The stars, but they become the gray wind

"These striking workers are the most determined I've ever seen."

"We cannot allow the progress we have made in Leningrad to be wasted because of their temper."

"You have a point, Irina. My boss and the president are calling me almost every hour now, asking if this damn thing has been resolved."

"It's the same here. I'm asked by my superiors to solve the problem as quickly as possible."

"But they refused to budge, especially on the most crucial point. They demanded that Goldilocks be transported to Mars. This idea is too outrageous and we cannot agree to it."

"I see only one way. We bypass them and have our astronauts on both sides immediately restart the fuel manufacturing equipment."

"But they have not received training and experience in operating the relevant equipment and machines."

"Although their main job is astronauts, they are also very good technical talents. This is the only way."

"If Helios can't solve the workers' problems, then we'll have to rely on ourselves."

.........

"You said they would give in to us in a few Martian days."

"It's been over a week now!"

"Shut up, you wimp! You think this is going to be easy? We have to hold our ground and keep going, man!"

"We must unite. If they ask us to start returning to work one by one, the entire strike movement will fail!"

"But I came here to earn money to support my family. I just know that I have no income at all now."

"Yes, but they are too, and they are starting to panic. We have to hold on."

At this moment, a worker suddenly ran into the meeting place with an anxious look on his face.

"Listen, I just heard they're going to start the fuel generator themselves without us!"

"They want to mess with us, can we let them succeed?"

"Of course not!" the workers present shouted in unison.

When astronauts from various countries arrived at the airlock and planned to go to the fuel factory to restart the fuel production equipment, they were all stunned when they saw the empty hangers and cabinets.

"Where are all our spacesuits?"

"Hey, everyone, come and take a look outside!" The group saw through the glass on the airlock that all the space suits were piled up in the open space outside the airlock.

"You mean there are no other usable spacesuits on this entire base?"

"Yes, sir. They also used the rover to block the airlock entrance to the fuel plant. That's a pretty impressive move, I have to admit."

"We have to use our brains and come up with solutions, understand? How do we solve the problem?" As the base commander, Danielle felt overwhelmed. Since she took office, she had a lot more white hair on her head, perhaps because of the influence of various political reasons on Earth, or because of the endless troubles on the Mars base.

"The fuel plant is too far away, the makeshift pressure pot won't hold up, and it would take too long to make a makeshift pressure suit from scratch."

"Stop talking! We were about to capture such an important asteroid, but in the end, we were hindered by our own people!"

"Well, what if we don't go above ground, but go underground?"

Palmer suggested.

.........

With a respirator on his face and a headlamp strapped to his head, Palmer climbed a ladder into the base's main water pipe.

"Oh, what's that weird smell?"

"I think it might be the wastewater from the compost tank."

“It’s a little tight, but I think it’s doable.”

"Are you sure they don't know this way?"

"They couldn't possibly have imagined that we would drain the main water supply to the freezing center and then have people crawl through the pipes."

"But it will take at least 12 hours to completely drain the pipes, so we'd better start now."

…………

"Sigh... you guys are really messing around. Putting a bunch of amateurs in charge of professional machinery only results in accidents. Forcing your own astronauts to disregard professional knowledge and experience is the result of reckless actions. Consider yourself lucky that no one died. Even in this world, the leadership of various countries is still filled with these weirdos who like to ignore basic rules and give orders blindly by ignorant amateurs."

"There's nothing wrong with a makeshift team making decisions, but if there are too many self-righteous, self-righteous people in that makeshift team who ignore basic rules, then that's a serious problem."

"Damn it! Self-righteous idiots like these are responsible for humanity becoming what it is today."

From a distance of several astronomical units, Renlong knew everything that was happening on the crimson planet. He was unhappy that the political leaders of both sides forced their subordinates to ignore basic rules and act recklessly for the sake of a little benefit.

"Let me guess, if something really goes wrong during the process, they will most likely put the blame on the striking workers. It was clearly them who gave the order in the beginning, letting the astronauts on both sides act recklessly. Tsk, aren't there too many insects and self-righteous idiots in human society?" Renlong frowned unhappily.

Chapter 183: The Teian Space Travel Enthusiast Who Wants to Drive a Torch Ship (6000)

When the first Martian strike in human history broke out in the solar system, 44 light-years away, above the star Tiandajiangjun VIb, the glass eels launched a large number of von Neumann self-replicating machine modules towards the red dwarf star below.

Specially designed for use in stellar environments, the quark-sized Von Neumann self-replicator module is deployed in the low-orbit region of the star, and begins to directly convert mass into energy with the energy provided by the red dwarf, and begins to proliferate at an exponential scale. As the Grey Wind that follows the union has continuously updated and iterated its own microscopic structure for hundreds of millions of years, today's "Grey Wind" is actually a Von Neumann machine factory that condenses all the technology and production capabilities of the entire civilization into a quark-sized self-replicating unit. It is no exaggeration to say that the Grey Wind is now the strongest Von Neumann machine, which can replicate itself exponentially in the most chaotic environment, such as a pile of disordered gas. As long as there is enough matter, even in the early stages of the formation of the universe after the Big Bang, the entire universe can be replicated exponentially. The universe is a disordered gas nebula composed only of light elements such as hydrogen and helium. The current Gray Wind can also replicate exponentially and infinitely in such an environment almost permanently. Of course, since the energy required to replicate itself in disordered gas is often higher than in liquid or solid, the efficiency of Gray Wind's self-replication within a certain period of time will be lower than that in solid, and the time period required for a self-replication will also increase. Therefore, in most cases, whether it is Calisi and others or the Sky Star and Glass Eel civilizations, as users of Gray Wind, they prefer to place the Gray Wind, a von Neumann self-replicator, into solid matter for self-replication. If there is no available solid matter nearby, they will consider placing it in a liquid or disordered gas environment.

"The abundance of heavy elements in this red dwarf star is a bit too low." Just as Zao Chiqi was complaining about this, a whip-like prominence of matter passed by the Dyson Cloud energy collection module of the von Neumann self-replicator that was being deployed in low orbit. The von Neumann module that was acquiring stellar energy and matter would certainly not miss the opportunity to obtain a large amount of stellar matter. The deployed Dyson Cloud module adjusted its own running angle and orbital altitude, and directly collided with the prominence of the star that was ejected from the surface of the star at an altitude of more than 20 kilometers. Without extremely advanced materials technology, letting the Dyson Cloud module perform such an operation would be tantamount to self-destruction, but this is not suitable for even creating truly ideal lightweight rigid materials and stable materials. For the glass eels of steady-state zero-element matter, this is just a common operation after they become a Type II civilization. Even if Zao Chiqi, who is sitting in the driving seat of the ship, wants to, he can easily drive the spacecraft into the star for a bath, and then drive it out unscathed. The spacecraft shell made of color nuclear force armor is enough to withstand the energy of a supernova explosion at a very close distance. For the two civilizations of Sky Star and Glass Eels, driving the spacecraft into a star for a bath can be said to be a thing with no operational and technical difficulty. However, no one usually does this, unless there are some guys who are really bored and like to drive their spacecraft into a star, a nondescript super-large fusion reactor, for sightseeing.

The side of the unfolded von Neumann self-replicator Dyson Cloud module facing the sun is covered with a layer of stable zero-element matter (neutron degenerate material) with a thickness of only about one centimeter. Under the action of the anti-gravitational field, a large amount of stellar matter ejected along with the solar prominence is extracted into the mass-energy conversion equipment of the Dyson Cloud module, becoming a nano-matter reserve for the manufacture of artificial stargates.

"Speaking of which, this kind of von Neumann self-replicating machine with a single self-replicating unit the size of a quark should no longer be called a nanomachine, right? If we have to be picky, it should be called a quark-level self-replicating machine." In the holographic observatory of this research vessel, a glass eel that had a particularly good relationship with Zao Chiqi was playing with the holographic image of the star Tiandajiangjun 6b, which he was repeatedly enlarging and shrinking, while talking to Zao Chiqi who was still guarding the bridge.

"It's just a name that's been passed down based on historical inertia. Just like in the language and expressions of the Sky Star civilization, the word 'robot' doesn't necessarily refer to a humanoid machine. A multifunctional robotic arm or multi-legged bionic machine equipped only with wheels or tracks is often generally referred to as a robot. The term 'nanomachine' for von Neumann self-replicators is also a result of historical inertia. The original von Neumann self-replicators we developed were called nanomachines because they were only nanometer-sized. And for similar reasons, all the more microscopic von Neumann self-replicators developed and used later were not called atomic-level self-replicators or quark-level self-replicators. Instead, the general term 'nanomachine' has been passed down."

"However, the generic term 'nanomachine' for von der Neumann self-replicators is essentially similar to the meaning of the word 'robot' in the Sky Star language. Both are just general references, not specific names for a specific type or purpose of von Neumann self-replicators."

"I see. However, the von Neumann self-replicator that our civilization initially developed and then deployed in almost all fields seems to be a degraded version of the subatomic von Neumann self-replicator that naturally exists within our bodies, right?"

"Yes, our neighbor Sky Star and we undoubtedly have a very high starting point when it comes to von Neumann self-replicators. This is because they, or the environment around them, naturally possess one or more extremely efficient von Neumann self-replicators with incredible adaptability to extreme environments. They have played a crucial role in allowing the entire civilization to establish a fully automated industrial system that does not require any individual participation."

"This is also the benefit of industrial civilization under the highly efficient von Neumann self-replicating machine system. The industrial production system that maintains the survival and sustainable development of the entire civilization requires no individual participation. No individual needs to participate in the construction and maintenance of this industrial system. The entire system can automatically and almost permanently replicate and grow at an exponential rate. Each self-replicating unit will replicate itself once or multiple times within a cycle, achieving 1+1=2, 2+2=4, 4+4=8, 8+8=16... At this rate, replication and growth will never end."

"But ultimately, aside from this extremely efficient, artificially created von Neumann self-replicator, any form of intelligent life or civilization is essentially a von Neumann self-replicator, right?"

"But without a civilization built on this von Neumann self-replicating industrial system, its growth rate is limited and unstable. Do you know the annual industrial growth rate of the human civilization 44 light-years away?"

"How many?"

"The average annual rate is about 3 to 5 percent."

"Is it this low?"

"Yes, the scale and rate of growth of industries that rely on the participation of intelligent individuals are limited. Even if this scale can be expanded at an extremely high rate in the early stages, there will be a marginal effect. When this marginal effect is reached or approached, the development speed and expansion of civilization will slow down sharply, or even stagnate completely."

"The human civilization 44 light-years away encountered this very situation. As long as the scale of the entire civilization's industrial system requires human participation, its growth efficiency is extremely limited, making it difficult to achieve long-term or even permanent exponential growth."

"And do you know what the rate of growth of our civilization's industrial scale is?"

"Of course I know, but it's common sense. After each colonized star system completes all local infrastructure construction work, it will send unmanned spacecraft and fleets equipped with von Neumann self-replicators to the other 10 nearby star systems."

"After a self-replication cycle, the scale of our civilization will increase tenfold compared to the previous stage. If the first stage was one star system, the next stage would be ten, the next stage would be 1000 star systems, and the next stage would be 10000 star systems."

"If we didn't need to build comprehensive stellar engineering and related infrastructure in every galaxy, and instead just built a stargate, we could actually expand much faster."

"Because the initial scale of the neighboring Sky Star is larger than ours, their celestial engineering construction progress and expansion speed are also much faster than ours. If we weren't both intentionally limiting the growth scale and speed of our von Neumann self-replicators to a certain extent, the entire Milky Way would probably be filled with our von Neumann self-replicators very soon."

The clothes are also the wife's dead things and the wine is like a rip

In the fourth orbit of the star Tiandajiangjun 6a, a massive satellite orbiting the sunlit gas giant called Troll by the Theians has ushered in a new day. For the Theians living on the satellite of this gas giant, a day in their cognition is not the time it takes for their celestial body to rotate once, but the time it takes for their mother planet Theia to orbit the gas giant above their heads. And a year is the time it takes for the gas giant above their heads to orbit the star once.

Moia Rock got out of bed in a daze. After he climbed out of bed, the artificial intelligence assistant of the house he lived in automatically opened the curtains for him. The warm sunlight of Tianda General 6a shone into the room. Moia Rock scratched his stone skin, took out a can of acidic organic crude oil from the freezer, and drank it every meal. For Moia Rock, today was a very special day. The torch ship he and several friends had customized was finally completed. The intelligent orbital unmanned shipyard responsible for the manufacture of this customized civilian torch ship notified him last night that he could come to pick up the ship in the next two days.

This customized interplanetary torch ship has a very special meaning to Moia. It is the first torch ship in his life. For this torch ship, he and four other close friends spent almost all the credit points accumulated by the five of them in the past six years to obtain such a torch ship.

Theia civilization completed planetary unification hundreds of years ago. Since then, the booming general strong artificial intelligence has taken over almost all work in society and established a digital economic production and management system that provides most of the material needs of all citizens in society. It provides all citizens with free and unconditional comprehensive services including infrastructure construction, housing, education, medical care, and elderly care. For example, the two-story villa with a small courtyard where Moia Rock currently lives is one of the standard houses provided free and unconditionally to every citizen by the AGI economic management system of theia civilization.

Although when this digital social and economic system, which is completely managed and operated by artificial intelligence, was just beginning to be implemented, some Theians questioned whether this fully automated social system, which did not require any participation from Theians in its operation and management, would cause some unforeseen dangers and negative impacts, such as inevitable structural unemployment in the entire Theian society and low-probability events such as potential artificial intelligence rebellions, in the end, with the leap brought about by the unstoppable trend of technological development, this fully automated digital economic system, which was completely established, operated and managed by AG1 general strong artificial intelligence, has been popularized in all aspects of society, and more and more jobs in Theian society are being completely taken over by artificial intelligence. Replacement, and the subsequent structural unemployment of all Theians did not bring about the terrible consequences as expected. The general strong artificial intelligence of the Theian society that was responsible for running this system at the time provided a solution for all Theians. That was the "Act to Provide All Theians with Basic Income and Basic Needs Plan" which allowed Theians to completely separate themselves from all social production and management work. According to the plan of this bill, the general strong artificial intelligence that manages production work in all fields of Theian society will conduct real-time statistics and monitoring of the specific needs of every Theian citizen, accurate to every Theian citizen, and provide them with exactly what they need.

For example, if an area where the Teian people live has backward infrastructure and lacks medical facilities and institutions, then the artificial intelligence responsible for managing the Teian society will accurately provide hospitals and other related infrastructure construction here, and even provide robot private doctors and nannies for every Teian in the area who has medical needs.

Likewise, if a Teian wants something

For example, a high-performance personal computer

Then the Theia Society General AI responsible for handling this demand will search the nearest community public warehouse, and then the place farther away, where this item may be available.

If there is such a high-performance personal computer, Al will look for the nearest available equipment, such as through a warehouse management robot, mobilize the nearest automatic transport vehicle, and deliver the computer to the Theian.

After the personal computer is extracted from the warehouse, it will be marked with a temporary delivery destination, and then each level of delivery or transportation equipment will use its own idle transportation capacity to deliver the item to the place where it will be delivered to the next level of automatic transportation equipment.

Of course, the specific path planning is calculated and optimized by each level of transportation equipment.

In this case, the essence of this social management system based on AGl general artificial intelligence technology is a super-enhanced version of the program in which an automatic transport robot in an automated logistics center moves a piece of goods from one shelf to another.

All of these specific demands raised by individual citizens of Teia, and the corresponding production, inventory, and logistics transportation will be recorded and summarized by the AI ​​responsible for the relevant supply chain, summarizing the vector of the production flow trajectory of each item and predicting the future changes of each inventory. Such an AI management program is essentially a super-enhanced version of the program that automatically draws process flow charts.

Although many Theians were reluctant to admit it at the time, in this fully automatic digital social production and economic management system, the data types representing the specific needs raised by the Theians were actually treated as production equipment. The needs of the Theians and the maintenance requirements issued by the fault detection system after wear or failure of the automatic production equipment were actually regarded as the same type by the general strong artificial intelligence AI that manages the entire Theian society.

A request from an automated production line for a particular spare part and a request from a Theian for a vehicle or personal electronic product are essentially processed by general strong artificial intelligence in the same manner and type.

If it is found that the production capacity of a certain link in the industrial chain is insufficient, it will expand the production capacity of this node.

Another truth that Theia society at that time did not want to face was that in this automated economic management system, Theia people and the AI ​​subroutines of the general strong artificial intelligence were treated in the same way.

Unavailability due to wanting to rest or equipment being occupied is also unavailable. A Teian person who needs to rest due to tiredness or stops working because the production equipment needs self-inspection or maintenance is also considered unavailable in the eyes of the strong artificial intelligence system responsible for managing the entire social system.

For the AG general strong artificial intelligence of the Theia socio-economic system that coordinates production, it sees a dynamic world composed of many moving things, some of which are consumed by other things, some of which turn some things into other things, some of which issue requests to operate and consume other things in some way, and so on.

Its AI subroutines in various social production and management links only need to deal with the movement and changes of things that they have the authority to process, and care about other things related to these things, and communicate with the AI ​​that controls these other related things. Just like each cell only needs to interact with the things it touches. Most of the time, there is no absolutely centralized upper supercomputer server to manage them, but they form an AGl general strong artificial intelligence with a high degree of coordination and thinking ability.

Of course, there are AI subroutines that correspond to the "nervous system" of the entire production management system and interact with things in a wider range. Some subroutines summarize the movement and demand of things on a larger scale, make predictions about inventory, production and demand, and issue adjustment requests.

However, these AI subroutines that constitute the universal strong artificial intelligence consciousness network of the entire Theia society do not have higher permissions than AI subroutines with smaller control scopes. In fact, the permissions of such larger-scale subroutines are even lower. Almost all they can do is issue a certain type of related requests, and they can only directly control a few things. Most of them are still maintaining and operating things and equipment within their control scope.

Although with the help of such a powerful general strong artificial intelligence, the Theia civilization has already stepped into the utopian society stage of on-demand supply, but there are still a few things that have become luxury goods similar to those in the old society due to the limitations of the overall scale of civilization and the lack of overall production capacity, and need to be purchased with a limited amount of credit points.

Civilian personal torch ships fall into this category. Although the Theian civilization already possesses mature fusion torch ship technology, the overall shipbuilding scale and production capacity are still limited, and it is impossible to provide every citizen with a personal torch ship. This is why Moia Rock and his four friends spent a total of six years of credit point savings to buy a customized torch ship. Due to the lack of overall production capacity, a Theian often needs to spend more than ten years or even decades of credit point accumulation to buy a torch ship. In order to save time, some Theians will choose to buy a torch ship in partnership with their relatives and friends. If Moia is asked to bear the cost of exchanging credit points for this torch ship alone, it will have to accumulate credit points for at least nearly 30 years to exchange for such a rocket ship.

Of course, the automated economic management and artificial intelligence of the entire Theia society are also trying to improve this situation, allowing more luxury goods to be no longer priced with credits, and this work has been very effective. Personal shuttles and small planetary low-orbit spacecraft that required years or even decades of credits to redeem hundreds of years ago are now available to all people free of charge. However, torch ships that can conduct rapid interplanetary navigation and transfer are still within the scope of luxury goods in Theia society, and to a certain extent can be compared to real estate commodities on Earth in capitalist society.

However, compared to Earth, 44 light-years away, where an individual might not even be able to buy a house with their entire life savings, the credit price of a Torchship in Theian society has indeed been gradually decreasing year by year. According to long-term statistics from Theian society's management artificial intelligence, hundreds of years ago, when fusion Torchship technology was just beginning to enter the practical stage, a Theian would have needed a full 100 Theian years, equivalent to a third of a Theian's lifetime credit savings, to purchase a standardized, mass-produced Torchship. Now, even Moia Rock's customized Fusion Torchship would only take about 30 years to purchase. Since it was purchased by five people, they only needed to spend about six years of their savings to acquire such a Torchship. Due to the increase in production capacity, the price of civilian personal Torchships continues to decline at a relatively slow but steady pace.

Today, after two full months of waiting, the personal torch ship customized by Moia and several of his friends was finally completed. As early as seven years ago, Moia Rock particularly liked to take his personal space plane, which was provided free of charge to all citizens by the Theia Society, with these friends to take a short space trip to the low-Earth orbit of the mother planet. He and his friends are all enthusiasts in this area. With the help of several friends, he also made some modifications to his personal space plane, giving it a faster flight speed and the ability to skip and glide at the edge of the atmosphere.

It was also because of this hobby that he and several close friends began to want a torch ship. After discussing it, they decided to purchase and exchange such a customized torch ship, with each person paying 1/5 of the total price of the torch ship in credit points.

Chapter 184 The Dyson Sphere Project of Theia Civilization

Moia Rock felt the vibration from the seat under him, which was a normal phenomenon when the space plane accelerated to leave the atmosphere. Sitting in the cabin of the space plane with him were his good friends who were also space travel enthusiasts. They all had anticipation and excitement on their faces. Moia himself couldn't wait to see the first planet-flare spacecraft in his life.

The space plane they take is as common as a car in Theia society. After obtaining the relevant licenses, every Theia citizen can get such an SSTO space plane of their own. As a civilian SSTO for personal use, the space plane that Moia takes is not large in payload, generally only about 12 to 15 tons, but this payload capacity is enough to carry more than a dozen passengers on short-distance space travel.

As the vibration of the fuselage and the feeling of being pushed back by the acceleration of gravity gradually disappeared, Moia knew that it should have flown out of the atmosphere. It looked out of the window and saw the mother planet below dotted with blue oceans and white clouds. From here, it could even directly see the Origin Crater in the northern hemisphere of the planet, which is said to be the source of the entire Theia planet's existing complex ecosystem. All life on Theia is said to have originated from a giant alien meteorite carrying organic matter that created the Origin Crater, a topographical wonder, hundreds of millions of years ago.

After breaking through the Karman line of the planet Theia and leaving the atmosphere, the aerospace plane continued to increase its altitude while maintaining its own speed, approaching the skyhook, which was more than thousands of kilometers long and was orbiting in the synchronous orbit of the planet Theia.

With a mechanical locking sound, the aerospace plane successfully docked with the lower end of the skyhook close to the Karman line, and was slowly pulled onto a higher orbit along the guide rail.

After several hours of waiting, the space shuttle finally arrived at the synchronous orbit space station. Several people could hardly wait to stumble out of the spacecraft. One of Moia's friends even forgot to turn on the power of his magnetic boots. In a state of weightlessness, he grabbed the handrails along the way to the orbital dock and flew towards the entrance of the orbital dock indicated by the sign.

"Is this our ship?" Moia lay on the floor-to-ceiling window glass near the orbital shipping docking port, his eyes fixed on the spacecraft docked in the docking area outside, his face full of excitement.

It was a cylindrical spacecraft, 100 meters long, 20 meters in diameter, with a dry mass of 800 tons. After being filled with fuel and propellant, the total mass was 3500 tons. It used a deuterium-helium triple nuclear fusion reactor. Through a principle similar to that of nuclear melon seeds, a laser was used at the tail nozzle of the spacecraft to cause a fusion reaction of a TW-level equivalent warhead. Then, a magnetic field of up to hundreds of Teslas was used to confine the plasma of the fusion reaction and generate thrust. In a pulsed propulsion mode, it created continuous propulsion power for the spacecraft. In the highest power operating mode, the pulse frequency of the engine nozzle at the tail of the spacecraft could even reach more than a thousand times per second.

There are four huge foldable heat sinks at the rear of the spacecraft. Due to the huge propulsion power and heat dissipation requirements of this spacecraft, if these heat sinks are fully unfolded, the length is even slightly longer than the spacecraft itself. Of course, since the spacecraft does not need to run the engine at full power in most flight requirements, the heat sinks of these civilian torch ships rarely enter the truly completely red-hot state during short interplanetary flights.

Moia Rock and several friends floated into the spaceship from the airlock of the docking port. The excitement of several people had not yet passed. Everyone was curiously touching and looking around in the spaceship, feeling the joy of owning their first torch ship.

"Everyone, how about... getting a new boat for the first time and going out to try it out?" Moia asked a few friends.

"Okay!" The other four people answered happily in unison.

With the assistance of the port tugboat, the spacecraft named "Rock" by Bemoia and others finally left the port at a sufficient distance. As the first fuel ball was injected into the reactor and engine nozzle, dozens of high-energy lasers instantly ignited the fuel ball. The fuel ball turned into plasma and created a series of miniature nuclear explosions at the tail nozzle of the spacecraft. Propelled by a pulse frequency of hundreds of times per second, the spacecraft accelerated away from the orbital dock space station, which had become a small dot, at an acceleration of 1.5G. Behind the spacecraft was a plasma tail stream with a length of more than 50 kilometers and a temperature of thousands of degrees. The Rock became as shining as a torch in the night sky. If you look into the space from the surface of Theia's northern hemisphere at this time, there will be a bright comet in the night sky. That is the torch thruster of the Rock.

The Rock flew towards the first planet in the galaxy in an almost straight orbit, where the strong artificial intelligence for social management of the Theia civilization was carrying out an unprecedented large-scale project. On a massive satellite of the gas giant No. 1, a planetary supercomputing center was established, and the computing power provided by this planetary supercomputing center would support the construction and operation of the subsequent Dyson cloud project. The entire project would take nearly a thousand years and was expected to dismantle all satellites and asteroids of the gas giant No. 1. This was one of the main reasons why the production capacity of the civilian torch ships allocated to individuals by the Theia civilization was insufficient. A large amount of the torch ship's capacity was used to transport the von Neumann self-replicator to the first planet, which was in stark contrast to the von Neumann self-replicators of the Glass Eel civilization and the Sky Star civilization, which only had subatomic or even quark-scale von Neumann machines. Unlike the Von Neumann self-replicator, the Theia civilization, with its limited basic scientific and technological capabilities, cannot produce the kind of microscopic Von Neumann self-replicator or gray tide-like nanomachines that are only the size of molecules or even atoms in the ordinary people's cognition. The Von Neumann self-replicator of the Theia civilization is more like a complete industrial system that covers most of the industrial categories of the entire early civilization, including fully automated industrial production facilities from resource mining to smelting, and then to processing into finished products. The weight of each Von Neumann self-replicator unit exceeds tens of millions of tons and covers an area of ​​dozens of square kilometers. These Von machine self-replicators are composed of piles of mining and smelting equipment, automated processing production lines, high-precision machine tools, countless automatic maintenance robots and unmanned transport vehicles, heat dissipation devices and other facilities.

This project involves launching hundreds of billions of Dyson cloud modules towards the sun and dismantling all celestial bodies within the range of Planet One. Preliminary calculations show that the total time required will exceed a thousand years. After the project is completed, it is expected that a Dyson cloud equivalent to 5% of the energy output of a star will be obtained. This is undoubtedly a generational project that will last for several generations for the Theia civilization, which is already approaching a development bottleneck. Due to the huge computing power required for the entire project, the social management artificial intelligence of the Theia civilization needs to establish a planet-scale giant computing center on a massive satellite with a diameter of 4000 kilometers on Planet One.

Compared to the Theia civilization 44 light-years away, which is already planning to build a stellar-scale astronomical project, countries on Earth are still arguing over the mining rights of an asteroid.

The vigorous workers' strike movement on Mars has made the top government officials on Earth increasingly impatient. They only want to make this high-value asteroid generate profits for themselves as soon as possible. Both the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the countries that will soon participate in the mining of this asteroid, hope to use this asteroid to divert their internal contradictions that are becoming increasingly difficult to resolve.

“We need to resolve the issue of workers crossing the border as soon as possible.”

"I think Helios is just pretending to be an international corporation. They work for Al Gore and his bunch of sycophants."

"I know what kind of person Dave Ayesha is. If necessary, he will not hesitate to put his own interests above the so-called national interests of the United States. He doesn't care about any country, not to mention..."

For a capitalist, which is more important, the vague national interest or the tangible self-interest? Margo kept this question to herself, hoping the smart people present would realize it. She knew Dave Ayesa, and she knew that as a capitalist, no matter how good his intentions, he couldn't violate this fundamental law of capitalism.