Chapter 257: The Overt Plot from Trisolaris

Since the Battle of Doomsday, after humanity won the war against the Trisolarans, the human government had no choice but to partially relax the free economy of humanity, and technological development increasingly leaned towards civilian use.

Humanity also called these 30 years of development the New Century, a brand-new era.

The main contradiction of this era was no longer the conflict between the survival of civilization and the external Trisolaran crisis, nor the conflict between the development of material culture and social relations of production, but the growing contradiction between science and technology and the social structure of human society.

After arranging various tasks, Lin Sen came to the First Capital City of the Solar System, which also housed the Command Headquarters.

The First Capital City was located near the Wood-Day Lagrange Point of Jupiter Orbit and was currently the most magnificent Space City of humanity.

The Space City, unlike the star-ring-like structure originally designed in that timeline, looked a bit like a giant shuttle from a distance, with the giant shuttle's entirety slowly rotating around its central spine.

Up close, the shuttle-shaped Space City was made up of huge spiral blades connected to the central spine with connecting columns.

It was somewhat similar to the spaceship Avalon that Lin Sen saw in a movie from his former life, "Passengers."

The difference was that the Avalon only had 3 spiral blades, while the Space City had 23, which were slender and closely spaced.

Each blade housed countless large buildings, akin to large cities. In fact, early space construction gave the impression of pipes; the early Moon Bases were pipes, the Space Navy Harbor was made up of large pipes, and even the Space Cities 30 years ago resembled pipes, but just bigger.

But now, the Space City truly gave the feeling of a city, with a layer of transparent material above the blade cities, and the central spine also cast light downwards, illuminating every corner of the city through the transparent material, just like a fantasy city.

Such design was obviously considering the possibility of the city's future movement, like a combination of a star-ring city and a moving fortress. The space star-ring cities from the Shelter Era in the original work had almost no possibility of moving, which would absolutely not occur in this era.

This Space City was also magnitudes larger than the Avalon, with the gaps between the blades being the channels for large spaceships, with countless ships coming and going to this Space City every day. The city currently had a population of 60 million, with a maximum designed capacity of 170 million, truly a behemoth of space.

Lin Sen arrived at the Space City's docking harbor, located at the central spine of the Space City, accompanied by Shi Qiang.

Lin Sen, "Da Shi, this Space City is designed to rotate, isn't it?

"Why haven't we seen it rotate much since we've been here, is it a visual error caused by it being too far away?"

Shi Qiang, "It does rotate but very slowly, and it's generally hard to notice. I've been to the blade cities before, and there's no one G of gravity there, it seems to be only about 0.13G.

"The human body has undergone significant changes after living in space for a long time, and we actually realized this about 200 years ago, such as increased height, bone loss, muscle atrophy, vision, and vestibular issues...

""Their solution was to combine the human body with Smartmachines to adapt to the space environment, but such people can basically no longer live on Earth."

In fact, once humans start living in space, it becomes very difficult to adapt back to Earth's gravity. Astronauts generally experience space sickness when they first go to space, but after adapting and returning to Earth, they can also experience gravity sickness.

Lin Sen, "Indeed, maintaining 1 G of gravity in space is completely unnecessary, and it would also increase the difficulty of building Space City.

"Humanity has truly entered space for nearly 200 years now, and the human body structure must be very different from our era!"

Shi Qiang, "Humans are now accurately described as half-human, half-machine. I've read a report that says Smartmachines or nanobots almost account for 14% of the human body. If we include some people who've replaced failing organic organs with special plastics or cloned organs, the proportion would be even higher.

""Take our eyes, for example; they have implanted Intelligent Chips in the eyes that can automatically adjust the focus, allowing one to see objects clearly at different distances and enhancing night vision capabilities.

""The key is that it can also produce real-time informational overlays, actual AR technology, providing AI's assessment, directions, similar to in-game markers."

Lin Sen, "Is this like having a virtual display screen in front of your eyes, adding a virtual shell to reality, a completely immersive experience? Do you have such a chip implanted?"

Shi Qiang, "I don't. I trust more in what my eyes see; the eyes can deceive a person, not to mention these Intelligent Chips."

"But it indeed brought great convenience to modern life. For example, when this visual chip is paired with the 'cellphone' of this era, it's simply an invincible existence."

Lin Sen, "What do the cellphones of this era look like? It's only been 30 years; there couldn't have been too much change, right?"

Shi Qiang, "In the past thirty years, the changes in civil life have been earth-shattering, seemingly far surpassing the sum of the previous two hundred years.

"In the past two hundred years, almost all our investments were in the military; we didn't value the development of civil life. But these thirty years have been like a concentrated release of the civilian technologies accumulated over the previous two hundred years.

"Cellphones from thirty years ago, which we called smartwatches or personal mobile terminals at that time, differed mainly in virtual imaging technology, but it was still within our comprehension.

"However, the cellphones of this era are literally 'cellphones'—some chips are implanted in the fingers and palms. They don't even need to be charged; they can use the bioenergy in our bodies, just like cells use energy substances transported by the blood.

"They also don't need to be taken out; they're under the skin of our fingers, not affecting their use in any way.

"Combined with the virtual imaging in our eyes, these cellphones allow for any personal gesture control.

"There's even a virtual keyboard that appears in front of you, but when you press it, the current generated by the chip in your finger lets you feel as if you've touched something solid.

"This is the true immersive experience, and you should be able to believe how convenient this can make our work.

"Now, on the streets, you often see people gesturing with their hands, which is likely them dealing with their work.

"That's not all; what worries people the most is the rise of brain-networking. Brain networking is a new type of network technology developed based on brain-computer interfaces and Mind Empathy Technology.

"The terminal for brain networking is our brain; the servers are evolved from the internet and the internet of things. You can imagine what happens when you combine human brain mobile terminals with brain networking, right?

"The efficiency of both learning and working is hundreds of times what it was in our time."

Lin Sen, "This is too dangerous. The security of information technology surely hasn't reached the level to satisfy brain networking.

"If something like a hacker attack unfolds, won't our brains be affected first?"

Shi Qiang, "They're naturally aware of the risks of this technology. Even though people say that the technology has matured, many are still afraid to try it.

"But no one knows when this technology will spread across all of humanity. Once you start using this technology, it's almost impossible to stop. It's like the longing for immortality; nobody can resist this temptation.

"It's not something the authorities can restrict. When something is harmful to humans, we can resist its allure, but when there's no definite evidence proving its harm, there's almost no way to restrict it. It's like genetically modified food 200 years ago: while its dangers were being publicized, it was still being consumed in large quantities."

Lin Sen, "Then how could such technology spread so quickly? If the authorities had imposed restrictions from the start, we could have kept it under wraps for decades, allowing society to gradually accept these technologies."

Shi Qiang, "Tell me about it! There are many similar technologies, and in human society, the development of such technologies has been too rapid, and the spread too swift; the authorities are often powerless to do anything about it."

As the conversation reached this point, both sides understood that this must surely be a strategy of the Trisolarans; they were now playing an open game with humanity.

These technologies, if accepted gradually by human society, would be beneficial to humanity.

However, these technologies arrived too quickly, leaving no time for humanity to adapt. The societal problems they brought, if not handled properly, could even lead to new human conflicts, disrupting humanity's developmental process.

All powers in the Solar System now understand that this is the Trisolarans' overt strategy, but no one dares to restrict the use of these technologies. If one were to restrict their use, other forces might quickly surpass them; thus, they also had to accelerate the promotion of these technologies to gain short-term advantages.

This is another kind of Dark Forest state; the Trisolarans might have also realized that if they couldn't win with covert strategies, they should play an open game with absolute force.

With so many technological impacts on human society, if it can cause a temporary disruption in humanity's developmental process, in the next 30 to 40 years humanity won't develop the power to resist the Trisolarans.

By the time the New Trisolaran Fleet arrives, it will inevitably be the time of humanity's destruction.