Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 850: Hive Class
"Could it be that something happened to Alpha Planet, and the Alpha Civilization had to move to underground shelters to survive?" Thirty-Three continued, "The situation improved later, and they returned to the surface from underground again, and built the ruins we see now. In this way, the huge technological gap between the two eras can be fully explained... After all, in the shelter era, it was already difficult to survive, let alone develop technology."
Could it be that the Alpha civilization had also suffered a disaster that nearly wiped out the entire race? Could the cause of that disaster be related to the "Him" that they later "believed in"?
"Ke Lan, there is one more thing, did you find out?" Thirty-three said again, "Zeluo's space barrier has been removed... I am not wearing a breathing mask now, but I found that the air in this underground space can fully meet the needs of breathing..."
"There is fresh air flowing in this underground space." Ke Lan nodded. "This underground city cannot even get in the seawater above, so the air cannot get in by itself. There must be ventilation devices or some air purification equipment installed. I didn't expect that after tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, these devices are still running..."
At this point, Ke Lan was suddenly startled.
He remembered something.
He had read some analysis reports on the urban ruins left by the Alpha civilization. When studying the living areas of these cities, experts and scholars discovered one thing, that is, the Alpha people have a strong tolerance to harsh environments. Not only are they not afraid of radiation and extreme high and low temperatures, they don't even need much oxygen. The academic community has always had a speculation that the Alpha people may not need to breathe. At least, their respiratory organs are very different from those of humans.
If this is true, then the Alphas' living environment should not have too high requirements for air conditions... Especially in this hive city where conditions are worse than a pigsty, there is no need for the builders to go to the trouble of developing an air purification device... Anyway, as long as it can meet the minimum breathing requirements, it is enough.
Ke Lan's nostrils twitched, and he took a deep breath of air with a faint smell of rust. According to Ze Luo's analysis, the oxygen content in the underground space is roughly between 20 and 30 percent, which is a very suitable ratio for human survival. Too low an oxygen concentration can easily cause suffocation. However, if one lives in an environment with too high an oxygen concentration for a long time, especially an oxygen concentration of more than 60 percent, symptoms of chronic oxygen poisoning will appear... It has to be said that compared to most creatures, the human body is really picky and fragile.
But the air in this place can just meet the picky needs of human beings - it is no exaggeration to say that the environment in this closed underground space is more suitable for human survival than ninety-nine percent of the places on the surface of Alpha Planet.
Ke Lan even thought that if the Ark was destroyed for some reason in the future, or if there was a population explosion in the future (assuming there was a future)... maybe some of the Ark residents could be relocated to this underground city to live. Although the conditions here were poor, it was better than the wilderness where the environmental factors were extremely unstable.
But one thing at a time... Why would the Alpha people, who have extremely low requirements for air conditions, build such an underground city?
Ke Lan recalled the appearance of the Alpha survivors seen in the "Super Dream Video". That was the only Alpha person Ke Lan had "seen". Judging from the appearance alone, except for the group of tentacles in the lower body, the upper body of the Alpha people is actually very similar to that of humans, and even the layout of the facial features is almost the same... It can't be that the nose-like organ is just a decoration, or has other uses?
Ke Lan tried to outline the facial features of the Alpha man in his memory, but he was somewhat surprised to find that the harder he tried to recall, the more blurred the face became in his mind. In the end, he couldn't even remember what the Alpha man looked like.
The scenes in my memory are like those covered with a thick layer of mosaic.
"What's going on?" Ke Lan felt a chill down her spine. "Could this be my brain's self-protection mechanism? Those things involve 'forbidden knowledge'?"
But... why didn't this happen when I recalled related things before?
The lift platform continued to descend, and soon sank into the buildings that looked like growths. Ke Lan and Sanshisan noticed that although the illegal buildings were piled up in layers and in danger, the ground around the lift platform was exposed, which was extremely rare.
It was as if there was an invisible boundary separating these buildings. The nearest house to the lift track was more than thirty meters away.
It's like a strange empty space suddenly appears among many crowded stores in a popular street in a commercial district where every inch of land is valuable. It's also like a tooth has been knocked out from a row of neatly arranged teeth...it seems extremely abrupt no matter how you look at it.
"Like a petri dish." Thirty-three said, "I don't know if you haven't seen that kind of experiment before. A drop of a special sterilizing agent is dropped in the middle of a petri dish where a certain fungus is cultivated. While the mycelium grows wildly around it, the culture medium in the circular area in the middle is clean... I have seen a biologist who was with the team do such a simple experiment in the ruins before."
"Is it for safety reasons?" Thirty-three asked again, "So they restrict those buildings from being close to the lift platform area? But speaking of it, the city has been built like this, and the people living here probably don't care about safety issues... In my opinion, those stilt houses supported by a few steel pipes are much more dangerous than those close to the lift platform track."
Just as Sanshisan was talking to himself, Ke Lan suddenly felt a shock in his head, and a long-lost familiar feeling appeared again -
Along with a swelling feeling and a buzzing sound in his ears, a picture that existed only in his mind overlapped with the real scene before his eyes.
The "hive city" in the memory fragments did not have the exaggerated density of buildings as it is now. A circle of shadowy figures guarded the lifting platform track in the center of the hive city, and on the periphery, there was another group of more figures who seemed to be fighting against this circle of figures.
All the images were blurry, without color or sound, just like watching an antique black-and-white silent movie from the old times through a thick fog. But for some reason, Ke Lan actually understood completely what the two groups of figures were doing, as if these things and the images were remembered separately in his mind.
First there is a textual narration, and then it is supplemented with pictures or video materials...a very typical historical document recording mode.
The figures in the outer circle wanted to enter the lifting platform, while those in the inner circle wanted to stop them... Although the figures in the outer circle were hundreds of times more numerous than those in the inner circle, the figures in the inner circle held powerful weapons in their hands, so the figures in the outer circle could only protest and demonstrate, but did not dare to really attack the seemingly thin defense circle.
Ke Lan always felt that this scene was familiar.
Not to mention the Earth in the old era, such things also happened frequently on the Ark.
There are often dissatisfied citizens who initiate marches for various reasons... In the face of marches, the Joint Parliamentary Group and the garrison generally adopt measures such as negotiation and control. The soldiers responsible for maintaining order will also exercise restraint as much as possible and use non-lethal weapons such as electric batons, pepper spray and riot shields. The marching people rarely rush the cordon - only a very small number of marches that are exploited by "interested people" will eventually develop into bloody violent conflicts.
Are these figures in the outer circle demonstrating for some demands? What are they demanding? Are their living conditions too poor? Are their survival supplies too scarce? But the problem is that all places in the hive are the same. Even if they want to move to another place, they can only move from the east to the west of the city. The actual situation will not change in any substantial way.
As the lift platform continued to descend, the scene Ke Lan saw was gradually changing...Finally, some of the figures in the outer circle could not hold back and rushed towards the defense circle, and those who made up the defense circle immediately chose to open fire - the next shot made Ke Lan couldn't help but curse "madman" in his heart.
On the Ark, even if some emotional citizens rushed the cordon, the most they would receive was a shove with shields or pepper spray. The only time Ke Lan saw the riot police go into battle with all their guns and live ammunition was because there were followers of a heretical sect in the riot - and that time, they happened to be in the same carriage with the followers of that heretical sect, and they helped Lieutenant General Maginot resolve the crisis.
But the figures forming the defense line in the picture are holding not only lethal weapons, but also high-powered lethal weapons.
With just one shot, not only was the figure rushing towards the defense line torn into pieces, but a large conical blank area was also cleared behind the figures.
A large number of those who did not launch an attack on the defense line were also knocked down.
Although Ke Lan couldn't see clearly the weapons held by those figures, he thought that the only weapon that could achieve such an effect was a large-caliber shotgun.
That thing is specially designed for use with tactical mechas...According to regulations, it is strictly forbidden to use this kind of weapon inside the Ark.
There wasn't even a warning shot; the first shot went straight into the crowd... Ke Lan couldn't think of any other word to describe these defenders except "crazy".
They didn't look like on-duty personnel maintaining order, but more like cold-blooded, bloody massacrers. As long as they were given a reason to open fire, Ke Lan had no doubt that they would massacre all the people in this nest city.
Assuming that this hive city is really a refuge, if it is suppressed in such a brutal way, it won’t be long before the entire hive city falls into chaos... No one will be able to walk out of this refuge alive.
Was the asylum a mistake? Was it actually a prison, used to detain the most vicious criminals? Was that why the guards were firing so recklessly?
Just as Ke Lan was guessing wildly, the lifting platform had reached the ground and continued to sink.
"Hmm... there is another space underneath? This nest has more than one floor?" Thirty-three, who was about to step out of the lift platform, immediately retracted his steps and retreated.
The lifting platform passed through a shaft with a vertical depth of about 200 meters and arrived at a deeper underground space. This underground space was about the same size as the one above, but the first impression given to the two was that it was much "cleaner".
Many large buildings that are obviously factories are neatly built on the ring wall of the underground space. Although the layout is compact, it is not messy. There are tracks and vehicles for transporting goods between the factory buildings. Cranes and mechanical arms hundreds of meters high stand at various transportation nodes and distribution centers. Mountains of containers are neatly stacked. The huge generators are still in operation. The dense indicator lights emit a faint green fluorescence in the dark.
"Is this ... an industrial area?" Thirty-three muttered, "The industrial area gives me a much better feeling than the residential area above... To be honest, if I were a worker living on the upper floor, I would rather stay in the factory 24 hours a day than go back to my residence."
"It's not just an industrial area, this is also a residential area." Ke Lan shook her head. "The workers in these factories live on this floor and won't go upstairs... and the people upstairs can't come down here either."
"Why is it designed this way? I don't quite understand." Thirty-three wondered, "This industrial area obviously has a lot of spare space. Since it has already served as a residential area, can't some of the residents on the upper floors be moved downstairs?"
"No... The lift platform we are riding on now actually symbolizes the class and power of this 'hive city'... If I'm not mistaken, this nest should have more than two floors." Scene after scene of silent black and white images flashed through Ke Lan's mind, and he gradually understood the operating mode of this "hive city".
"More than two floors?" Thirty-three asked in surprise, "How did you know? I didn't see anything written in Alpha language anywhere."
"If I'm not mistaken, the lower the level, the better the living conditions and the larger the per capita area... The elevator goes down, just like the train on the Ark, going from the block with a larger number to the block with a smaller number." Ke Lan said, "The reason why there is so much space around the elevator is that people on each level can only live on the level that belongs to their class and identity, and they are not allowed to cross the line. Anyone who tries to break this rule will be eliminated by the management class."
