Chapter 263: The Development of Human Society

Crisis Era Year 240.

After humanity divided into the Elixir Nation and the Natural Human Nation, the massive population migrations that followed also brought profound changes to the geopolitical landscape, creating a distribution between the Inner and Outer Solar Systems.

The conditions in the Natural Human Nation were relatively harsh. The Inner Solar System, after centuries of exploitation, was gradually depleting its planetary resources. Despite this, the resources available could still basically meet the needs of the Natural Human Nation.

In this environment of resource scarcity, the residents of the Natural Human Nation had to rely on their wisdom and diligence to strive and survive. The challenges posed by this environment continually shaped their resilience and creativity.

The Elixir Nation occupied the Outer Solar System where resources were abundant, constructing a much more comfortable and leisurely living environment for them that seemed to promise a worry-free life.

However, this was merely an illusion. Humanity's selfish genes would not give up on their greedy conquest for living space just because of material abundance.

They expelled the natural humans, realizing that they had not undergone any significant change, and some extreme fanatics even advocated expelling all males.

In today's era, the proportion of males was already far lower than that of females, and the social status of females was increasingly high.

The reasons for the current social phenomena are multifaceted:

Firstly, human aesthetic standards had undergone a significant shift. Over the past forty years, human society gradually presented a trend towards feminization. Although not yet mainstream, its development momentum was becoming increasingly apparent.

Secondly, females possessed superior physical adaptability in space compared to males. The physical demands of the space environment did not emphasize toughness but rather flexibility and endurance, which gave females a natural advantage in certain space missions.

Thirdly, the rapid development of human biotechnology provided more options for women. Before the advent of the Longevity Era, the technology for converting eggs into sperm cells was already quite mature, meaning that females might be able to reproduce without depending on males. The parthenogenetic society proposed by Lin Sen in Crisis Year 203, in his discussion with No. 7, was gradually becoming viable.

Fourthly, the movement towards female autocracy intensified societal biases against males. Furthermore, due to the widespread presence of nanomachines in modern human bodies, embryo gender identification became easy, thereby gradually shifting natural selection into artificial selection and further intensifying the social construction of gender.

Finally, the opposition between males and females became increasingly evident in the backdrop of the Longevity Era. This opposition was evident not only in social ideologies but also permeated every aspect of daily life.

Human sociologists had also anticipated these issues, but according to their predictions, such rapid escalation was not expected. If one were to say that there was no Trisolaran involvement behind this, it's unlikely that the human elite would believe it.

By now, Trisolaran scheming had reached a considerable level; they were always engaged in open contests with humanity. Although humans were well aware that all of this was the work of Trisolarans behind the scenes, they were powerless to do anything about it and could only bravely face this reality.

In this complex battle of wits, humanity had to exert all their efforts to meet the challenges posed by the Trisolarans.

...

That same year, Hines finally achieved a breakthrough in instant communication technology after years of research, a result that borrowed the principles of Sophon instant communication.

In traditional physics, faster-than-light communication was viewed as a fantasy that violated causality, and the possibility of instant communication was almost entirely dismissed.

Over two hundred years ago, when Sophons appeared, although they brought the Trisolaran Crisis to humanity, they also made humans aware that our understanding of physics might still be in its infancy. However, the path forward was also blocked by Sophons.

Today, with an increasingly deeper understanding of Quantum Space, humanity discovered in High-Dimensional Quantum Space the principle of this instant communication which is also based on the action of the fifth force in the universe.

As understanding of Quantum Space gradually deepened, humanity discovered in High-Dimensional Quantum Space the principle of this instant communication, which relied on the action of the fifth force in the universe.

Specifically, the real-time communication technology achieved communication over vast distances by utilizing the entangled resonance of two interlinked Ball Lightnings.

It is worth noting that this resonant effect is almost identical to the resonant form of human thought processes.

To note, since the human Sophon project is highly classified, scientists researching instant communication technologies were not aware of the existence of human Sophons; otherwise, they would have already made a breakthrough in this communication technology.

All this was also to confound the Trisolarans.

...

Crisis Era Year 241.

The Trisolarans attempted to use a Sophon for dimensionality reduction within The Waterdrop to spy on human plans.

Lin Sen and others had also predicted that within the next year or two, the Trisolarans might use Sophons for probing, so they had decisively suspended the human Sophon project for these years.

When the Trisolaran Sophon unfolded into low dimensions, it immediately discovered that the Sophon-Blocked Zone had not disappeared. The energy intensity of the blocking field caused the proton structure of the Trisolaran to violently tremble and fracture in this space.

This forced the Trisolaran Sophon to not only be unable to perform high-dimensional curling anymore but also to further unfold into lower dimensions. Eventually, the Sophon completely unfolded into a one-dimensional form and rapidly expanded and exploded, forming a myriad of drifting one-dimensional filaments.

Although these one-dimensional filaments were infinitely thin, their nuclear force field could still reflect visible light, so they could still be seen, and the entire Ganymede was enveloped with these one-dimensional filaments.

The Trisolarans' one attempt at probing resulted in the loss of a Sophon, which was undoubtedly also a significant blow for them.

The people in The Waterdrop were excited, not only because they had successfully destroyed a Trisolaran Sophon but more importantly because, in this game of strategy, humanity had gained an upper hand once again.

In fact, this probing action by the Trisolaran Sophons was the result of careful planning by humans. In the research process of the Solar System Accelerator, humans deliberately omitted a key step, leading the Trisolarans to believe that humans would undoubtedly carry out experiments underneath The Waterdrop.

The Trisolarans were highly attentive to this data and believed that related experiments would also be conducted under The Waterdrop, and their Sophons would be able to safely probe. However, all this was a clever trap devised by humans to entice the Trisolarans into their snare.

Similar probes might continue in the future. Humanity might intentionally turn off the Sophon-Blocked Zone, allowing Sophons to "observe" the experimental situation of the High-Energy Particle Collider. Faced with such schemes, the Trisolarans might really be unable to contend with humanity.

By this time, humanity had also completed the construction of 6 batches, a total of 24 Sophons, which were enough for short-term use, so there was no need for further production.

The pace of human Sophon production could be accelerated; over the next 20 years, Lin Sen planned to construct only 80 more, which should be sufficient for humanity's combat needs.

The Waterdrop's controls required coordination with Sophon actions; therefore, humanity had to equip a large number of Sophons to manage it.