Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

As for those who refuse to pay, we need to find a way to make their pig farms go bankrupt so that everyone can remember them and form a real interest group.

Humans are ultimately short-sighted. Between a century-long cause and tomorrow's lunch, most people will consider the latter first, especially those in power. The sun exploding in 60 years will not pose much of a threat to them, because by then most of those in power will be dead or about to die.

In contrast, the threat of bankruptcy next month is a hundred times greater for them. Under such circumstances, they will naturally make the appropriate choice, which is especially important for Colombia's elite politicians. After all, capitalists have to wait for the financial report before they can react, while politicians have to fight for their approval ratings tomorrow.

They'll make any promise and do anything, no matter how stupid or idiotic, as long as it increases their approval ratings. So, Rembitox's reaction is not surprising.

As a country whose economy is supported by mining, how many people at Rembitox are actually working for the mines? Apart from those who are willing to invest in space resource development for various reasons or simply because they have spare money, what about the rest? They are bound to be opposed.

Especially the lower-level miners, they don't care about Terra's fate or anything long-term. They only know one thing: if this project succeeds, they will be unemployed tomorrow. Not to mention the small and medium-sized mine owners who are unable to invest, and the large mine owners who are unwilling to invest due to large sunk costs until they have recouped their investment or are forced to do so.

These are the main vote banks for Rembitox politicians, so it's easy to understand Rembitox's seemingly schizophrenic behavior. Politicians don't care which direction the country is heading, even if it's a cliff, they'll step on the gas.

Conversely, for Colombian politicians, the need for cheap minerals and resources is a fundamental national policy and a core demand from the general public to businesses. Therefore, they will express considerable support for the Kazdel space program in order to win votes.

This support does not conflict with the suppression of their space program as unrealistic in public opinion and other aspects, nor with the promotion of their own refuge bonds. Therefore, this is another kind of schizophrenia.

Just as the views of the US military-industrial complex and agricultural groups on China are completely different, even leading the US to be in a state of vacillation and mental split on this issue, the opinions of major agricultural export groups and farmers engaged in agriculture have influenced a considerable number of members of Congress.

On the other hand, elites in high-tech and software industries feel threatened by China's rapid technological rise, influencing another group of legislators.

Ultimately, this leads to a split personality on the issue of China, resulting in a ridiculous situation where one person slaps themselves in the face repeatedly.

Meanwhile, in the northern mines, the blasted fissures have stopped erupting, and the once spectacular lava river disappeared a year ago, replaced by a vast obsidian plain. Although the lava river has vanished, mining operations on this obsidian alluvial plain remain dangerous.

The ground is prone to collapse at any time, with numerous fissures. Groundwater is evaporated by high temperatures, forming hot steam springs that can instantly cook a person. In addition, some areas still contain soft magma blocks that have not completely cooled.

The long, outstretched boom structure moved to a low-lying area of ​​obsidian, and the column hanging at the end released its hook, crashing to the ground like a bomb. Instantly, the obsidian structure shattered, allowing the column to pierce into it.

"Support 4 installation complete!" The drone swarm then reinforced the four supports, further securing them to the ground. Then, they began constructing a support system and other auxiliary support systems along the top of the supports, continuously reinforcing them with cables and crab-leg-like alloy structures, eventually forming a structure similar to chip pins, before finally laying the platform in the middle.

Once the platform was laid, heavy transport aircraft deployed a large number of cargo bays and component compartments. Drones quickly constructed integrated magma extraction and processing equipment on the platform and laid three superalloy pipelines: one for transporting coolant, one for transporting displacement agent, and the last one to deliver the scorching metal stream to the refining plant on a safe high ground.

A tiny mining station, excavating on a lava planet, has been deployed. These small stations have relatively low production capacity, producing and condensing less than 3 tons of crude metal extract per hour.

These metal ore chunks, whose components have not yet been completely separated, resemble nuggets of gold. They are sent to the next metallurgical plant to be refined into crude metal ingots, loaded onto ships, sold in some, smelted locally into common alloys, and finally sent to the stellar foundry in Kazdel to become superalloy components.

This extraction speed is relatively weak by Covenant standards. The standard for a magma surface mining station is 12 to 15 tons of extract per hour, while large-scale stations can easily drain an entire magma lake, all of which are built on magma seas.

However, even small-scale damage to the planetary environment can easily cause large-scale crustal collapse. Therefore, it is necessary to fill and replace the material. Simply put, this involves crushing the surface rocks and mountains into a paste-like slag and mixing it with nanofluids, and then injecting it into the mining site. This solidifies into a mine tunnel while supporting the facilities above and stabilizing the crust.

It is also one of the means of establishing colonies and safe and stable land on magma planets. Therefore, even if the amount extracted seems amazing, in reality, one-third or even two-thirds of it may need to be consumed by its own mine tunnels and mining faces for reinforcement.

However, the main metals consumed are cheap iron and similar materials; rare metals and heavy metals, which are the main extracts, are not consumed, or are only allowed to be consumed in very small quantities.

"Ready to power on?"

"Ready?"

"This job would be much better with a Blood Demon!" the engineer exclaimed, gripping the handle. "Sucking the blood of the earth just doesn't feel right without a Blood Demon!"

"Of course!" The two of them pulled down the handle at the same time, and the claw-shaped metal structure crashed down from the center of the platform with a loud bang, completely shattering the obsidian surface, followed by solidified rock, semi-solidified lava, and then a high-energy particle beam bombarded the lava layer, stirring up a large amount of golden debris, and gold dust was scattered all over the area below the platform.

"Sink into the geothermal power generation terminal!"

"The generator has been submerged, the grid has been connected, and the power supply is normal."

"Anticoagulant beam preparation"

"Anti-coagulation beam power increased to 40%, first mining begins!" Several high-energy laser beams irradiated the area around the magma pool to prevent it from solidifying due to heat loss.

"Extractor in place, begin!" With a slight tremor, under the microgravity field, the geological stress on the magma no longer needed to resist gravity. Just like a bursting bulge, a golden-red flow of material surged up directly, like an oil well gushing out.

"Blowout, restraint reorientation, prepare, 3, 2, 1, close!"

The splashing golden molten flow was gradually tamed, transforming into a stable stream of extracted minerals that flowed into the processing platform above, becoming coarse extract blocks.

The waste residue, along with the filler material delivered by the filler pipe, is then refilled around the magma pool, forming an artificial crustal reinforcement structure. As magma is continuously extracted, this filler layer will continue to penetrate deeper into the earth.

Don't assume that the damage to a planet's environment is less if the Covenant doesn't engage in planetary fragmentation. In reality, it still flattens mountains, dries up the mantle, evaporates oceans, and tears apart the crust. The only difference is that the core and deep mantle can still maintain normalcy.

The only difference is that a fragmented planet is left with only condensed debris and asteroid belts, while a mining planet that is mined normally... can be used for industrial production or military purposes after its outer shell re-condenses.

Of course, for the time being, it is not necessary to use it for administrative or residential purposes. Some areas have unique landforms due to mining, which can be used for tourism. For the Star Alliance itself, it is not completely useless, but for the expansion of other civilizations... it is useless.

Otherwise, why would this group be so unpopular throughout the galaxy? To be fair, most advanced civilizations are like this, but others still need to consider their future needs for residence and administration.

Simply put, people should at least eat nicely, leaving something on their plates. But the Star Alliance members are like reincarnated starving ghosts; it's normal for them to leave nothing on their plates, and it's even possible for them to leave no plates at all.

It's like in a high-end restaurant, a group of gentlemen who have already accumulated their initial wealth and are starting to act civilized are having a polite and elegant meal, when a burly, strong-looking man from the remote countryside, born under the sign of Orion, suddenly appears, slurping away rice from a pot. Eventually, he even forgets where he left the pot. No wonder he's not well-liked.

Chapter 71 Space Tourism

Chapter 71

The molten lava slowly flows upwards in the opposite direction, forming folds between the molten flow and the static structure of the cooled surface, like piled-up ropes. The surface layer is mainly composed of silica, which is continuously separated by the separator and falls as solidified rock. As the silica content of the magma in the lower layers increases, its fluidity will further decrease.

At this point, a powerful pulse of ions will be fired, breaking up this solidified, thick magma, and then the extraction will continue upwards.

After initial separation, the lava flows slowly along the superalloy track, forming a slag-like lava waterfall that enters the next stage of the extraction pool. At this point, the surface-crystallized and cooled alumina, some silica, and Originium crystals are gradually extracted. Meanwhile, gases such as fluorine, chlorine, and hydrogen sulfide emitted from the device are also collected.

After multiple rounds of processing, a large amount of silica filler residue, once cooled, will be injected back into the lower layers as filler to supplement the strength of the Earth's crust, eventually forming a huge cylindrical filler tunnel in the mantle layer.

Under mantle pressure, regenerated magma will erupt in the first stage, followed by deeper primary magma, which is the molten core material captured during planet formation and contains a large amount of heavy metals and rare metals.

Workers dressed in heavy-duty furnace work clothes carried long iron hooks across the flowing molten metal. The temperature in the workshop was over 90 degrees Celsius. If you touched the ground and walls with your bare hands, you could instantly smell the aroma of roasting meat. Even wearing the thickest protective suits, you could feel a psychological heatwave rolling in this workshop filled with a terrifying dark red atmosphere.

With a clang, the iron hook pulled hard on the cover of the feed inlet, and a large pile of dazzling, multicolored stones rolled into the prepared cargo box below. Only after the cargo box was full did the workers check whether the containers inside were empty before closing the metal lid.

I pressed the holographic panel next to me to bring over the crane hook and take these cargo boxes away. These are all considered "waste" in a sense, but for some reason, they are included in the recycling materials. Therefore, the automatic waste filling and processing channel has been removed, and manual cleaning is required to avoid blockage.

At first, the workers were excited about the sparkling gems, but after a few days, they became numb to them and even felt that they were just some sparkling little stones.

These gems are transported truckload after truck to a processing station far from the mining platform. After processing, they are reduced to oxygen and aluminum, as well as some rare elements. Originium crystals are processed separately.

As for metal processing, the workers didn't need to worry about it. The operators lay in the monitoring room, flipping through a magazine, occasionally glancing up at the parameters and status on the screen, and then continuing to read their books.

Under the floor-to-ceiling windows in front of the monitoring room, the lava flow, after undergoing multiple separations and treatments, now has almost zero fluidity. It's like a pile of soft glass. As it passes through the crystallization cooling chamber, it emerges as a pile of cracked metal lumps mixed with some glittering silica gravel and other impurities, sprayed with water mist.

Then, the hammers in the crushing workshop break them apart, and after washing with water, they become boxes upon boxes of complex metal blocks of various sizes on a conveyor belt. The main components are aluminum and iron, followed by nickel, then copper and tin, while the content of heavy metals such as gold and lead is about 3% to 5%.

This is far richer than any gold mine on the ground. Terra, which is often ravaged by natural disasters and has deep magma eruptions, has a greater quantity and wider distribution of gold minerals on the surface than on Earth. As a result, gold mines are common wherever there are Originium mines.

Therefore, gold is slightly less valuable in Terra, but not by much. After all, gold mining is a rather troublesome thing for the people of Terra. It is mixed with Originium ore, and although the content is rich, the mining is also very dangerous. Only Rhodes Island, which is highly skilled and daring and not afraid of infection, dares to rely on this to supplement their income. Other companies do not have this courage. Whether the gold they mine is enough to cover the cost of operator medicine is a question.

"Pfft!" Fine water mist sprayed onto the metal block, and the turbid waste liquid was collected through the holes in the floor. The fine impurities were also carried away, leaving only the large metal ingot. Under the light, it shimmered with iridescent colors. This metal block, extracted from magma and cooled by crystallization, had a very complex composition and displayed a variety of colors on its surface.

"Colorful metal blocks are the main product of lava mining. In addition to these, there are also coal black metal blocks and bamboo shoot-shaped metal blocks formed in the later stages of mining due to increased mining depth and interference from fillers, resulting in a lack of magma minerals. Generally, when these two types of things appear, it means that a large lava cavity has appeared below, and the platform needs to enter a state of shutdown and relocation."

Simply put, once the magma chamber in one place is drained, another one is moved on. By the time the other one is emptied, the first one is almost full. For mining groups with deep pockets, sometimes they simply build two platforms together, one for mining and the other for maintenance, just like a farmer's two-field system, taking turns.

When the filling rate of the magma chamber can no longer keep up, the location is changed, and a magma bomb is dropped on the spot to completely shatter the empty magma chamber and the brittle crust, turning it into a larger and deeper magma lake. Then, a larger mining platform is dropped in.

As for the debris, it would pile up on both sides, so after some early mining planets cooled completely on the surface, they formed unique landforms that attracted many tourists to visit the mines.

The most distinctive feature is the square mountains formed by mining waste and filler rock, much like the mountain ranges in Minecraft, all composed of extremely regular blocks. Moreover, due to the residual fine minerals and the cooling and crystallization of lava at different depths, each block of these mountains exhibits a gradient of color from top to bottom, and some are even translucent blocks.

It's like a series of real gemstone mountains, and the horizontal tunnels left behind during the mining have become popular tourist destinations. Under the refraction of light, the interiors often present a bizarre and unique light and shadow effect, as if you are in a dream.

“These metals…” Nian picked up a piece of metal that was still warm from the mine cart. Under the light, it reflected a beautiful color. “How many alloys can be made from these metals?”

"That depends on what kind of alloy it is." Old Xia only had a superficial understanding of this industry, and he never needed to use such a mining platform. "However, it won't be too low. The biggest problem now is that this stuff is too destructive to the environment. We need to relocate all the people in the northern ranch soon. Soon this place will no longer be suitable for human habitation."

At the very least, it's not suitable for ordinary humans to live in without protective equipment. Those mining stations are releasing tens of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide, chlorine, hydrogen sulfide, and other such substances into the atmosphere every day. And when these scorching gases come into contact with the cold air from the Arctic...

"You should thank Originium Cloud, otherwise, strong acid rain would have started falling around here a week ago." Old Xia rolled his eyes. Acid rain was alright, but later it became a mixture of acid rain and poisonous rain. If you got even a little bit on it, it would rot from the skin to the bone.

After the gas is released, clumps of yellowish-green chlorine gas will form on the ground due to evaporation. Without protective gear, it's no different from being inhaled by poison gas in the trenches of World War I. Forget about farming, people won't survive.

As for environmental protection, the Covenant never considers this issue when mining planets. Therefore, Terra's greenhouse effect will deteriorate rapidly in a very short time. The more mining stations are built, the faster the deterioration will be, and the climate problem that is already deadly due to natural disasters will be further amplified.

The propaganda department was prepared to shift the blame to the government; otherwise, how could they get those who couldn't bear to leave their hometowns to move?

On the other hand, for most desert and barren planets lacking greenhouse gases, such mining stations do help stabilize the planet's atmosphere in a sense. However, there are no fools like that to deploy them on habitable planets like Terra, so the design companies haven't really considered this issue.

Of course, if Lao Xia really needs it, he can simply pay the company there to revise the blueprints and design a version specifically for the Terrans that can recycle these toxic and harmful substances and gases, strengthen environmental protection, and avoid causing large-scale weather disasters.

However, in the minds of the Doctor and Lao Xia, Terra, with less than a hundred years left to be used, was obviously not worth wasting. To make the surface completely uninhabitable, either Lao Xia's scale would have to be expanded several thousand times, or another century or more would have to pass. Who cares if Terra still has a century left to be used?

"Shall we continue the tour?"

“Let’s continue, why not? Otherwise, how can we convince those guys of our strength?” Nian rolled his eyes. The next stop was the metal smelting plant, where they were responsible for remelting those colorful metal blocks into relatively pure elemental metal ingots or pre-processed alloy blocks.

The single-element metal ingots were sent to the metallurgical center in Kazdel, where they were initially mixed and packaged into individual crates according to the superalloy proportions provided there. The remaining scraps and rough-machined alloys were then melted down into conventional alloy materials, including various types of steel, aluminum alloys, and copper alloys, as well as the biggest byproduct—gold and silver.

These two parts will not be sent to superalloy smelting, but will be sent to the electronic equipment workshop. Coincidentally, the Xianmin Electronics Factory under construction urgently needs these gold and silver as raw materials.

As products of supernova explosions, these two substances are extremely rare throughout the universe, yet their usage is enormous. In fact, if Lao Xia hadn't been using the most basic civilian technology, gold would have been indispensable as a raw material if he were truly preparing to manufacture special metals such as superheavy element alloys and superconductors for the Star Alliance.

Because superheavy elements are almost impossible to exist stably in nature, and those superheavy island elements that exist stably require extremely harsh conditions and huge energy consumption. Theoretically, it is not impossible to perform the Midas touch from iron or even hydrogen, but the energy required is...

Forget about the "infinite energy" of nuclear fusion (because it's not infinite). Even burning antimatter requires burning hundreds of kilograms at a time. Even if the Covenant is rich, it can't withstand that kind of consumption.

Therefore, choosing heavy elements that are as far back in the composition as possible, and raw materials that are as stable as possible, makes it relatively easier to prepare superheavy islands in terms of cost and process. Thus, gold and lead become the best materials.

However, metals such as lead, tungsten, and osmium have a wider range of uses than gold. For interstellar societies, these heavy metals, especially lead, have always been in short supply. Therefore, gold, which has a relatively narrower range of uses, has become an important industrial raw material.

"These steel materials will be sent to Da Yan to be sold later; we won't be able to use them all."

“We definitely can’t use it all.” Nian looked up at the “steel wall” in front of him. “It’s even a question of whether the Great Yan Dynasty can consume it. To be honest, the strength of this steel isn’t enough for anything major. How do you guys handle this steel?”

"Usually they are discarded and not processed into steel. Of course, some are used as ammunition. If there is too much left over, it is used to build wonders on the surface."

"Building wonders?"

"Yes, to avoid these waste materials floating in space and affecting the orbit, and launching them towards the sun is too expensive, we simply process them and pile them up on the surface into all sorts of random things. If any civilization that has just entered the interstellar age finds these stockpiles, it can be considered a treasure left for the destined person." Old Xia silently complained in his heart, "Although civilizations that have entered the interstellar age are probably also very troubled by these useless low-quality iron alloys."

It's not that iron is useless, but these low-quality byproduct ferroalloys are useless. If they take them back to be melted down, they'll probably have to pay extra for them.

"So, we gradually phased out these small composite structures with low utilization rates and replaced them with larger, more efficient ones, so we didn't have to find a place to dump the waste." Although there is still a lot of garbage waiting for someone to find it.

Meanwhile, in orbit, the Babel space station has completed the installation of almost all of its modules. Only the subsequent expansion into Space Bay and Space Shipyard is yet to be completed, which will require clearing enough space and navigation channels before it can begin.

The space station has a standard spindle structure, with a three-section core module as the central axis, from which four connecting passageways extend outwards, linking to four functional zones. Each functional zone consists of three functional modules and a circular power module.

These functional modules can be expanded to the surrounding areas. The four functional areas are the experimental area, the living area, the material storage area, and the comprehensive area. The modules in the comprehensive area are designed and manufactured by other countries and are compatible with the specifications.

The core area contains the docking module, life support module, and command module. The command module is a spherical polyhedral structure. "Skati III, your orbital position is 0.92 degrees off. Please correct immediately." Inside the circular command area, the Sarkaz girl, who is in charge of the station, nervously looks at the approaching Skadi spaceship through the open skylight.

The command module is located at the very bottom of the entire synchronous space station, and from Terra's perspective, it is upside down, with its head skylights facing directly onto Terra's ground, allowing it to observe new launches from the ground.

"Improving, entering guided docking mode."

"Switch to mode three, Skadi!" Station Chief pressed the "Guidance Mode: Three" button in front of him, and then the docking module at the other end began to transmit guidance signals.

After more than an hour of arduous maneuvering and maneuvering, the Skadi III space shuttle, or rather the shuttle, finally docked stably with the docking module. With a hissing sound as the airlock closed, Truth followed behind its predecessor, grabbing the handle and floating into the station.