred years."

"But in the future, to reduce the aging crisis caused by population reduction is undoubtedly the most complex problem faced by our civilization for the next thousand years. Reducing population means more deaths than births and signifies aging of the entire society."

"A significant decrease in population with the project still unfinished will lead to an increase in individual working hours and a delay in retirement age, among a series of other social issues."

"These social problems could easily trigger internal conflicts within civilization. The people are the foundation of a civilization and governance; without the support of the people, even if our government aspires to greatness, without popular backing, we are like water without a source."

"This is also because our entire civilization lacks depth and does not have enough AmiBa Points to rent more Transport Ships from the marketplace. Otherwise, we would not need to reduce the population so painfully."

"For this, we deeply apologize."

Several members of the conference room looked at each other and smiled bitterly.

They all knew what Zhang Yuan had said, but what could be done?

Could they choose to develop two War Stars, thereby extending the project by several thousand more years? Could humans truly complete it?

It seemed utterly impossible at the moment.

Zhang Yuan continued, "To solve this problem, we have debated and believe that there are a few not-quite-solutions..."

"First, let people enter the Virtual World earlier, to accelerate the rate of human population turnover. This way, the problem of an aging population and the social issues that would erupt from policies such as delaying the retirement age could be resolved all at once."

...