Chapter 370: City Spaceship
Most of the members in Blue Home were in the Home Party. They believed that there would come a day when the transmigration technology would be developed, so they gave a lot of funds to Project 101 and were very passionate about the project’s development.
When they saw that Wu Haibo was present, they surrounded him and asked about Project 101’s situation.
Wu Haibo said with a smile, “With your great support, we have gained a substantial breakthrough in Project 101. I believe that after a while, the experts will personally come to Blue Home to tell you the good news.
“Since today is a movie viewing day, it would be better for us to talk about the movie. What we saw just now was really magnificent and touching. But do you think that it’s plausible to install engines on Earth and make the whole planet leave its orbit so that it can traverse for thousands of years?”
The group looked at each other. They knew that the transmigration expert did not just come here to talk about the details of the movie.
Meng Chao also started pondering over the meaning behind Wu Haibo’s question.
After a moment, Wu Haibo revealed the answer himself. “Movies are just fabrications. Planetary engines might seem magnificent, but it’s very difficult to make them a reality.
“First, Earth and a lot of the theoretically habitable planets need a lot of liquid and an ozone layer. Its surface must also be a levitating plate. If you imagine Earth’s crust as an eggshell, then the whole planet is the eggwhite and the egg yolk.
“A planetary engine is like a needle poking the eggshell. The most possible scenario that will happen if you build one is not that you will push the egg forward, but that the eggshell will burst, which means that the crust will tear apart. Floods, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and all sorts of destructive natural disasters will come one after another. You won’t even be able to hide underground to avoid it.
“Second, based on the propelling force of the planetary engine and the resources it uses, the idea of taking thousands of years to reach a new home is just too beautiful of a dream. In reality, this journey would take more than ten thousand years. Before you reach your new home, all the resources on Earth will have been depleted and it would become a speck of dust that will gradually cool down in the dark universe.
“Third, even if we were lucky enough to reach a new galaxy and find a giant astronomical object that is like Earth, then fuse into the celestial motion of that galaxy, we might end up changing the orbital trajectory of that galaxy, and it would have consequences we cannot measure. The possibility of two planets’ orbits intersecting and them crashing into each other because they attract each other is also very great.
“Hence, the Wandering Planet might be a romantic idea, but it’s not a way universal civilizations might use to move through the universe.
“Everyone, please expand your imagination and imagine as much as possible. If a civilization grew to the point that it could soar through the different ends of the universe, what sort of vehicle would it use? A planet, or a spaceship?”
The people started talking with each other. A young adult in Earth’s black military uniform said, “Since it’s impossible to use Earth as a vehicle, it seems like we can only use a spaceship.”
“That’s right. A planet is too big. Pushing a planet forward to travel through the universe will require too many resources, and the consequences would also be something we cannot imagine. If we don’t run into a critical situation like the planet swelling up within a short time, like what happened in the movie, there would never be a reason for us to risk it all in such a way,” Wu Haibo said. “Compared to using an entire planet as a vehicle, using a spaceship to travel through the universe is much better. It’s also a piece of technology that is also much easier to realize.
“But spaceships have their own problems too. You can’t fit a lot of people into a spaceship. Humans, or rather, carbon-based intelligent lifeforms are creatures that originated on the planet. They’re born to need a large space and all sorts of resources to expand their civilization.
“In the vast universe, even Earth itself is an insignificant speck, and a spaceship that is billions of times smaller than Earth is even more so. It can’t even be considered to be the size of a virus or bacteria.
“It’s impossible to imagine a civilization using just hundreds of spaceships to move to another planet that is on the far side of the other end of the universe.
“Besides that, it’s very difficult for a spaceship to retain the essence of a civilization because of its size.”
Meng Chao understood what Wu Haibo meant.
It reminded him of the Dragon King Town that Ye Xiaoxing had introduced to him before. It was not easy for a human civilization to maintain the laws, morals, lifestyle, and reproductive methods of Earth in a town or a spaceship.
If Earthlings left Earth and rode in small spaceships with only a fragile shell separating them from the dark and cold universe, they would be destined to be devoured by the darkness, and gradually, they would develop another civilization and turn into other creatures. They would end up as people of the universe, not Earth.
Of course, if they could create a gigantic spaceship and fit an entire city into it, they might be able to solve the problem of their civilization changing into something else.
But with Dragon City’s current technology, it seemed even more impossible for them to create that sort of super spaceship compared to successfully developing controllable transmigration.
“The planet is too big, and a normal spaceship is too small. Is there then a vehicle that is moderate in size and can carry the flames of our civilization and spread it through the entire universe?”
Wu Haibo smiled faintly and gave the answer. “Yes, there is—a city. A city is the crystallization of a civilization. All productions, organizations, and wars in human civilization were born in cities. The word city and civilization is the same in many languages. And when an archaeological team discovers a capital of a civilization, only then we are certain that this particular civilization once existed.
“Many humans once lived in villages and mountains, then, as our civilization began to become highly organized, societal production and the lives of humans became centralized in highly developed cities.
“This can help you imagine that if a planetary civilization developed to its peak, 90% of its people, technology, and societal production would be gathered in a few metropolises.
“Based on the mass of the entire planet, the metropolises and civilizations would occupy less than one percent of the entire planet.
“The remaining mass of 99/100 would be occupied by a small handful of farms, breeding grounds, and mines. Aside from them, there would be mountains, rainforests, deserts, and oceans. Their significance to the civilization is practically zero.
“If a civilization wants to spread to the four corners of the universe, there is no need for it to push the entire planet forward, like what you saw in the movie. They would only need to turn the city, which is the most essential core of the civilization, into a super spaceship that could move for hundreds of millions of light years.”
This wild method of moving through the universe left everyone dumbfounded.
Meng Chao’s mind raced, and sparks of excitement shone in his eyes.
“Turning a city into a super spaceship has clear benefits,” Wu Haibo continued calmly. “First, a city is large enough. It has a civilization that has at least millions or tens of millions of people. It’s large enough to retain the morals, laws, and lifestyles of the civilization in its home planet and make sure that the spirit of the civilization would never change, or at the very least, would not change in just a few hundred years.
“Second, the city is already constructed. After we descended to another world, we wouldn’t need to start from zero and start building things from scratch. Instead, it would be very easy for us to expand in the foreign world. As long as we could discover enough resources, we could grow by several levels. Even if we discovered other intelligent lifeforms, we’d be large enough to communicate or suppress them. In the end, the flames of our civilization would burn through the entire planet.
“Third, the amount of ‘fuel’ required to make an entire city travel through the universe might be astronomical, but it’s still much lower than what would be required to push a planet forward. Besides, the mass of a city can’t cause the trajectory of an entire planet to change. It’s relatively easier to control, and it’s also safer.
“Based on what I’ve said, I believe that when a civilization has the ability to travel through the universe, especially when it has dimensional transportation technology that is faster than the speed of light, they would definitely turn their cities into super spaceships. It’s this, or they would turn super spaceships into cities. The distinction between the two would soon become blurry, and in the end, they would become one.”
When he said this, everyone aside Meng Chao finally registered what he meant.
The tactical analyzers from the Other World research center said in a contemplative manner, “Mr. Wu, are you saying that Dragon City is a spaceship from an ancient civilization?”
Wu Haibo smiled faintly. “The time is not right yet, so I won’t say anything. Today is a movie viewing session, and I’m just voicing my opinion after watching the movie. It’s just ramblings of this old man.
“But it’s also a hypothesis. If Dragon City was really a spaceship from the ancient civilization, it would explain why it could transmigrate to the Other World; transmigration would have always been its true mission. This so-called transmigration is just us going on a trip based on the route that has been set for us.”
“But…”
Wu Haibo’s words stirred up a lot of thoughts. Many of the core members in Blue Home became excited. They began talking to each other.
“How could this be possible? Using a planetary engine to move a planet forward is understandable, but isn’t transporting a city that is an innumerable number of light years away harmlessly into a foreign land way too inconceivable?”
Wu Haibo shrugged and said, “It might sound a little unbelievable, but Dragon City has indeed transmigrated. Perhaps in the eyes of a civilization that can travel through the universe, the boundaries of mass and energy aren’t that clear. They can turn the city into pure energy, then use the fluctuations in high dimensional space to transport the city into another location in a 3D space before turning the city into substance again. Who said that the ancient civilization couldn’t create this sort of miracle?
“The truth is right before our eyes. The surface genes of Earthlings aren’t that much different compared to the monsters of the Other World. We can breathe the air here and be infected by this world’s viruses. We can sense the warm light and cultivate the mysterious energy. This means that our transmigration wasn’t random. This is our ‘destination’.”
This question had puzzled all the Earthlings after their transmigration.
The core members of Blue Home discussed it quietly.
Meng Chao raised his hand and said, “Mr. Wu, Dragon City was built bit by bit by Earthlings. There’s no way we could have given Dragon City the ability to move through high dimensional space without knowing it!”