87: Human civilization

With the official activation of the mysterious silver-grey glowing superluminal suppressor and the black-grey Tachyon Radar deep space detection array on the Babel Space Station, the war situation within the Solar System began to shift.

The human fleet finally bid farewell to the embarrassing situation where they could only discover the enemy fleet when it was right in their faces.

…

"Report to Command Center! The Tachyon Radar has captured a signal of a small enemy fleet assembling inside the F-ring of Saturn! There are about fifty ships! Their course is pointed at our supply route in Jupiter orbit, and they are expected to launch a surprise attack in six hours!"

Inside the Earth Defense Force High Command on the Babel Space Station, the sound of sirens and the calm reports of staff officers intertwined, forming a tense yet orderly symphony of war.

General Wang Quanjin, Commander-in-Chief, locked his falcon-like gaze onto the massive holographic Star Map; in his eyes, those red dots representing the enemy seemed to have already become prey that had fallen into a trap.

"Order the Fourth and Fifth Fleets stationed in Jupiter orbit to immediately head to the designated ambush point, that gravitational shadow zone of Callisto!"

"Report! The Tachyon Radar has detected a large enemy fleet outside lunar orbit! There are over two hundred ships!"

"Order the voyager to lead the First Fleet to sortie immediately! Engage them head-on!" Wang Quanjin's mouth curled into a cold arc. "Our ally should also be coming out to stretch their muscles soon."

Having gained an information advantage, the Earth Defense Force could finally shift from passive defense to active attack.

They were no longer lambs waiting for the enemy to come knocking. Using the precise intelligence provided by the Tachyon Radar, they repeatedly anticipated the tactical intentions of the "rebels," setting up overlapping ambushes to conduct precise interceptions and counterattacks against those rebel fleets attempting to launch sneak attacks.

And Grey Wind also played her role perfectly.

Like a master chess player, she would let the "rebel fleet" cooperate by falling into human traps, while simultaneously letting the "allied fleet" help the human fleet strike the enemy.

When the human fleet faced small, harassing units, she would let the human fleet "level up" on their own, honing their tactics and courage in actual combat.

But when the human fleet encountered an overwhelming enemy main force, the "allies" she controlled would appear like divine soldiers on the flanks or rear of the battlefield, forming a pincer attack with the human fleet, easily crushing the enemy's core capital ships with a thunderous posture.

Yet, she would "deliberately" let go of those numerous but low-threat small warships, leaving them for the human fleet to "clean up the battlefield" and reap the fruits of victory.

Thus, in the following year, everything from lunar orbit to Jupiter, and then to the asteroid belt, turned into a brutally massive meat grinder.

Thrilling tug-of-war battles were constantly played out beside Jupiter's massive Great Red Spot, within Saturn's magnificent rings, and in the dense meteorite clusters of the asteroid belt.

The human fleet was destroyed time and time again, and rebuilt time and time again.

Each new batch of starfish-class frigates would use the latest technology, more optimized structures, and more powerful weapons; each new fleet would possess greater combat power than its predecessors.

Young soldiers grew at an astonishing speed in this baptism of blood and fire, rapidly transforming from raw recruits who would break into a sweat at the sight of an enemy ship into experienced veterans capable of calmly executing complex tactical maneuvers on a battlefield filled with flying artillery fire.

Although every battle was accompanied by huge sacrifices, with countless young lives turning into cold cosmic dust in the fire of explosions, the human fleet fought harder and harder like the legendary immortal phoenix.

Because behind them lay the awe-inspiring industrial potential of the entire Human Civilization, which had been thoroughly ignited by the war.

On Earth, under the call of the supreme slogan "Everything for the front line, everything for victory," an unprecedented total industrial mobilization began.

A large amount of non-essential civilian industrial production was temporarily shelved, and many factories entered a 24-hour non-stop wartime production state with the support of automated production lines provided by Paradox Technology.

Giant factories dedicated to producing starfish-class frigate modules sprang up like mushrooms after rain across major continents. Every day, more than ten brand-new starfish-class frigates rolled off the orbital assembly lines located in Wenchang, Cape Canaveral, and the European Spaceport, and then, without even time for excessive testing, they rushed to the bloody space battlefield without stopping.

This "dumpling-making" speed was completely unimaginable in the past, when it took years to produce a single surface aircraft carrier.

A continuous stream of fresh blood, like an inexhaustible torrent, frantically replenished the losses on the front lines, plunging that seemingly immensely powerful "rebel" fleet into a vast ocean of people's war supported by the entire civilization.

Finally, in the 16th month after the war broke out, in a brutal battle for the final control of the Moon, the human fleet, at the cost of nearly seven hundred frigates and with the key support of that "allied" super battleship, successfully annihilated the last rebel fleet entrenched in lunar orbit.

When the blue flag of the United Nations, representing the unity of all mankind, was planted once again on the war-torn ruins of the Guanghan Palace Base, the entire Earth boiled over.

Humanity had reclaimed its own Moon in a way that was both incredibly tragic and incredibly glorious!

…

This war, which concerned the common destiny of all mankind, was like a massive furnace with a temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees, throwing people of different countries, different nations, and different faiths living on this blue planet into it, undergoing an unprecedented and profound tempering and fusion.

When a young pilot from China, with his fighter's energy exhausted and ammunition depleted, resolutely drove his own craft to lure the chasing rebel drones in order to cover a damaged warship commanded by an American officer that was retreating;

When an elderly white-haired engineer from Germany stayed in the space station's repair workshop for 72 consecutive hours without sleep or rest, finally successfully repairing the vital engine for a frigate operated by French crew members, enabling it to return to the battlefield;

When people all over the world were cheering for the same hard-won victory through live broadcasts or battle reports, and mourning for the same sacrificed young hero...

Those invisible barriers once seemingly indestructible, built by history, culture, and prejudice, were quietly melting away without anyone noticing.

A broader sense of identity began to take root in everyone's heart, and had even started to grow into a big tree.

We are first and foremost human beings, Earthlings.

Only then are we citizens of a certain country.

Just like the people who once lived on the divided land of Germany in the 19th century, after experiencing a war to defend against foreign enemies together, they ultimately longed for a unified German nation-state.

A portion of Earthlings, especially the younger generation who grew up in this war, also began to deeply realize that in the face of that vast and dangerous sea of stars, an Earth Council composed of different countries, still full of various compromises, internal friction, and buck-passing, was far from enough.

Human Civilization needed a true, unified polity that could combine all forces without reservation.

"We need a unified Earth Federation! A single legitimate government that can represent the interests of all Earthlings!"

"We need a unified flag, a unified constitution, and a unified army that truly fights to defend all mankind!"

"Only in this way can we truly face all future challenges as a whole! Instead of wasting precious time in endless quarrels and compromises every time a major decision needs to be made, as we do now!"

This call initially only appeared in the salons of some young officers and intellectuals, but it quickly spread to all corners of society through the internet, triggering an increasingly strong resonance among the public.

A great speculation on the ultimate political form of Human Civilization, from the bottom up, was quietly being catalyzed in this cruel war.

…

And under this grand narrative concerning the collective destiny of civilization, another revolution acting on the level of individual life was also quietly taking place, feeding back into this war with unprecedented force.

Several blood orchid agents launched by Paradox Technology, after undergoing strict approval processes and initial production capacity ramping, were finally officially launched into the market on a large scale and incorporated into the global wartime medical support system.

The appearance of the [Holy Healing] gel allowed countless soldiers and civilians crippled by war and accidents to regain complete bodies. Its magical effect, which was almost like "bringing the dead back to life," greatly boosted the morale and survival rate of front-line soldiers, and also caused the entire Earth's medical system to undergo an unprecedented earthquake.

The popularization of the [fountain of youth] oral liquid greatly improved the average health level and life expectancy of all mankind. It allowed many experienced scientists and engineers who had already reached retirement age to continue fighting on the front lines of scientific research and production with more abundant energy, contributing their precious wisdom to this era and becoming the most valuable "wealth" supporting this war.

And the targeted rationing of [Enlightenment] neural stimulants pressed an unprecedented super acceleration key for the technological development of the entire Human Civilization.

With its help, countless scientists and researchers seemed to have been lit with a beacon leading to the path of truth, and their thinking became unprecedentedly sharp and active.

Various scientific problems that had plagued them for decades were solved one after another in "bursts of inspiration."

Human Civilization began to enter a stage of explosive technological growth; almost every day, new theories were proposed, new technologies were invented, and then applied to various fields of war and people's livelihood at the fastest speed.

And one of the more dazzling achievements came from an obscure young material scientist from China, whose name was Wang Sen.

With the assistance of the [Enlightenment] agent, Wang Sen and a young scientific research team led by him, with an average age of under forty, made a great breakthrough in the research of carbon nanotubes, which are known as the "ultimate material of the 21st century," that was worthy of being recorded in history.

They not only found a brand-new process that could produce perfect carbon nanotubes with lengths exceeding tens of thousands of kilometers and strength approaching the theoretical limit on a large scale and at low cost, but also overcame the technical difficulties of how to seamlessly weave and connect these microscopic materials at the macroscopic level, enabling them to withstand their own enormous weight and external tension.

When Wang Sen made his research results public, along with the first one-kilometer-long sample of carbon nanotube cable shimmering with black luster, the entire materials science and engineering community was shocked. Because everyone knew what this meant.

It meant that the only technical bottleneck of that super project that had only appeared in movies—the space elevator—had been completely overcome!

When Lei Wen saw the detailed report on carbon nanotubes through the white flower in his office, his face revealed heartfelt surprise.

This was truly a great harvest created by human wisdom itself.

He had originally thought that a construction of the level of a space elevator would still require years or even decades of technological accumulation to be realized, but he did not expect that the emergence of the blood orchid and the infinite creativity of humanity itself, stimulated under pressure, had incredibly advanced this process.

"white flower," he said to the air, his voice full of irrepressible excitement, "Contact Professor Wang Sen's team immediately! Provide them with all necessary support in the name of Paradox Technology! Funding, equipment, personnel... we will give them whatever they want! I need them to move this technology from the laboratory to the production line in the shortest possible time!"

"Yes, Father."

Besides materials science, various new high-tech products also sprang up like mushrooms and quickly integrated into people's daily lives.

The latest mobile phones not only possessed performance far exceeding the most advanced personal computers of three years ago, capable of running software that previously consumed the most performance, but also allowed holographic projection communication to replace traditional video calls, enabling people separated by thousands of miles to communicate as if they were face-to-face.

Clean and efficient micro-fusion reactors provided by Paradox Technology began to enter various cities, residential electricity was no longer charged, and the cost of industrial electricity was also reduced to a negligible level.

Even the entertainment industry underwent earth-shaking changes. Fully immersive virtual reality games based on brain-computer interfaces had become the main way for people to entertain and relax in their tense wartime lives, where people could experience various lives they had never dared to imagine in an infinitely vast virtual world.

This was an era full of trauma and sacrifice.

But this was also an era full of hope and miracles.

Human Civilization was striding forward towards a higher and stronger life form with a posture of rebirth from the ashes.