Chapter 581: Martian Ares Science City

A week later.

Three enormous migration spacecraft slowly penetrated the ozone layer of the planet and hovered above the air for a moment before descending onto the surface.

“Thump!”

The gates of the spacecraft cabins slowly opened and rows of Martian rovers exited from the spacecraft in a practiced fashion.

Each Martian rover carried up to thousands of passengers. The long-awaited moment was finally here. They stepped out of the rover and were greeted by an enormous spaceport.

“Daddy, Mommy, look!”

“Oh my god!”

“So, this is the Ares City on Mars? It’s comparable to the Eco Science City itself, this one might be even larger…”

The migrants formed a giant crowd of which Mars had never seen before. There were a lot of cheers and awe as they beheld the historical sight.

Wang Wei was one of the members of the crowd. He stepped out with his wife and son. The first thing he saw upon stepping out was a large, arc-shaped spaceport, and farther in the distance, there was the familiar sight of monumental skyscrapers that towered across the horizon!

These skyscrapers were not designed like conventional buildings seen on Earth. They took on many different geometrical shapes, some were oval, others semicircular, but most of them are in the shape of a large spindle. They formed a jungle in the cityscape and one could also note the city’s high-altitude light rails circling the buildings like silvery snakes wrapping themselves around the city.

Further in the distance, beyond the residential skyscrapers, they could see wide streets and avenues, parks decorated with dense flora, and even vast lakes. The entire city had developed its very own microhabitat. This was the glory of a colonial megacity that could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people!

Even beyond this spectacle, they could see vast chimney-like that stretched almost a kilometer vertically. These were none other than Blacklight Biotechnology’s very own atmosphere generator. These otherworldly structures constantly emitted dense clouds of white smoke into the planet’s atmosphere.

“This place would become the new home of mankind…”

Wang Wei felt his spirits rising when he saw the perfect scenery that looked straight out of a painting. He held his son’s hand and could not wait to step onto this wondrous land. The moment he left the rover and stepped onto the soil of the planet, he felt a light, floating sensation.

At the same time, he heard the spaceport’s broadcast system announcement.

The attention of the migrants was quickly captured by a gigantic holographic projection display that appeared above them. It was an encouraging speech signed by the CEO of Blacklight Biotechnology’s African Branch himself, Qian Wenhuan.

“Welcome everyone, to the first colonial city on Mars – the Ares Science City!

“I’d like to congratulate you all for shaping the next era of mankind. The moment you stepped foot on this planet, you’ve drawn the exclamation point of human history as we know it!

“Because from here on, mankind shall embark on the lustrous mission of space migration…

“From here on, mankind will never be restricted to the status of planetary natives but an interstellar species instead! The planet Earth shall no longer be remembered as our only home but the origin of our interstellar species!

“We shall embark on a new chapter in history and every one of you will play a major role and be remembered for eons to come!”

After playing the encouraging speech of Qian Wenhuan, the image transitioned to another video. The CEO of Blacklight Biotechnology’s Central Continent Branch, Xia Yin appeared:

“Dear esteemed members of Blacklight Biotechnology, welcome…”

The Northern American, European, and North Sea representatives of Blacklight Biotechnology each appeared on the display in succession…

“Daddy, Daddy!”

Amid the crowd, a fourteen-year-old teenager who was the son of Wang Wei exclaimed in awe, “My body feels so light!”

“Of course!”

Wang Wei laughed heartily. “The gravity of Mars is one-fifth that of Earth. We’ve grown accustomed to the gravity on Earth so it’s only natural that our body feels a lot lighter on Mars. You’ll get used to it in time!”

With that, he took his wife on one hand and his son on the other and went into the spaceport. Several XTN robots posted as security personnel approached them and bowed at Wang Wei.

“Dear researcher Wang Wei, please follow us, along with our family. We’ve prepared a designated transport for you.”

“Alright.”

Wang Wei nodded calmly and followed the robot as they detached from the rest of the crowd.

It was a decade ago when Wang Wei signed up for the Martian Migration Project. At the time, all of his savings went toward caring for his sickly mother, to a point where they barely had any money left for buying milk powder for his son. His final resort at the time was to join Chen Chen’s company.

Chen Chen was quite generous with this former classmate of his. All things considered, Wang Wei was a very qualified biotechnology scientist, which earned him a fitting role in the company.

Over the next decade, Wang Wei repaid Chen Chen’s trust with exemplary effort. He was quickly promoted from a common laboratory assistant to an official research crew. The treatment he received in the organization was only second to the laboratory research director.

The reason why Wang Wei and another hundred thousand people were willing to emigrate to Mars was because of the drastic transformation Blacklight Biotechnology brought to Mars over the last decade. Today, the Martian atmosphere had the same oxygen content as on Earth and had become as warm as the gentle spring. Directly from the surface of Mars, its habitants could see the dwarf planet revolving around Mars – Ceres.

It was the equivalent of the Moon from Earth.

Blacklight Biotechnology also promised extremely tantalizing benefits for the first batch of migrants to Mars. They were promised elite education for their future generations who would grow up on Mars and meanwhile, the adults were given the essential insurances, housing funds, dedicated villas, doubled wages, and more.

After migrating to Mars, Wang Wei even found himself promoted to the co-director role in the laboratory.

This was how there came to be a hundred thousand willing migrants to the planet, most of them were families of three or four.

…

“Sir Godfather, the first group of migrants has settled into Mar’s Ares Science City.”

On the top floor of the newly constructed Blacklight Biotechnology Headquarters, Little X opened the door and saw Chen Chen sitting on the chair with his back facing the door.

The sunlight shone through the windows and Chen Chen’s luminous reflection was cast onto the panel of glass. He looked like a divine being from where Little X stood.

“The Earth Federation has sent a short message to congratulate the success of our Blacklight Biotechnology Migration Project.”

Little X continued. “Also, the four major continents are conducting a federal meeting as we speak. They plan to unite their resources and follow suit to build a second colonial city on Mars. Should we find a way to stop them?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Chen Chen slowly turned around and stared blankly at Little X. “Let them do whatever they will. We have the technology for the atmosphere generator, cryogenic chamber, and mega spacecraft. There’s no way they can surpass us.”

“It seems like they are worried about you colonizing Mars.”

Little X remarked with a sly chuckle, “Many continents have been proposing a new Artemis Agreement. The clauses are purposed to directly affect Ares Science City and also restrict our continued progress on Mars and the Moon.”

“Just ignore them.”

Chen Chen shook his head. “It’s just a bunch of meaningless threats. We should set our sights on the future now. Tunneling our vision on these little squabbles will only hinder our progress. I’m focused on the great possibilities to come in the future.”

Little X responded with a firm nod.

By this point, Blacklight Biotechnology had more than enough in its arsenal to completely monopolize the aerospace technology industry. Nothing was stopping them from bypassing the Earth Federation as an agent and proceeding to do everything independently. If the Earth Federation wanted to catch up to Blacklight Biotechnology’s aerospace technology scope, it would take them at least fifty years.

This was the reason Chen Chen previously offered some of the technologies to the four major continents. Otherwise, it would take them even longer.

In fifty years, Blacklight Biotechnology would have colonized far more distant planets.

“We should be setting the groundwork for a space exploration mission soon.”

Chen Chen continued. “Migration is only the first phase. If we want to break further away from the shackles of the Earth Federation, we’ll need to achieve self-sufficiency in terms of resource acquisition.”

“The mini mining spacecraft are now in their testing phase.”

Little X said, “The blueprint for their construction isn’t complicated. It’s slightly easier to complete than the migration spacecraft. What we need, however, is more advanced engine technology. This will allow us to speed up as well as minimize energy consumption for our round-trip mining in the asteroid belt. As it is, relying on the Ark to transport our mined resources is simply too inefficient, even with the advent of our controlled nuclear fusion reactor.”

Chen Chen pondered for a moment. “How long is a round trip from the asteroid belt back to our central hubs?”

“It would take three days to move from Mars to the nearest asteroid belt region. This means a round trip would take six days.”

Little X answered, “Although the distance between the asteroid belt and Mars is less than one-fifth of the distance between Mars and the earth, the procedures are more sophisticated. The unmanned mining spacecraft will have to regularly cycle between acceleration and deceleration in the process of navigating the asteroid belts, otherwise, it would only take close to a day’s travel.”

Chen Chen frowned.

Although mankind had accomplished the long-awaited feat of space travel, the engine technology developed by Blacklight Biotechnology could only reach a bare seven percent of the speed of light in a vacuum state. To go beyond that, a more powerful engine would be required.

In truth, even if the speed of ninety-nine percent of the speed of light or even better, sublight speed navigation was achieved, Blacklight Biotechnology’s ventures would still take an insurmountable amount of time to complete. Considering the vast scale of the universe, it would take nearly centuries before Blacklight Biotechnology to reach the planets initially discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission.

There was also the problem of time dilation to consider when traveling at sublight speed.

Scientists once theorized an experiment in which they would build an orbit around the earth, circling its equator. In this orbit, they would set up rails and build a train that could accelerate indefinitely. A group of passengers would be invited for a seven-day journey on this train.

Naturally, the train would begin to gradually accelerate after the passengers boarded it.

For the sake of the experiment, factors such as air resistance, engine power concerns, energy consumption, and other influencing factors were taken out of the equation. In this example, say that it would only take a few minutes for the train to accelerate to manage to lap around the earth seven times in a second. This was the rough parameter of sublight speed.

The train would continue traveling in this way for seven consecutive days, that was, seven days from the passengers’ perspective. When the passengers stepped off the train after seven days, they would find that they had traveled more than a hundred years into the future.

The subject theorized was regarding the concept of time dilation in the special theory of relativity.

The special theory of relativity informed us that the faster the speed achieved, the slower the flow of time. For the people in the train traveling at sublight speed, though the train was only in motion for a week, hundreds of years had passed on the outside. Deriving from these findings, it would directly contradict Chen Chen’s plans and timeline.

Principles such as these were completely out of Chen Chen’s control. Upon traversing into outer space, these laws of the universe could not be manipulated. This meant that even if these spaceships were to complete their missions successfully, they would not be seen again since they had traveled to the distant future…

Whether the operations were a success or failure did not make a difference at that point.

Chen Chen realized that the problem they were facing went beyond the engines of the spacecraft. He was thinking about how they could proceed in the future.

“If only we can figure out how the Ark worked, we can build an interstellar transportation portal.”

Chen Chen sighed. In the scope of the vast universe, the usage of the black sphere Gantz was insignificant. At the end of the day, the coverage range of Gantz only made it useful within the realms of Earth. Anything beyond that scope was impossible for Gantz to be properly utilized.

The only way to achieve interstellar teleportation was by using the Ark from the Doom dimension.

“It would take at least a century, maybe even more than that.”

Little X noted helplessly. “At least two technological eras are separating our current technology and the Ark teleportation technology.”

Chen Chen was well aware of this. Not all technology could be acquired with a mere flick of the wrist. It was like how even the greatest craftsman of ancient times would not be able to figure out how a smartphone operated even if they were given a sample. Regardless of the mastery of the craftsman, some things were simply impossible to be recreated.

All the aerospace technology Chen Chen acquired that allowed Blacklight Biotechnology to separate itself from the Earth Federation came from Elysium and Alien. Nevertheless, even this technology could not accelerate his spacecraft to light speed.

There was a jarring separation between accelerating to the current seven-percent rate of light speed and achieving sublight speed. The difference in energy consumption was nearly a billion folds…

“Unless… Space warp.”

A possibility suddenly came to Chen Chen. He raised his head and stated decisively, “Only space warp can allow us to circumvent time dilation as stated in the special theory of relativity. This will also solve the energy problem we are facing. Space warp is the one true solution!”

“So, you’re going to look for a movie featuring space warp?”

Little X glowed at the idea. She had been with Chen Chen long enough to anticipate his next move. “But movies with similar technologies such as Star Trek, Interstellar, and the likes cannot be inserted into the USB flash drive, isn’t it? There are very few such movies that can be accepted by the USB drive.”

“There’s a certain movie that I’m sure can be received by the USB drive.”

Chen Chen smiled slyly. “Event Horizon…”

Little X was shocked upon hearing this title.