Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 421: Happiness

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Blue 6’s words passed through many channels before it was recorded and eventually landed on Yao Yuan’s desk. When Yao Yuan picked up the record in the middle of dealing with other documents, he smiled. After all, they had been to a Shelter and were exposed to the culture of other alien civilizations before, so they knew about humanity’s advantage. The most obvious advantage was that humanity had retained the perspective of time left from Earth.

Humanity’s perspective on time had changed over the decades, from the several decades as one cycle in the prehistoric era, every decade as one cycle during the Renaissance, and finally every year as one cycle in the modern era. The most current perspective on time was also called the city dweller’s perspective. Business, nervousness, and assiduousness were its hallmarks, but it was for the sake of efficiency.

Initially, when they entered space, many scholars predicted that the perspective of time for alien civilizations would use every day as one cycle, but the reality was far from that. Most alien civilizations used several decades as one cycle.

The cause of this was simple. When a prehistoric civilization was forced to leave its home planet, the civilization would retain its perspective on time from its old planet. However, very soon... this would lead to a tragedy!

Yes, when a prehistoric civilization left its home planet, its technological level would at most be at level 1 or at the edge of becoming level 2. Even though it might have a large fleet or motherships, it wouldn’t support a population of over ten billion... Just look at humanity. When humanity left Earth, it had roughly seven billion people; however, how many of those had escaped into space?

Regardless, even half of that number would mean 3.5 billion, and they would have to exist in space for several hundred or even thousands of years before they would reach another solar system. They also had to depend on their supply storage. Under such circumstances, if the population maintained the same perspective of time from their home planet, overworking themselves every day, they would feel lethargic in a week and probably tired from life in a year due to a lack of notable progress. This might cause even more of a waste of resources, and 8 out of 10 new space civilizations exhausted themselves out in this manner.

The rest of the civilization might survive internal strife and most of its population would die before they reached another solar system. At the same time, the perspective on time would slowly change, and this perspective was inherited from one generation to the next. Even when they had enough materials and supplies in storage, the new perspective on time had settled. This wouldn’t be out of place because most space civilizations shared the same perspective on time.

"One year to read a book? Now that is the true meaning of a waste of time!" Yao Yuan scoffed before putting the records down and continuing with his work.

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The things that occupied Yao Yuan’s time were definitely important and extremely varied. Even though his secretary had helped him filter most out, there were still many that needed his permission and approval. He was so busy because the 23rd New Year was coming soon. He intended to finish these few projects before the holiday so that they would be a gift for the people.

They were mostly about the assignments of housing in the City of Light Moon!

It had been two years since the Hope landed on the moon, and the main construction on City of Light Moon had officially ended about 10 days ago. Only the unimportant projects and city beautification remained, and those weren’t that urgent.

Therefore, the issue of housing was pushed forward. A few days ago, there was a population-wide poll. More than 80 percent of the population had faith in human technology and believed in the safety of the City of Light Moon. In other words, more than 300,000 people hoped to move to the City of Light Moon. This number was more than half of humanity’s total population, so Yao Yuan had to be cautious with his decision.

After that, the inspection group for the City of Light Moon returned with their report. The City of Light Moon’s safety inspection was a pass. The citizens could move in safely now. At the same time, the report made by the inspection group stated that the maximum capacity of the city was 300,000 people, but the optimal population number was 150,000. In other words, only half of the hopefuls could migrate to the City of Light Moon...

Yao Yuan looked at the report in his hands and a headache appeared. This was a difficult decision to make, because it could lead to complaints of unfairness very easily. If one party was forced to stay on the Hope but another party was to go to the City of Light Moon when both of them were normal citizens on the Hope, and one party was not more impressive than the other, it would lead to resentment... Yao Yuan also didn’t think this was something that could be solved by leaving it to the people themselves...

"I guess we’ll continue to do the assignment according to contribution points..."

Yao Yuan sighed and made his decision. This was the fairest decision among the many unfair choices. Of course, priorities would be given to the families of the fallen heroes, then came the surviving heroes and their families.

After that would be the scientists and their families. Then the rest would be based on working age. The longer they had worked for human government, the more priority they would be offered...

"Lastly, all representatives and government officials will have to stay on the Hope until all the citizens who hope to move to the City of Light Moon have already moved there." Yao Yuan concluded the document with this proclamation. This was to suppress the complaints of abuse of power. With this proclamation in place, there wouldn’t be such complaints.

Of course, whether this might cause an uproar among the representatives and government officials was a different question entirely...

Thinking about this, Yao Yuan smirked coldly. If that truly happened, he wouldn’t mind taking some actions in return, because the Hope was lacking in cheap labor...

Just like that, one month later, the move to the City of Light Moon finally started. Almost all the families of the fallen heroes and surviving heroes chose to move to the city, it was the same for most scientists. One month later, around 170,000 people had moved into the City of Light Moon, there were about 30,000 families. Similarly, many important departments on the Hope started their move to the City of Light Moon. The first was naturally the government departments, the second was the House of Representatives, following that were the public amenities like the banks, hospitals, schools, and the like. One month later, almost every public center had been moved to the City of Light Moon. In fact, the Hope now had become more like a pure residential area. There were transport shuttles that ferried the people to and from both places every day. In fact, there were members of the House of Representatives that urged the government to build a super speed highway connecting the Hope and the City of Light Moon.

Zhang San’s family was exceptionally lucky. First, his father’s working age was long. Furthermore, he was part of the maintenance crew who helped fix the Hope when they were on both Planet Sahara and the new planet. At both of these times, humanity’s technology was not as advanced as it was now. If the spacesuits he was wearing at the time were damaged in any way, his life would’ve been over, meaning he had put his life on the line to help fix the ship. Therefore, his father’s contribution points and working age were both above the curve.

Furthermore, Zhang San was leading a production group for the construction of industrial base number two, so they were given a residence at the City of Light Moon. It was a quintessential bungalow with its own garden, hovercraft garage, and pool. The three story building had a balcony and beautiful interior design. It was more than enough to support the need of a family, in fact... Zhang San’s mother discovered that she was pregnant a few months ago. Zhang San was going to welcome his little brother or sister soon.

Today, Zhang San was shopping at a newly opened mall at the City of Light Moon with his girlfriend. The place was crowded due to the recent move and the upcoming new year. H-coins flowed like water. In fact, many things were sold out, like the new planet’s mink caterpillar skin. It was a fur material made from a caterpillar that had mink skin. The rug weaved from this material was soft and fluffy. It was suitable for both winter and summer. It was a luxury item and cost at least three or four months’ worth of Zhang San’s salary. However, he saw many people carrying one around like they were free.

For some reason, when he saw this, Zhang San was reminded of his mother’s smiling face when she first laid eyes on their new home and the excitement shown by his father when he found out his wife was pregnant. He subconsciously reached for his girlfriend’s hand and she smiled back at him.

"This is... the meaning of happiness," Zhang San said to himself.

His girlfriend looked at him and asked, "What did you say?"

"No... it’s nothing, it’s just..."

There seemed to be a fire burning in Zhang San’s eyes.

"I wish to protect this, this source of happiness...

"Even if I have to lay my life down for it!"