Chapter 113: Before Going to the Great Depression_1

Human nature is such, it is like a mirror that both reflects the purest light and casts the deepest darkness. They praised the Wallfacers' plans, but if it affected their own vested interests, they became the staunchest opponents.

Everyone understood that Logic and Lin Sen were united, their most important plan was supposed to be the resource exchange, everything else was aimed at the analysis and attack against the Trisolarans. Although this strengthened the resolve of humanity, was it necessary to build so many space particle accelerator starships?

The most critical issue was that this plan never seemed to have an end, the nature of the resource exchange plan was still based on the speculation that the Trisolarans lacked resources, without any solid evidence to support it. No one knew how many Sophons the Trisolarans could build, nor the speed at which they built them, what if it was easier for the Trisolarans to build Sophons than Lin Sen had anticipated?

This inevitably led to skepticism towards the Wallfacers, coupled with the fact that the standard of living for humans had regressed to the level of the last century, all the public resentment was simmering. PDC was helpless in this regard, and could only secretly channel this resentment towards the Wallfacers in the background, which was the overt plot by PDC that Lin Sen had analyzed initially.

Had it not been for the numerous accomplishments achieved by Lin Sen and Logic, human society would have cursed them just as they had cursed Rey Diaz, and wishing for a longer period of rationality may well have been wishful thinking.

All these plans led to Earth being excessively exploited, even destructively so. This caused the greatest disaster in history, a chilling catastrophe.

In his speech, Lin Sen also told everyone that Rey Diaz's Moon project was useful, one of its purposes being to deal with the situation at hand.

The Wallfacers were like messengers sent by God, silently dedicating themselves to humanity, and in that moment, all doubting of the Wallfacers vanished into thin air, with many moved to tears. Suddenly, everyone praised the Wallfacers from the bottom of their hearts, the Wallfacers, not gods yet better than gods.

After the speech, everyone was still left wanting, they even wanted to stay a little longer in the square, to have one more distant look at Lin Sen.

With everyone's farewell, Lin Sen left the square.

Lin Sen's next destination was the Moon Base, where he had to handle both the Giant Reflective Mirror and the plans laid out before hibernation.

But before that, Lin Sen needed to catch up on the major events of the past fifteen years.

During the thirteenth year of the crisis, Logic and Lin Sen successively entered hibernation, Wang Miao became the chief engineer designing and manufacturing the high-energy particle accelerator spacecraft, with global resources tilting towards this endeavor.

In the fourteenth year of the crisis, third generation controlled nuclear fusion was validated, and PDC immediately launched the space controlled nuclear fusion project. The space controlled nuclear fusion project was for powering spaceships and for the enormous energy consumption needed by the high-energy particle accelerators. It also verified the feasibility of using it as power for battleships.

In the same year, the phase two construction of Space Elevator No. 1 was completed. The construction of Space Elevator No. 2 began, and this time, the space elevator's base was chosen to be at sea.

That same year, ten third-generation controlled nuclear fusion power stations started construction on the Moon simultaneously, the Moon containing abundant quantities of Helium-3 which was the raw material needed for third-generation controlled nuclear fusion. Whoever controlled these Helium-3 resources controlled the future.

In the fifteenth year of the crisis, the space controlled nuclear fusion project was successfully validated, this was the non-working material radiation power engine, not only could it provide power for spaceships, but it could also be used as power for future battleships, although the technology was not yet mature.

This news shocked the world once again, although no one could foresee to what extent the current fundamental theories could support the development of human technology, the recently validated non-working material radiation power engine gave humanity a much-needed boost.

In the same year, construction began on the Space Motherport, and with the completion of phase two of the space elevator, it provided the foundation for building the Starport.

The purpose of the Space Motherport was to construct space battleship docks, various military industrial industries needed to be moved into space, establishing a vast and complete industrial system in space.

The geostationary space station and the space motherport are not connected; it is unlikely that geostationary space stations would be built into the supermassive structures often depicted in sci-fi films, as the material requirements would be too high and unnecessary. The geostationary space station and the counterweight only need to fulfill the requirements of tightening the space elevator's cable and accommodate the maximum transport load.

Within 20 years, the space motherport plans to reach an industrial scale of 500,000 people, with further expansion planned in the later stages, which also accelerates the rate of Earth's resource exploitation, and the deep-sea resource extraction plan is approved.

In the 16th year of the crisis, the construction of the Moon Base got on track, and new Moon Bases were built over several key mineral resource areas on the far side of the Moon. Once everything was in order, Rey Diaz entered hibernation.

Before hibernation, Rey Diaz entrusted his assistant Eberth Ramon with the entire base and also passed on Lin Sen's request to Ramon. Should a conflict arise between the PDC and the Moon Base or if the "Great Ravine" that Lin Sen had warned about came, Ramon was to wake him.

In the 17th year of the crisis, the third phase of the space elevator was completed, representing the final form of the space elevator. Humanity's construction speed for the space motherport further accelerated.

In the same year, Tyler discovered the ant-macro electron and, through the pair of macro and antimacro electrons, confirmed the existence of macro quantum space. Hines and Marcus also jointly discovered the mental quantum space, which seemed to be two different directions of discovery, yet brought the three scientists closely together for research.

In the 18th year of the crisis, Tyler was struck by an antimacro electron during an unexpected research incident and sacrificed his life.

Subsequently, Hines also entered hibernation, deciding to remain in hibernation until the final battle and ordering that only Lin Sen could awaken him.

Only Marcus was left to continue their joint research, and the Earth entered a few quiet years…

In the 21st year of the crisis, the first high-energy particle accelerator spacecraft was successfully assembled in space, and its test operation was normal. The spaceship could not immediately travel to the Kuiper Belt, as it still required extensive validation work to verify the performance and stability of its ecological cycle system, material processing system, scientific experiment system…

Furthermore, the spaceship needed to undergo flight tests to check the reliability and safety of its mechanical structure, power system, communication system, and other aspects. Only after comprehensive validation could the spacecraft safely proceed to the Kuiper Belt to carry out its mission, as humans could not provide timely rescue if something went wrong in the Kuiper Belt.

The Kuiper Belt is located beyond Neptune's orbit, at a distance of 30 to 55 astronomical units from the Sun, with one astronomical unit being the average distance between Earth and the Sun.

Light takes about 5 to 6 hours to travel from Earth to the Kuiper Belt, and it would take human rescue ships over five months using the latest third-generation controllable nuclear fusion-powered radiation power spaceship, which is the fastest speed humans can achieve at 0.2% of the speed of light.

In the 22nd year of the crisis, the first high-energy particle accelerator spacecraft set off toward the Kuiper Belt. The construction of the second spacecraft did not begin immediately and was a bit slower than expected.

Mainly, some human factions believed that resources should be invested more into the mainstream space strategic defense plan. The high-energy particle accelerator spaceship, aside from consuming several sophons, seemed to be of little use, as no one knew the cost the Trisolarans had paid to build sophons.

In the 23rd year of the crisis, due to humanity's excessive industrial emissions into the atmosphere and the prevalent use of destructive mining techniques for mineral extraction, a large-scale release of various gases into the atmosphere occurred, especially from submarine resources, releasing gases accumulated over hundreds of millions of years from the seafloor into the atmosphere, slowly altering its structure.

That year, widespread abnormal weather patterns emerged globally, with the average global temperature rising by 2 degrees and causing huge fluctuations in heat and humidity in localized areas, making the world seem as if it were being roasted over a fire.

Although there was a global heatwave, the expected storms and heavy rainfall did not occur, while extensive flooding did occur in some local areas.

But at the same time, many places experienced extreme cold, with widespread freezing rain, making the climate increasingly bizarre.

Global desertification intensified; high temperatures which should bring heavy rainfall and cold spells causing droughts did not materialize. Land desertification worsened, and even inland regions began experiencing patchy desertification erosion. Desertification started in various places, spreading outwards from multiple points.