Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 408 - 406 Several Difficult Problems

Chapter 408: Chapter 406 Several Difficult Problems

"Science" does not carry any inherent praise or criticism; it is simply a method for understanding the world and researching problems. For example, when people say traditional Chinese medicine is not scientific, there is no derogatory implication because it is indeed a methodology built on accumulated experiences. However, claiming that traditional Chinese medicine is completely ineffective is an unwarranted slander that ignores the facts.

We won’t delve further into this issue; suffice it to say, scientism, compared to empiricism, conforms more to objective laws and can drive the development of productive forces. That alone makes it significant.

As for the current Taipu Civilization, owing to the division of the globe into over a thousand nations with different cultural identities, unifying the globe under a single cultural cohesion has become extremely difficult.

Under such premises, the professor on stage concluded, "...that’s why we hypothesize that in the next few centuries, it’s unlikely that Taipu Star will be completely integrated. It might see the formation of a nation similar to Xia Country on Earth, which unites several major countries to venture beyond their own planet."

"As for the other nations, those that need to be abandoned will indeed be abandoned."

"This is just one of the possibilities... More likely, they will not break out of their own planet and may not even achieve controlled nuclear fusion, becoming a stagnant, ordinary civilization."

Many in the audience sighed silently at this conclusion.

The reason the major powers aided nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America during the 20th and 21st centuries was simply for economic gain. Why aid if there are no substantial benefits? If it becomes feasible to develop outer planets, the share of the pie would be immensely larger; no longer would internal planetary politics matter, nor would there be any need to concern oneself with the fate of impoverished countries. Everyone would be too busy colonizing space to pay attention to poverty at the other end of the planet.

Humanitarian aid is practically useless if the cultural and spiritual cores of a civilization are lacking; such nations are ultimately doomed to fail.

Cultures inherently differ in their advancement or primitiveness. If a culture cannot promote societal progress, it is likely a culture of residues. The most crucial aspect is whether the masses have the courage to abandon it.

"The above outlines the general history of the Taipu Civilization," the scientist concluded, bowing slightly before exiting the stage.

This historical data is of great benefit to the New Civilization History. Unlike the Riley Civilization, which revolves around religious texts, it includes specific years, the emergence of heroic figures, and the birth of ideologies, making it genuinely valuable.

Many historians of New Civilization History were already eagerly calculating, extrapolating, and verifying this discipline while predicting the next steps for this civilization.

Following this, another geologist took the stage to present a report of significant importance: "On the Possibility and Evidence of Enlightener Civilization on Taipu Star."

The findings immediately piqued the interest of many, including Zhang Yuan.

Li Zhendong commented on the side, "I can almost calculate the behavior pattern of the Enlightener Civilization. They usually predict the challenges a civilization will face at certain stages of development and offer a little help in dealing with these challenges."

"As for whether the civilization can reach that stage or overcome that challenge, they are indifferent. The Taipu Civilization faces... many difficulties, truly a lot!"

"It ought to be this way," responded a Deputy Captain nearby. "With so many civilizations in the universe, how can all possibly be attended to?"

Thus, numerous human scientists focused on examining the critical challenges faced by the Taipu Civilization.

Firstly, in terms of civilization integration, it appeared entirely fragmented with little prospect of unification, given the development of over a thousand nations.

Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the Enlightener Civilization paid no attention to this aspect or that they had taken measures that ultimately failed.

Secondly, the issue of heavy industrialization in a high-gravity environment was particularly challenging and slow to progress. Despite their ability to manufacture large airships and ships, the entire process took more than ten times longer than it had for humans!

Following the Industrial Revolution, scientific and technological progress should have accelerated. However, the Taipu people discovered that machines were less effective than traditional draft animals, taking centuries to improve steam engines.

"This problem is easy to understand," explained a mechanical expert, "Take the steam turbine, a rotary steam engine, as an example. In different gravity environments, the direction of steam flow changes significantly. Pressurized flow needs to be converted to gravitational flow, and the impeller must be adjusted accordingly to ensure balance under force."

Higher gravity complicates and complicates heavy industry even further.

The reason Earth Civilization relocated its heavy industry to other low-gravity planets later on was due to the inherent advantages of low-gravity environments. For instance, in zero-gravity environments, perfectly manufactured metal products via 3D printing require no welding; simply align and fuse the interfaces seamlessly. This technology can be applied to high-precision metal products or jewelry settings and also to the industrial production of integrated metal casings.

However, this is impossible on Earth.

Tai Pu Star’s gravity is far greater than Earth’s, and all machines and devices must be robust, labor-intensive, and less efficient.

This represents the second major challenge faced by the Taipu Civilization.

Their third challenge is the scarcity of rare earth elements on this large planet!

This is nearly a death blow for advanced industries!

"We analyzed the scientific and technological system of the Taipu Civilization and found that the planet lacks rare earth elements, especially heavy rare earth," the geologists announced.

Rare earth exists in two types: heavy and light. Heavy rare earth, being more important, is also more valuable.

Despite the planet’s size greatly exceeding Earth’s, the lack of rare earth materials implies that many materials lack desired properties.

The geologist played a simulation video of the natural formation of the planet on a screen, explaining, "The main reason for the lack of rare earth is high gravity... as everyone knows, rare earth elements, generally large atomic-weight heavy elements, tend to sink to the core over time."

The planet being excessively large and the immense gravity, having existed for over five billion years, caused most heavy elements to sink to the core. Therefore, the proportion of heavy rare earth in the crust is even lower than that of Earth.

Then, of course, the Taipu people suffer greatly.

Zhang Yuan sighed, "If this civilization managed to mine the core, then rare earth wouldn’t be scarce, but the problem is, even we don’t have the technology to mine the core, let alone them."

In fact, even common minerals like gold, silver, copper, and iron are rarer in the crust of Taipu Star. Fortunately, these are still common minerals, widely distributed on the surface, thus not affecting normal development.

But the absence of rare earth critically hampers the development of cutting-edge technology.