Chapter 285: The Final Challenge
But even now, the influence of the "Great Sages" was not what it used to be.
After living in a long-term, comfortable, and entertainment-driven environment, the mindset of the Nix people had changed dramatically. Their reverence for the master scientists gradually faded away. Major media outlets preferred reporting sensational gossip and celebrity news because attracting eyeballs was the key to making money. Serious topics were considered too exhausting to read, and few people enjoyed them. If no one paid attention, those intellectual topics were slowly phased out of the public eye.
Furthermore, ever since the end of the century-long golden age sparked by the Oppenheimer era, the scientific community rarely produced any major discoveries or inspiring breakthroughs.
This was especially true in physics. Ever since the Standard Model was completed hundreds of years ago, progress had essentially stagnated! The invention of quantum computers represented their last major breakthrough. The Great Sages who came after made their significant contributions in the life sciences, not physics.
For instance, Baxter, an outstanding biologist, was now forced to step out of his field and worry about energy physics...
The physicists had been a huge disappointment. Or rather, they were given far too little research funding to succeed. The Large Hadron Collider had cost tens of billions of credits but yielded no groundbreaking discoveries, it was widely viewed as a massive waste of taxpayer money. The controllable nuclear fusion project had been dragging on for centuries with zero success, and their massive space station had long since crashed out of orbit. Besides being expensive vanity projects, what use were these things?
The Nix homeworld was located over 0.6 light-years away from its parent star. Where could they possibly travel to?
Now that energy was becoming scarce and deflation was setting in, ordinary citizens grew increasingly critical of these expensive scientific endeavors. We’ve hit dead ends everywhere for centuries. Who wants to keep throwing money into a bottomless pit? It’s just a waste of credits.
The intellectuals of the Nix Civilization, especially the physicists, had hit a massive bottleneck. The complexity of science was compounding, making breakthroughs in almost every field increasingly difficult. Without breakthroughs, there was no funding; without funding, there was no development; without development, no fresh talent entered the field, leading to a massive brain drain.
It was a vicious cycle, and this predicament had plagued their society for a very long time.
Both the government and private investors were too impatient, eager for immediate returns on their investments. This mindset destroyed the Nix’s enthusiasm for high-tech research because the further into the future a project aimed, the harder it was to guarantee profitable results.
Faced with Baxter’s proposal, a senior government official at the banquet spoke with difficulty: "...Mr. Baxter, we expect our sports coaches to show improved results within two years, or they get fired. Politicians only serve two, four, or six-year terms before they are replaced. In these fields, the timeline from investment to return is extremely short."
"If you can’t produce immediate results, you get replaced."
"Therefore, it’s very hard to convince the public to invest when you tell them it will take ten or a hundred years to see a return."
"Mr. Baxter, as you know, this world is run by capital, not just the government. We can try our best to submit a proposal to the Parliament... but whether it gets approved by the budget committee is another matter entirely..."
Great Sage Baxter sighed heavily. It wasn’t just him; the entire scientific community standing behind him fell into a depressed silence.
The world had changed so drastically that it felt completely alien to them. Even if the world were going to end in a hundred years, these fools would still be immersed in their entertainment bubbles... It was unimaginable.
However, this was human or rather, Nix nature. Ordinary people only cared about the economic benefits they would see in the next few years, or even the next few months. Things that might happen decades or a century down the line were simply too far away to worry about.
Anyone who could plan ten years ahead was considered elite; anyone who planned thirty years ahead was a visionary hero; anyone who planned a hundred years ahead was a true leader of a civilization.
But in the face of absolute, short-sighted democracy, the pleas of true leaders seemed utterly powerless.
To the capitalists and the general public, anyone who makes life harder today for the sake of tomorrow is an enemy who must be voted out of office immediately. Invest money in scientific research? Sure, but it depends on what it is and if it makes us a quick profit!
Changing public opinion was practically impossible.
"Do they seriously think technology is still advancing at an explosive rate?" one of the scientists muttered indignantly.
Yes, that was exactly what the public believed.
However, Baxter was painfully aware of the truth. Although new gadgets and consumer technologies popped up constantly, in the eyes of truly brilliant minds, these things were essentially useless parlor tricks.
The person who invented the first carving knife was a pioneering genius. The person who used that knife to carve the first wooden apple was innovative. But if subsequent generations just kept using that exact same knife to carve wooden pears, bananas, and strawberries... and published a new research paper for each one... what was the point? Could that really be considered scientific innovation?
Nowadays, most technological advancements were merely software and IT updates. Yes, information technology was progressing, but its fundamental depth had stagnated while only its superficial applications expanded.
Yet, the media and the public ate it up. Everyone was hopelessly obsessed with these minor upgrades. They genuinely believed they were still living in an era of explosive technological growth.
"Mr. Baxter, your concerns are certainly valid. But after centuries of failed research, is the nuclear fusion project truly feasible?"
At the banquet, the Prime Minister of Balgaria offered his concluding thoughts. "To address the energy shortage, we can focus on developing energy-saving technologies to delay the crisis. We can also invest in mining uranium deeper within the planet’s crust, or even extract resources from the ocean floor."
"The uranium resources we’ve used on the surface account for less than one ten-thousandth of the planet’s total reserves, right? The vast majority of our energy is still hidden deep underground, representing huge potential. So, while I strongly support your nuclear fusion project, it can only be treated as a secondary backup plan..."
Baxter looked away in sheer disappointment. The Prime Minister’s term was almost up, and he clearly didn’t want to stir up any political controversy or allocate massive budgets before leaving office.
As for "mining the deep crust and the ocean floor," that was nothing more than an empty political slogan.
Was it technically possible? Yes, but it was astronomically difficult. The Nix ocean floor was over 20,000 meters deep, covered by an ice sheet hundreds of meters thick. The engineering challenges were insurmountable. At best, they could only mine a tiny fraction of the shallow waters; how much could actually be extracted was anyone’s guess.
As for digging deeper into the crust, would the Nix really dare to drill down into the active mantle? They didn’t have the technology to stop a triggered volcanic eruption.
It was just a comforting lie for the voters, but the public eagerly swallowed it. Yes, the planet still possessed massive energy reserves, and they had barely scratched the surface. But how to actually safely extract it? Well, that was a problem for the people living a hundred years from now to figure out.
"Then how about this!"
Baxter finally gritted his teeth, his resolve hardening. "I am willing to sell all my shares in my biotech company to provide the initial seed funding for the nuclear fusion project. I also ask that global governments and private investors purchase shares in this endeavor..."
The Prime Minister was visibly shocked by this bold declaration and seriously began considering the feasibility of the plan.
Because of the Great Sage’s stellar reputation and immense influence, several wealthy individuals in the room also grew interested. They reasoned that if all the world’s top scientific talent were pooled together, they might actually succeed... Buying in early could turn out to be the greatest, most profitable investment in history.
Soon, answering the Great Sage’s rallying cry, a massive coalition of wealthy elites, global investors, and international governments frantically began raising capital. The funding for this final controllable nuclear fusion project reached an unprecedented 1.8 trillion credits!
1.8 trillion!
Such a colossal budget was completely unprecedented in their history! For the first time, the "Nuclear Fusion" project commanded the attention of the entire world.
The Oppenheimer Nuclear Fusion Research Center was officially established! Named after the legendary historical figure, this research center proudly displayed the soaring ambition of its founders.
The scientists gathered in Thor City were the most brilliantly funded and arguably the most intelligent collective in the history of the civilization. They were launching an all-out, final assault on controllable nuclear fusion technology, determined to conquer it before the looming energy crisis destroyed them all!
The funding was secured; money was no longer an excuse. It was time to get to work!
Staring up at the towering headquarters of the newly established center, Baxter felt a surge of profound pride...
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