Industrial Cthulhu doesn't believe in the end times.

Chapter 57 Vacuum Tube Radar and Differential Engine
"Today, the number of people mobilized has reached hundreds of millions, and each shelter has begun to operate. However, the problems arising from this are gradually becoming apparent."

The report was also sent to the Taimon base. Due to the subway being completely occupied, traffic jams and other issues were frequent. However, traffic control measures were gradually implemented in major urban areas.

“Some media outlets have started to exaggerate how terrifying our shelters are, and some outdated rhetoric is being used repeatedly, which has indeed affected some people.”

Su Xun was speechless: "People can only imagine what they have seen. They like to apply their own tricks to us, which is a kind of fixed mindset."

"This is no longer an ordinary criminal; we must strike hard."

After Feng Zhengze delegated power, Su Xun and Qin Chang also needed to handle more matters, including these. Su Xun said, "In chaotic times, harsh measures should be used. This is a method we have practiced many times, and I think we can do it."

Many people believe that the so-called severe punishments in times of chaos are merely a warning to others, deterring potential criminals through harsh laws and severe penalties, but in reality, this strategy has much more to it.

Severe penalties – this means heavy fines and expedited trials, as well as simplified procedures. ASEAN is a vast collective, comprising a quarter of the world's population, and cannot be easily resolved in a short time. In this situation, severe and swift action will quickly stabilize the situation.

With only a few days left before the cataclysmic event, we must remain vigilant, especially now. At the management level, some growing pains can be tolerated.

Of course, although severe punishments were used, imprisonment was still the primary method, while executions of the death penalty were postponed.

The current initiative is simply aimed at getting through these few days as smoothly as possible. If a major catastrophe doesn't occur, we can deal with the aftermath gradually.

And if a major catastrophe occurs, such operations will be even more necessary. In that more chaotic and turbulent phase, when the basic order is on the verge of collapse, evildoers will emerge one after another, and the people will suffer greatly.

Severely punishing criminals at this time is an effective way to respond to social sentiment and build consensus—when people come together as a group, order and stability become basic demands, and doing so can enhance social cohesion.

By then, there will be no need to worry about wrongful convictions or miscarriages of justice. Spiritual power can connect time and space, and high-level superhumans can even peer into the past. Even in the early stages of the apocalypse, there are many methods available.

As for what to do if criminals also use spiritual power, Su Xun believes he can confidently say that no one understands spiritual power better than him.

After exchanging ideas with the project staff, Su Xun took the elevator to the ground floor.

After the project moved into the Taimeng base, the renovation and construction of the base itself never stopped for a single day, and now it is finally coming to an end.

At the heart of the ground fortress complex, a disc-shaped building appeared.

Construction on this building began the day Su Xun was confirmed to be a reincarnated individual, and it has only been completed now.

It is a radar, and at the same time, it is also the base's computing center.

In the psionic environment following the Great Cataclysm, many sophisticated electronic products are difficult to use, especially chips. While simple circuit boards can be touched and repaired to make them usable, those delicate chips are basically unusable.

While EMP can also cause significant damage to hardware, spiritual energy is ultimately different. In many cases, spiritual energy manifests more as interference with modern technology—interference with light, interference with electromagnetic fields, and interference with electrical signals at the microscopic scale.

Some even believed that this interference was the reason why most animals turned into zombies, until Su Xun and others reached the ninth level and realized that there was a deeper logic behind it.

Leaving aside those distant issues, with many electronic components currently unusable, critical equipment such as radar and nuclear power plant control rooms require extensive upgrades. Fortunately, upgrading to more advanced systems is difficult, but modifying them in a less advanced direction is a goal that can be attempted within a month. After all, this time we genuinely have the technological reserves.

Many radars still rely on vacuum tubes as their core components, not because the technology is outdated, but because they are limited by physical laws.

The core of the radar station at the Taimon base is such a drone radar, which is distributed in an array in this disc-shaped building. After the core part is separated, it is connected to a large vacuum tube computer to perform basic azimuth calculations for the base's two main anti-aircraft guns - the legendary Land Shield 3000.

God knows where those computers came from.

Admittedly, with many control systems failing, these two close-in weapon systems are much slower in both rate of fire and reaction speed. However, their main task is no longer high-speed penetration missiles, but large mutated birds circling in the sky, which may occasionally lay flat to shoot at zombies that approach the base.

Placing these two gatekeepers at the base is basically overkill.

Su Xun came here not only to check on the construction progress of the radar station, but also to meet with some people.

Upon entering the gate, the most eye-catching sight is not the busy staff, but two large difference engines being installed.

This wasn't the first time Su Xun had seen this thing, but every time he saw it, he couldn't help but marvel at its pure mechanical beauty, which possessed a dazzling and mesmerizing charm.

One has to wonder which museum this was moved from.

To ensure sufficient planning redundancy in the face of a major catastrophe, ASEAN not only brought out vacuum tube computers and large difference engines, but also specially dispatched a special force to the Thai-Mon base.

The mental arithmetic unit is a group of human difference machines.

In the dormitory of the computing center, Su Xun met the team members. Team leader Liu Yun saluted him and reported for duty.

Su Xun nodded and looked at the group of team members behind him. These people were all quite young. He asked with concern, "Are you all settled in? Are you doing well here?"

After receiving a positive response, Su Xun led the group to familiarize themselves with the computing center.

Without special training, ordinary superhumans would need to reach at least the third rank to achieve their computing level.

People with such high computing power naturally have a unique advantage in the apocalypse, or rather, the purpose of this force's existence is to wait for this day—there are actually many such forces.

After letting these people briefly understand their job positions, Su Xun stood at a distance and watched them tidy up their dormitories.

This entire team moved into the base. How many of them will survive the cataclysm?
Vacuum tubes, difference engines, mental abacuses—the government couldn't actually determine which one would be useful, so they brought in everything they could find.

Thinking of the cruelty and sorrow that might appear in the near future, Su Xun couldn't bear to watch any longer and turned to leave.

(End of this chapter)