Epoch of Twilight

Chapter 494: Technological Boom (II)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Soon, it was close to 2018 and it had almost been five years since the onset of the apocalypse. The once endangered humans who had left the earth was now full of life, with their negative, supressed emotions now fading into the past. The residential area within the spaceship was flourishing. Since the people migrated into the spaceship two years ago, the progress in technological development had been flourishing. Many Glassian factories were already up and running. Batches of staff were assigned to work on them after a short period of training and within a period of one year, there were breakthroughs in the field of nanotechnology, electromagnetics, gene modification, quantum technology, artificial intelligence and nuclear fusion technology. Although the knowledge from these fields was based on Glassian technology, being able to do it within such a short period of time without relying on the artificial intelligence system of the spaceship was quite the accomplishment.

With the breakthrough in these fields, people were no longer confused with Glassian technology anymore. Of course, that did not mean human technology was now on par with the Glassians. In fact, it was far from it, only being on par with Glassian technology that was 60 years old. The knowledge humans have obtained from the Glassian artificial intelligence system was fragmented and though there were various applications and theories, most of it was incomplete and would take time to decipher and master.

...

Luo Yuan and a couple of the city hall’s top leaders were inspecting the latest results in a Glassian factory within the industrial area. In the massive test field, a giant that stood almost 20 meters high squat on the ground with more than 10 tools on its robotic hands hanging in the air. The robot seemed overwhelming to ordinary people even when it was stationary.

"So is this the Glassian engineering robot?" Tian Jinping asked in shock.

"That’s right. Honorable mayor and leaders, this robot has been in a dormant state ever since it was disconnected from the ship’s communication device with humans being unable to operate it at all. Now that we have replaced its brain with one that we’ve developed, it belongs to us, an engineering robot built by humans - a human engineering robot!" The head engineer of the factory said proudly.

The head engineer was one of the people who was given a chance to consume the wisdom elixir. Aside from the unreal sense of power and the urge to suppress others when it was first consumed, many have gotten over that feeling and had their feet rooted back in reality. However, there were some of them who could not get out of that mentality but as long as they did nothing to break the law, Luo Yuan did nothing to them.

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Luo Yuan looked at the massive robot and asked in great interest, "Chief Chen, please tell us more about this robot." Seeing as the question came from Luo Yuan himself, the head engineer was stunned and said in his excitement. "Yes, mayor! This robot is the biggest one in the Glassian arsenal, it is also the one with the most amount of features. It weighs 535 tons and has a miniature nuclear fusion furnace as well as a pulse engine, enabling it to support activities such as short distance interstellar travel, heavy machinery and spaceship repair, as well as small-scale asteroid mining. It is a multipurpose robot that is a necessary for interstellar flights within such a spaceship."

"How safe is it, would the ship’s artificial intelligence system regain control of it again?" Luo Yuan nodded and asked. He was not concerned about the artificial intelligence system betraying it as the entire ship was now under human control. To survive, it would never betray them without a Glassian mastermind behind it, pulling the strings but the artificial intelligence system had no control over this.

Chief Chen thought for a moment and his sharp mind had come up with countless scenarios. He replied, "That’s impossible, we’ve localized the communication devices as well as other functions of the robot into a language suitable for humans. Moreover, now that the factories were under human control and unless the compatibility between the artificial intelligence system and the communication device was improved, both of them would be completely incompatible and would still remain in the control of Hope No. 3, our very own invention."

Hope No. 3 was the third generation of quantum supercomputers that humans invented. It’s processing power was 10,000 times more powerful than the ones available before the apocalypse which included mobile phones. Although it was still a far way from catching up to the ship’s artificial intelligence system, it was already at 1/10,000 of its processing power. The gap seemed huge but at the rate human technology was progressing, they were inching closer every day. The first quantum supercomputers the humans invented was only 1/100 billionth of the ship’s artificial intelligence system’s processing power but it took them only one and a half years to come up with the third generation.

"Let’s activate it and see what it can do, shall we?" Luo Yuan nodded and said.

"Sure. For safety purposes, I’d like to ask the mayor and leaders to take a step back." Chief Chen said. As they stepped back, he lifted the portable device with his left hand and tapped on the three-dimensional screen. The once quiet test field was now filled with a buzzing sound that was not that loud but rather, sounded quite intimidating. It was the sound of the robot’s engine, a green light lit up on the robot’s head, it then stood up slowly.

The robot then lifted its heavy body and walked to the deck of the spaceship while doing a self-test. It did not make a single sound, its massive body giving out the impression that it was light which was quite contradictory. The robot apparently had an anti-gravity chip in its system as well as an outstanding balancing system which allowed it to adapt to any environment. Its systems scanned the environment and found a heavily damaged machine nearby and it walked towards it.

In Luo Yuan’s eyes, the machine seemed completely destroyed. Not only were the parts scattered all over the floor, its main systems were totally destroyed. Seeing as the leaders were curious about the robot, Chief Chen said, "There are more than 10,000 blueprints in its central databank. All of them came from the original databank from which we copied the blueprints over when we were rewriting its programme. We’ve instructed it to fix the machine, let’s see how effective it is."

The robot began moving again. Its circular eyes releasing a wide beam that scanned the machine before it and once it finished the scan, it began to retrieve data on the machine. Next, it began to move its metal arms that had more than 10 tools on it. Among the tools was a gigantic heavy hammer than weighed five tons, which were among other old-school tools like a metal plier as well as high-tech tools which had unknown functions. Even Luo Yuan could not figure out what some of the tools did.

The first step in fixing the machine was to disassemble it completely. The process was quite violent as some of the parts were pressed against one another and could not be separated so they were cut open using lasers. 10 seconds later, countless parts were arranged neatly on the side before the robot scanned them once more and picked it up using both its metal arms. The metal parts were completely bent out of shape, one of them cut in half by the robot earlier. The robot then heated the parts to a high temperature and welded the two parts together.

"Is that it?" Luo Yuan thought to himself but just as a tinge of skepticism grew within him, another robot arm joined the party. The tool that arm was holding seemed strange, it was a metal cylinder that was almost one meter thick. There was a concave ball on top of it but nobody knew what it was for. "What’s that tool the robot is holding?" Since Luo Yuan did not understand, he asked Chief Chen directly. "It’s a miniature, magnetic field shaping device!" Chief Chen said immediately and continued, "It’s able to shape metals as if they were liquids within its magnetic field and create parts according to the blueprints. It’s the robot’s main repair function."

Luo Yuan knew what the device was for once he heard Chief Chen mention its name. He had seen this technique before in other factories before this. Such techniques were used in metal smelting and forging factories but he had never seen such a small version. The robot’s engine began buzzing, apparently powering the equipment with a massive amount of energy. Luo Yuan could see the air around the magnetic field shaping device move and distort, causing the metal pieces to shake and they seemed like they were going to be absorbed by the robot. The device, however, seemed to have a strong control over the magnetic field to ensure that its magnetic field could do what it was intended to do.

Under the influence of the magnetic field, the shape of the part began to morph as the distorted metal morphed and the broken parts combined. Ten seconds later, the once useless part was now completely repaired. It looked as good as new and it was incredibly impressive. Apparently, the Glassians had superior technology when it came to magnetic fields to the point where they had full control over magnetic fields. Before the humans discovered Glassian technology, their technology in the field of magnetic fields was primitive.

If the humans possessed such technology during the reconstruction area era, the productivity in the industries they had going on then would have increased several-fold. Mutated beasts would have been less of a threat to humans. However, the application of such technology would require huge amounts of affordable energy which was not available then. If nuclear fusion technology was not developed then as it was now, even if humans were to acquire this technology, it would be redundant. Technology was meant to complement one another to create a ripple effect, it could not stand alone. Even if alien technology existed back then, it would not have made much of a difference if they could not utilize it.

The flow of each of the robotic limbs was smooth and neat and the repair was done to several other parts. As the operation area was massive, it took some time but the rest were fixed in less than 20 seconds each. Luo Yuan did some calculations and found that a few of the machines that weighed 10 tons were fixed within 15 minutes. He began clapping softly and before long the leaders next to him followed suit, filling the area with the sound of clapping. Chief Chen was blushing. In society these days, there was nothing more important than the recognition from your superior and not awards or glory.

...

Although the Glassian robot was not considered to be a breakthrough under the recent boom in the technological expansion, it was still meaningful progress for humans as it now meant that humans now possessed the basic ability to fix the spaceship. At the same time, they were now able to operate in space, enabling asteroid mining for materials. As more Glassian factories activated and production began on a larger scale, the materials they had in reserve were used up faster. Most of the materials used were only about 10% of the amount they had in inventory. On the other hand, about 30% of their pure iron reserve was used up as the megastructures were made of metal.

Luo Yuan knew the risks of that as the materials were meant for human survival if they ever encountered any danger in space. On the other hand, humans lacked the materials for their daily life as they needed to use it in every part of their lives. It was different than it used to be, life was hard and materials were limited. The only concern they had used to be food but now that life has taken a turn for the better and technology has progressed, if there were no changes, people would start to complain.

On the other hand, utilizing the materials were also meant to convince people to join the workforce so they would not laze around doing nothing. Though there are better ways to increase employment such as the service industry, this was an easy way to increase the rate of employment and create job opportunities for those who were unemployed. Prior to the apocalypse, the service industry in China surpassed the industrial sector. The scale of this in the United States would be even higher as their economy was booming.

In reality, at the current standard of human technology, it was possible to create entertainment for everyone. Now that the engineering robot had been decoded, building ordinary intelligent robots were a no-brainer. Unmanned factories that were similar to the Glassian factory were now feasible. However, if that happened, it would be like taking away the meaning of life for many people. Humankind still had a long way to go before they are able to enjoy life as they were just in their infancy, on a journey to leave their solar system into a dark universe. With an uncertain future, if they started relaxing now, the most likely outcome would be them being a group of wanderers who had no means of returning to their home planet.

This was not what Luo Yuan wanted to see. In order to support and encourage the people to thrive in their interstellar journey, the service industry was severely restricted. Aside from movies were only made for promotional purposes, the people had almost no entertainment. However, there were more adult-schools and part-time courses for the workforce that were being developed. Public tuition classes were everywhere and most of them were research-based. Learning had become a trend in society and the only objective was to push their technology as far as it could go.