Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 948: The Legacy of Civilization
"The Alpha Civilization has actually already prepared the new Ark." The Hive Master said, "It's just that they have lost the opportunity to set sail."
"You mean... Yaguna Tor?! " Ke Lan was startled and blurted out subconsciously.
"Yes, Yaguna Kator." The master of the nest continued, "It was originally the 0906 long-distance engineering operation ship used to search for resources during the Wandering Earth period. In the long drifting era, we have sent out more than 100,000 long-distance engineering operation ships like this..."
"There are also such engineering ships on the Ark. After all, the Ark itself is too massive. If it rashly approaches those resource-rich celestial bodies, there is a risk of crashing due to gravity. Therefore, resources are basically collected from the surface of celestial bodies and then transported back using such engineering ships." Ke Lan said.
"No, 0906 is different from the engineering ships of the Ark." The Hive Master said in a calm but powerful tone, "The people who operate these engineering ships are all great warriors who are willing to dedicate their lives to the Earth and human civilization... Among the 100,000 engineering operation ships, no more than one tenth can return to Earth."
"Why is the depreciation rate so high?" Ke Lan was a little surprised.
"The mission of these engineering ships is not to simply mine resources on nearby celestial bodies, but to set out to the distant universe to search for available resources or habitable galaxies that can be 'moored' by the Earth in a larger area... Each long-distance engineering ship has a mission cycle of 400 years, but after 400 years, only a few engineering ships can return safely."
"Four hundred years? How do we solve the problem of the life span of the crew members?"
"There are several plans: hibernation cabins taking turns on duty, AI replacing operations, and using frozen embryos or clones to 'create' new crew members on board, etc. In different eras, these engineering ships will take different ways to 'extend' their working lifespans... Of course, the 400-year mission cycle is just a preset value. Many engineering ships did not even last a hundred years and became space garbage. There are also very few engineering ships that miraculously returned to Earth after greatly exceeding their mission cycles."
"Yaguna Kotor... Engineering Ship No. 0906 should be one of those miracles, right?" Although he already knew the answer in his heart, Ke Lan still asked this question.
"To be precise, it is the most crucial miracle." The Hive Master said, "Thanks to the re-fusion technology taught to us by human civilization in another time and space, the 0906 engineering ship has sailed in the universe for 1,400 years, even 500 years longer than your Noah's Ark."
"One thousand four hundred years... I have a question, how do the people on engineering ship No. 0906 survive?" Ke Lan couldn't help asking.
At the beginning, the 0906 engineering ship was just a small engineering ship of more than 100 meters in length. There were many engineering ships of this size on the Ark. Even Ke Lan's God Hunter Group had two engineering ships of 100 meters in length (although they were half-sold and half-given to them by the Soma Consortium). The crew of this kind of engineering ship is at most 200 people. If a large number of automated equipment is used, only about 30 people are actually needed to make the ship sail normally and fully function. The ecological recycling facilities on this kind of engineering ship are also very simple and basically rely on external supplies. When the warehouse is full, a long voyage can only sustain consumption for about one to two months at most.
Apart from the engineering equipment on board , there is basically no self-production capability... Even if the technology of the Hive Civilization is stronger than that of the Ark Civilization, Ke Lan does not think that a group of people can sail in the universe for more than a thousand years in a 100-meter-class spaceship.
"One more thing. When I was absorbing the memories of those 'corpses' on the second floor of the Tower of Babel, I was always concerned about one thing: in those memory fragments related to the Tower of Babel, there was no sign of the crew members. Why is that?"
"When the 0906 engineering ship set sail, cyborg technology was the most popular and prosperous era on Earth. The crew of that engineering ship actually only had eight people. In order to survive long enough, all eight of them abandoned their bodies and only transferred their specially processed brains to the ' equipment . If you look at it from your perspective, the 0906 engineering ship is actually an unmanned ship, but it has eight biological computers with self-awareness on board."
"Then 'Dr. Nino'..."
"He is one of the eight people who had their brains transplanted. Dr. Nino was once one of the best material science experts on Earth, but after bringing Nino Alloy back to Earth, the 'one of' in his title was erased." The Hive Master said with emotion, "I don't know if it was really luck, or if there was a human civilization from another time and space that secretly helped them. The 0906 engineering ship was unfortunately captured by the gravity of the gas giant named 'S43-K26' when it was accelerating with the help of the gravity of the planet, but they also found a new element on this gas giant planet, and developed 'Nino Alloy' in that desperate situation."
"I know this. It was mentioned in those memory fragments." Ke Lan nodded.
"But unfortunately, Nino alloy not only requires that special element to be synthesized, but also must be synthesized in the special environment inside the planet 'S43-K26'... We later sent dozens of fleets to the planet 'S43-K26', but there was no news."
"No wonder the Alpha Civilization has never been able to successfully synthesize Nino Alloy and can only use the ready-made one on Yaguna Kator... Fortunately, this ship is large enough and has enough Nino Alloy... Otherwise, this super-giant ship would have disappeared long ago."
"The Alpha Civilization only took a small portion of the Nino Alloy, and most of it was dug during the Hive Civilization era. By the time of the Alpha Civilization, a lot of the Nino Alloy was filled back, and the Alpha Civilization also carried out large-scale modifications to the interior of the ship, including the addition of folding space and the installation of the 'God's Coffin'."
"Does the Alpha Civilization intend to use Yaguna Kator as a retreat?"
"No, the Alpha Civilization never intended to use Yaguna Tor to escape... At that time, all Alpha people had been branded by Him. Even if they ran to the ends of the earth, they would eventually become His food. This ship is prepared for you. Otherwise, why do you think there are so many 'ecological zones' connected by space channels inside Yaguna Tor?"
"..." Ke Lan was stunned. A strange thought suddenly popped up in his head: Perhaps, he should say "thank you" to the Alpha civilization?
But the two words "thank you" seemed a little light in front of this giant ship.
"The most urgent task is to transfer the ownerless 'Original Energy' sealed at the top of the Tower of Babel to Yaguna Kator, and then take all humans away from this planet." The host of the nest said, "You still have time, you still have a chance... while escaping, slowly digest the legacy left to you by the Alpha civilization."
