Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 238 - Chapter 238 Chapter 238 Technological Stagnation

Chapter 238: Chapter 238: Technological Stagnation Chapter 238: Chapter 238: Technological Stagnation With the passage of time, the successive Governors of Gor City began to suffer from severe headaches. An increased population had its benefits, but if management couldn’t keep up, it ironically turned into a risk.

Just any large infrastructure project, such as digging a canal or quarrying marble to create a larger living space underground, would last a hundred or even five hundred years!

Even though Glizerians lived long lives, their work efficiency wasn’t great, and these projects were ridiculously slow, leading to growing dissatisfaction among the people.

However, dissatisfied as they were, even the most capable Governors couldn’t change these chaotic outcomes.

The root cause was the work-rest cycle!

More and more Glizerians realized that Gando’s idea of “planning work-rest schedules” was actually correct. But the opposition was still strong; many stubborn Glizerians believed that sleep was a personal freedom that should not be stripped away.

Since forcing work-rest schedules was unacceptable, intelligent Governors devised more roundabout ways to resolve the haphazard sleep issues, such as scheduling certain art performances or school terms during specific time slots, indirectly encouraging the populace to adopt regular sleep patterns.

But such guidance was painfully slow, showing only preliminary effects after thousands of years.

This chaos continued until another Enlightener named Kahn was born, whose ideas were quite similar to Gando’s: Glizerians were too lazy and idle, with generally no life pressures, so how could there be any motivation to strive?

Kahn believed that there was a disconnect between the ideas of the ruling elites and common people. For many, science, including mathematics, was seen as a lofty “art” which, for the time being, hadn’t significantly transformed into productive force. Skipping school didn’t seem to matter much and, at least, wouldn’t affect their own lives…

In the eyes of Governors, sciences like mathematics were an exotic luxury only a handful of the intelligent could appreciate. Moreover, the intelligent were generally from the upper echelons.

But the common people had little interest in such “high arts”; they preferred drama, novels, songs, and dances–more popular art forms–so there was no chance they would change their sleep patterns to study “high arts.”

Kahn, descended from merchants, had a natural sensitivity to economics and knew what the life of common people was really like.

What did common people like?

Money!

Prestige!

Beautiful partners!

And… a higher status!

He quickly enacted a set of economic policies aimed at better promoting commerce, especially by founding large collective handcraft workshops where everyone inevitably clocked in and out at the same time.

At the same time, he standardized the market regulations, offering certain tax incentives on specific days.

Those who adhered to a regular work-rest cycle had more opportunities to accumulate wealth; individuals who chose to sleep whenever they pleased and missed group activities had fewer chances to gain wealth, and thus gradually became poverty-stricken.

Like humans, Glizerians aspired for better lives, and life was undoubtedly more complicated if one’s waking hours completely missed the majority’s schedules.

Free to sleep whenever? No problem, as long as one could endure poverty.

Under this economic incentive, year after year, more and more Glizerians began to sleep in unison…

At last…

A uniform sleep habit was formed.

The whole process took nearly ten thousand years!

A proper nation, even one the size of a city, compared to the scattered tribes, has vast superiority in both institutions and population scale.

The presenter on stage spoke with resounding conviction, “At this moment, the once idle Gleize Civilization finally welcomes its rapid rise!”

Watching this, Zhang Yuan always felt the history of the entire civilization to be strangely peculiar. At that time, the knowledge level of the Glizerians was already equivalent to the human civilization of the 18th to 19th centuries, beginning to explore the thresholds of Chemistry and Physics, yet they had only just founded their nation!

Dealing with the problem of unified hibernation in various ways for tens of thousands of years, he simply didn’t know what to say.

“It’s not really appropriate to call them foolish, nor can they be considered smart.”

“Ah, we view primitive humans as uncivilized and ignorant too.”

After the founding of the nation, more Glizerians realized that their previously quite satisfactory primitive life actually had much room for improvement, such as more exquisite food, more interesting forms of entertainment, and more comfortable living places, etc.

Their original habitation in primitive caves was prone to collapse, and it was unknown how many Glizerians died from being buried alive due to cave-ins.

But now, the Underground City of Gor designed by architects and reinforced with marble was both comfortable and secure.

And furthermore, with the unified working hours, many group-oriented jobs became much more convenient, especially for some large-scale projects that were previously unimaginable.

Where there are benefits, there is a driving force. One by one, nations began to emerge in the crowded residential belt, imitating the benefits they saw.

Rather than calling them nations, it’s more accurate to describe them as “city-states” formed by gatherings of large populations.

The inherently idle Glizerians, with low reproduction capabilities and a dislike for too many restrictions, generally adopted a “democracy” evolved from primitive systems. The citizens’ assembly was the highest authority, and leaders were elected by the people’s votes to manage these city-states.

There was also a high degree of competition between city-states. The intelligent people naturally knew which city was better, which city had a clear political environment, room for advancement, which city had a more comfortable climate to live in, which city was the capital of the arts, and so on…

Under such circumstances, populations naturally migrated towards the better cities.

With competition came the drive to improve, and one after another, intellectuals appeared on this planet, began to perfect the systems and laws, and proposed a higher level of morality.

Meanwhile, scientists tried to recreate the miracles brought by the “Enlighteners”, ceaselessly exploring nature, mastering its laws, and attempting to increase the productivity of the entire civilization…

It appeared that the civilization was thriving day by day, with a higher level of intellectual development and a competent ideology. They should have been able to break through the atmosphere and step off their planet soon!

But, unfortunately…

A fatal flaw emerged!

The oxygen content of the planet was extremely low, almost nonexistent.

The absence of an oxidizer meant the absence of natural combustion phenomena; without combustion, the development of various industries was extremely difficult. The Glizerians could only control a small amount of simple natural resources such as wind and water. For instance, by making a wind tunnel and then using plants with wooden fibers to build a windmill, or making a waterwheel near an underground river…

But these energy sources were ultimately unstable, not easy to control, and unable to truly advance an era; they desperately needed a more powerful source of energy.

Fortunately, the Glizerians were already aware of the existence of electricity, knowing that the lightning in the sky could be harnessed. With some inspiration provided by the “Enlighteners,” they had the potential to leap directly from the Stone Age to the Electric Era, even though…

This step was extremely difficult.

Regrettably, for a full one hundred and fifty thousand years, this group of Glizerians did not take this crucial step.

Until… the arrival of the second batch of Aliens…