Chapter 187 - 186: Environmental Protection

With the support of the first batch of 10,000 Quantum Supercomputers, Li Qingsong’s construction efforts truly entered what could only be described as a frantic stage.

On the dozens of larger planets Li Qingsong had selected—those that had achieved hydrostatic equilibrium—and even on the larger asteroids that, while not massive enough to be spherical, still held some value, countless intelligent machines, smart devices, and intelligent robots belonging to Li Qingsong began construction day and night.

That’s right. After the Quantum Computers were put into use and the Divine Craft AI’s intelligence was greatly enhanced, Li Qingsong finally had a brand-new production tool: general-purpose, multi-functional humanoid robots!

Li Qingsong had possessed a large number of robots before, but they were typically fixed in one place, assigned to specific tasks.

But things were different now. A higher level of intelligence made the advent of general-purpose humanoid robots possible.

Not only could they replace Clones on the front lines in arduous, dangerous, and harsh environments, but they could also make autonomous decisions, coordinate with each other, and complete tasks with greater intelligence and efficiency.

During this phase, the vast majority of Clones were finally able to withdraw from the front lines and work inside comfortable, spacious, and brightly-lit control bases.

All they had to do was sit in front of computers or lie in smart-pods and contribute their brainpower under Li Qingsong’s central coordination. Barring special circumstances, they were no longer required on the front lines.

Even the Jupiter Planes and transit platforms flying within Oriental A could finally be operated entirely by robots instead of Clones, who would no longer have to endure the torment of gravity ten times that of Earth.

From this moment on, the Clones harvesting deuterium only needed to work from orbit around Oriental A, remotely piloting the Jupiter Planes with assistance from the Divine Craft AI.

There was originally no gravity there, but suitable artificial gravity could be generated on demand through rotation. The improvement in the working environment was immense.

Thanks to the massive boost in efficiency, Li Qingsong could now build and deploy more Jupiter Planes to Oriental A. This allowed him to increase collection efficiency by tenfold or even more, all while using the same number of Clones.

Construction on the other planets was just as frenzied.

Previously, Li Qingsong could only oversee the simultaneous construction of a few hundred thousand factories. Now, with Quantum Computers and hundreds of millions—billions, even—of general-purpose intelligent robots and machines, the number of factories he could build concurrently skyrocketed to several million, or even more than ten million!

He even designated over 30% of the surface of Oriental B, a massive terrestrial planet, as an industrial zone—a total area of 400 million square kilometers.

The land was covered with mines, steel mills, chemical plants, chip foundries, spacecraft component factories, power plants, and so on and so forth.

An endless number of factories sprang up within the industrial zones. On the side of the planet facing away from Oriental Star, their lights converged into a sea of light, clearly visible even from deep space.

It was the same on all the other planets.

As Li Qingsong’s construction efforts went into full swing, every planet began to glow with brilliant, varied colors.

The number of transport ships shuttling through space also skyrocketed. Total cargo tonnage exploded from the previous annual average of about 10 billion tons to well over 100 billion tons, and it was still climbing sharply.

Likewise, even though total cargo volume had increased dramatically, the number of Clones assigned to logistics and transport had not.

As a result, the number of large vessels in Li Qingsong’s fleet began to surge.

Li Qingsong’s goal was to build a fleet twenty times the size of his previous one. This meant constructing 10,000 gigantic Space-Air Carriers, 50,000 heavy transport ships, and other vessels.

However, in practice, Li Qingsong needed to build an additional six times that number of large vessels.

Of course, these weren’t actual starships, but rather empty shells with the same tonnage and dimensions.

As the real fleet grew, the decoy fleet used for camouflage naturally had to be expanded in proportion.

But even for empty shells, the construction difficulty was by no means low.

Given their immense tonnage and volume, even if they only required Thrust Devices, reactors, a hull, and some simple equipment, the difficulty was far beyond that of building genuine small or medium-sized ships.

It was worth mentioning that ever since arriving in the Oriental Star System, all of Li Qingsong’s construction activities had followed a single principle.

Environmental control.

This was not, of course, to protect the environment of the Oriental Star System.

The system didn’t even have the simplest single-celled organisms, so what was the point of protecting its environment?

The main reason was to avoid causing any drastic changes to the local environment that might be detected by outside observers.

During this massive production process, nearly all waste gases were deliberately collected, solidified through various methods, and then either buried deep within the planets or dumped into Oriental A.

This was because directly releasing these waste gases would cause them to form an atmosphere on a planet’s surface or alter the composition of an existing one. In turn, distant observers using the transit method could potentially detect the industrial activity in this Star System from over a dozen light-years away, or even further.

This would inevitably lead to Li Qingsong’s exposure.

Nor could the waste gases be dumped into Oriental Star. As a star, it would instantly vaporize the solidified waste, which would then become part of its atmosphere.

Although this would only cause an infinitesimal change to Oriental Star’s atmosphere, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t be detected.

Burying it deep underground or dumping it into the gas giant, Oriental A, eliminated this concern.

Wastewater, solid waste, and light pollution on the planets, however, were of no concern and required no special treatment.

Now that Li Qingsong’s industrial scale and production capacity had expanded dozens of times over, his corresponding environmental control measures had to be ramped up as well.

Previously, when the industrial scale was limited, a small waste gas leak here or there was no big deal. But now that the operation was so massive, a little leak here and another there could eventually accumulate and form an atmosphere.

Thus, countless ships zipped through the Oriental Star System and innumerable factories hummed with activity—a truly bustling scene. Yet from just one light-year away, the Oriental Star System appeared as serene as ever, showing almost no change.

This was a conclusion Li Qingsong reached only after making direct observations with his "reserve" ships.

Time flew by.

The number of Warships moored in space grew and grew. Meanwhile, in the transmissions from the Clones in the Solar System, that one particular star shone ever brighter.