Chapter 176 The End of the Earth-Moon Standoff_1

Crisis Era year 160.

The deterrence standoff between the Earth-Moon Camp had spanned half a century, with both sides continuously vying for living space in the Solar System. There were frequent minor local wars, but both sides exercised restraint, preventing the outbreak of large-scale warfare.

Both superpowers, armed with nuclear deterrents, would generally confine border conflicts within a limited scope when they occurred, which is a benefit of deterrence standoff.

On a local battlefield, I could ignore some advantages you gained. But in a large-scale war, both sides possess the capability for indiscriminate attack: a single warship could now destroy the surface of a planet from a great distance.

Offensive capability greatly exceeding defense is a form of deterrence in itself.

Since the Earth Camp successfully broke through the Moon's blockade, there has been an unprecedented surge in technology, population, and colonial construction among other aspects.

In terms of interstellar colonial construction within the Solar System, the Earth Camp, within a mere fifteen years, has surpassed nearly a century of efforts by the Moon Camp in terms of speed and scale of construction, with this gap continuously widening at a geometric rate.

Population has always been an advantage for the Earth Camp, and with the dramatic expansion of living space in recent years, the population of the Earth Camp has exploded.

By the 160th year of the Crisis Era, the Earth Camp's population had reached 13 billion: 7 billion on Earth Mother Planet and 6 billion combined on the Colonial Starports and Fleet International.

Harsh living conditions do not necessarily lead to reduced birth rates; on the contrary, birth rates often explode after environmental improvements.

In reality, regions with low birth rates are those that are developed and have vast disparities between rich and poor, while impoverished and harsh regions do not necessarily have low birth rates.

Human technology also achieved unprecedented development.

In the field of biomedical science, genetic editing has eradicated cancer;

Nanomedical robots can diagnose and treat a wide range of diseases with precision;

Bioregeneration technology enables the cultivation of one's own organs to replace damaged ones;

Techniques for telomere suppression and free radical removal have extended the average human lifespan to 156 years…

In the field of information technology, a century and a half ago, Rey Diaz relied extensively on ordinary people using brain-machine interfaces in conjunction with weak artificial intelligence to pioneer and construct the Moon Base.

With the development of information technology by the digitalized society of the Underground City, today's information technology has reached all-new heights.

Virtual reality technology, holographic projection, biometric technology, advanced artificial intelligence, and the integration with the Internet of Things have transformed humanity into a dreamlike paradise.

It's not that the current resources allow for human enjoyment; rather, the resource cost of information technology is actually quite low. What's high is its development cost; humans are merely using by-products from military and space applications.

However, traditional computers are still in use in this era, as quantum computers, potentially susceptible to Sophon manipulation, are strictly restricted from entering human society.

Constrained by the inherent limitations of traditional computers, the current technologies are still within the range of Common Era People's imagination.

Apart from military strength and colonial construction, the Moon Camp doesn't actually lag too far behind the Earth Camp in other aspects.

The Moon Camp currently has a population of 2.5 billion, with well-established colonial constructions on Mercury, Mars, and Venus leaving little room for Earth Camp to intervene. However, their colonial development on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and asteroid orbits lags behind that of the Earth Camp.

It seems like the development of civilization has entered the fast lane. However, the Science Advisory Board of both camps has reported a situation.

The pace of human scientific advancement is slowing down, whether it's in material science, applied technology, environmental engineering, biomedical science, analytical chemistry… It seems as if… we are close to hitting the ceiling of scientific progress.

In fact, many in the scientific community today do not agree with the concept of a technological ceiling. They believe that the lack of theoretical support will only slow down our pace of scientific development but won't restrict technological progress.

The Trisolarans limit our research in micro-theory, merely constraining our development in the microscopic field, but not really restricting our scientific progress. Over the years, our technology has been in a state of explosion, with each presumed technological bottleneck eventually proving to be just a limitation of our conventional thinking.

In the fields of military and colonial construction, the Moon Camp may have started earlier, but now it is clearly at a disadvantage.

Earth Camp's strategy was simple, to fully seize all the planets in the Solar System and important resource belts using a large number of industrial warships, and then, after establishing numerous Colonial Starports, slowly erode the influence of Moon Camp.

Although Earth Camp eroded Moon Camp's territory locally, it acted with swift decisiveness, leaving no chance once it made its move, making it almost impossible for Moon Camp to defend against such encroachment.

Perhaps only through suffering could they truly examine themselves, and Moon Camp paid the price for its arrogance. Wars are never fought according to their plans, and they had been too distant from war for so long that they had forgotten what war was.

However, everyone underestimated one person, Feng Zi. He was a godlike figure, seemingly capable of seeing through everything on the battlefield, always able to save the day at the most critical moments.

He always managed to buy precious breathing room for Moon Camp, and humanity within Moon Camp learned to grow from strike after strike, growth that perhaps came in an instant.

Any human skill requires a long time to learn, except for one, and that is war, which is engraved in the depths of human genes, or perhaps it could be said it is for any species.

As time reached the 160th year of the Crisis Era, both Earth-Moon Camps realized that it would be impossible to completely conquer the other in the next half-century, and even if they could, there would be no time left to prepare for the Trisolaris Crisis.

During the half-century standoff between Earth and Moon, both sides heavily colonized the Solar System, not only for dominance over each other but also in preparation for the Trisolaris Crisis.

The rivalry plans of both camps interlocked, and the colonization of the Solar System could be quickly converted into a military force against the Trisolarans. Together, they constituted a complete Solar System defense system; everyone in this era was a Wallfacer.

This was also an important purpose of the Lagrange Plan, the best way for Earth and Moon to break the stalemate was to expand the battlefield. Thus, the investment in battlefield construction by both sides correspondingly increased, and the speed of construction under the threat of war far exceeded that of peacetime mega-projects.

Lin Sen, the capitalist with a heart as dark as the void, had gambled on humanity's predictability to the core.

At the beginning of the Earth-Moon war, Lin Sen suggested that the Moon Base colonize the entire Solar System, and then assimilate Earth Alliance with its immense civilizational volume. Initially, it seemed insignificant, but now it seems, he truly was a master at hoodwinking. He hoodwinked our parents' generation all their lives, and our generation got hoodwinked all the same.

Master of hoodwinking Lin Sen stated, "This is but a small part of a transparent scheme, yet a giant leap for mankind. Even if I didn't hoodwink, wouldn't the commander of Earth Alliance do the same?"

The Trisolaran "Whirlwind Stomp" would arrive in the Solar System in half a century, and humanity would not forget this most significant threat, the time to consolidate all forces to face the Trisolaris Crisis was now.

This year, the most influential figures of Earth and Moon, Ye Chen and Xiang Gaofeng met. Since both had undergone hibernation frequently, their physiological ages were surprisingly similar, each only a little over 80 years old. Given the average human lifespan of 156 years, they were both just reaching middle age.

The meeting of Ye and Xiang signified the end of the deterrence and stand-off between Earth and Moon.

This outcome baffled the Trisolarans, unable to understand how two splinter groups of human civilization could unite so easily.

Among the Trisolarans, once a group split, fusion was essentially impossible. But humans, after analyzing the pros and cons, commonly found collaboration with the enemy quite normal.

In fact, having stood against each other for half a century, the people at the bottom had long stopped hoping for this confrontation to continue.

That half-century proved that neither could conquer the other. Feng Zi of Moon Camp was a legend, and no matter what schemes Earth Camp devised, it could not achieve victory over Moon Camp, not even by erosion.

Each of Moon's strikes hit Earth Camp at its weakest points, even leading to paranoid delusion among Earth Camp's high-ranking officials. Every military plan had to be simulated numerous times, taking all scenarios into account, leaving no loopholes.

Due to its rapid development, Earth Camp was stronger than Moon Camp in overall strength, and it was not easy for Moon Camp to erode Earth Camp's influence locally.

Back and forth they went, through the long century of war, leaving the populace at the bottom suffering greatly. This stand-off was also a torture of body and mind.

Now the stability of both regimes was at risk, and if the confrontation were not to end now, it was highly likely that rebellion would occur within both camps, which would undoubtedly push human civilization towards hell.

After a series of cautious contacts, the higher echelons of both sides concluded that it was time for peace talks. In actuality, Moon Camp had initially hoped for negotiations but had feared Earth Alliance's retaliation.

However, half a century had passed, and they had forgotten their initial purpose, and they were no longer afraid of Earth Alliance either.

This year, the Star Defense Plan officially commenced, but the PDC did not change its name to the FDC (Star Defense Center).

First, the joining of forces between Earth and Moon was for cooperation in battle, not a merger. Secondly, the PDC had always been at the core of Earth Camp's elite, and Earth Camp was accustomed to it; switching to FDC would seem to imply inclusion of Moon Camp, showing too obvious an enmity.

This year, all of humanity's military construction focus was no longer on countering humans themselves, but was united against the outside threat, gathering human strength like never before—a common hope for all humanity.