Chapter 44: The Resilience of Life
In response to the old man's question, the planner remained silent for a moment before saying, "We have established a comprehensive model for this purpose, and based on the model simulation..."
The old man interrupted him and said, "I don't want to see the model simulation results. I just want to ask you, how do you explain the Last Glacial Maximum?"
The proponent of the plan shook his head. "Different time points have different development possibilities. The conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum are not necessarily the same as those today."
After all… modern humans and ancient humans have different body structures, environments, etc.”
The session chair asked, "What was the Last Glacial Maximum?"
The old man said slowly: "This is a geological term.
About 19,000 to 27,000 years ago, when humans were in the transition period from the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age, the Earth experienced a global period of extreme cold.
During this period, the average temperature of the earth will be about 7 degrees Celsius lower than the current stage.
The extreme cold caused the ice caps in the North and South Poles to expand rapidly, and a large amount of water was locked in the ice caps, causing the sea level to be more than 120 meters lower than it is now.
This stage is called the Last Glacial Maximum.
Coincidentally, although the climate was extremely cold during the Last Glacial Maximum, it happened to be the stage when human groups were transitioning from the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age.
Although humans did not enter the Neolithic Age during this period, they completed most of the preliminary technological accumulation required for the Neolithic Age.
Looking at it from another perspective, can we argue that rather than causing technological stagnation, the harsh climate has actually promoted technological progress?
Everyone was silent, thinking.
The old man looked at the plan's proponent: "No matter how sophisticated the model simulation is, it can never be completely identical to reality. The most important point is that computers cannot understand the resilience of life.
Life will always find a way out for itself..."
The old man sighed, "I think if we truly implement the 'Extreme Freezing' plan, then the Moon Gods will probably not only not think we're locking down our own technology, but will instead think we're trying to unleash our potential and fight them to the death..."
The meeting chairperson said, "Now, please vote."
In the end, only 45 people agreed with the "Heaven and Earth Extreme Cold" plan, while the vast majority of the rest expressed opposition.
"'Extreme Cold' plan ruled out."
The meeting host said, "Next, it's the 'Star Barrier' plan."
After a brief introduction, the questioning session began.
Unlike all previous plans, there was little doubt about the "Star Barrier" plan.
After all, this plan is almost impeccable in terms of theory, feasibility, and implementation consequences.
But in the end, the original proponent of the plan took the initiative to say: "Dear decision-maker, during our subsequent research, we found a fatal flaw in this plan. Therefore, we believe that this plan is actually not feasible."
His words caused a commotion among the people.
A plan that seems so perfect and most likely to be accepted by people... turns out to be unfeasible in the end?
He sighed: "We underestimated the impact of the interaction between the sun and the Earth's upper atmosphere."
The decision-maker presiding over the meeting said, "Please elaborate."
"Okay, here's the specific situation...
Previously, we only considered the impact of the Earth's upper atmosphere, and through model simulation, we believed that although the Earth's upper atmosphere also has a thin atmosphere that will have a deceleration effect on the projectile, because the Earth's upper atmosphere is too thin, its impact will be very low and can be ignored.
However, after introducing the influence of the sun, we found that the situation has changed a little.
The projectile orbits the Earth at high altitude and is directly exposed to the sun. It orbits the Earth once every hour and a half on average, meaning it is heated by the sun and then cooled down once every hour and a half.
The maximum temperature of the projectile will rise to about 150 degrees Celsius, and when it enters the shadow of the earth, the temperature will drop to about minus 130 degrees Celsius.
Every hour and a half, the temperature will experience a total of 280 degrees Celsius difference.
If special materials are used, there might not be much impact in the short term. But when the time is extended to ten years, a hundred years, or even several hundred years...
No matter what material the projectile is made of, it will have only one result: it will disintegrate into smaller fragments.
At the same time, the fierce solar wind radiation and the bombardment of high-energy cosmic rays will also cause the fragments to further break up.
At this stage, the influence of the Earth's upper atmosphere will become impossible to ignore. They are very likely to be continuously decelerated and eventually fall into the Earth's atmosphere, disappearing in the form of micrometeors.
They may even be directly stripped away by the solar wind and leave Earth's orbit.
No matter which outcome, it will mean the same result.
In no more than a thousand years, at the latest, the combined effects of the sun, cosmic rays, the moon's gravity, and the Earth itself will have cleared at least 99% of the trillions of tiny fragments and projectiles scattered around the Earth. The remaining fragments will be too small to be destructive to human spacecraft.
This seemingly indestructible starry sky barrier that leaves us helpless... in fact, we don't need to deal with it at all, it will disappear on its own.
It simply cannot achieve the goal of blocking the technological development of civilization."
The planner bowed slightly to the many attendees and then left the front desk.
Zhou Cheng sighed slightly in his heart.
Even he himself had to admit that the Star Barrier Plan was better than the "resource depletion" plan he proposed.
Unfortunately, it was also rejected.
So, at this moment, of the eight plans that mobilized the entire scientific community of human civilization, took several months, and consumed countless manpower and material resources, only the last one remains.
If even the "resource depletion" plan he proposed was rejected, it would mean that people at this stage did not have the potential to "self-castrate" technological development and were unable to remove and eliminate the threat to the Moon Goddess on their own.
Regardless of which option to choose from each multiple-choice question, it is not important, because by then, humans will no longer even be qualified to make this choice.
Under everyone's gaze, Zhou Cheng walked to the front of the conference hall.
"I am the proponent of the 'resource depletion' plan. Here, I will accept your questions.
The initial idea behind this plan was actually very simple.
Our Earth was born more than four billion years ago and has continued to exist until now. All the biological resources accumulated over these billions of years... are actually only enough for our human civilization to develop once.
We have now used this one and only opportunity for development. If our civilization were to perish, and a species emerged in the future whose intelligence was no less than ours, they would never again be able to reach the heights we humans have achieved.”
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