Chapter 538: The Current Situation of Starship Earth_1

Jiang Yu and Zhang Beihai's handshake can be seen as the close cooperative relationship between the Solar System State and Starship Earth.

Nowadays, Jiang Yu is essentially the emblem and spiritual leader of the Solar System State, while Zhang Beihai is the emblem and spiritual leader of Starship Earth.

After a long while, Jiang Yu finally spoke, "The last time we met was over two hundred years ago."

Zhang Beihai laughed and said, "Yeah, I never dreamed I would see humanity take root and sprout in another planetary system.

"I've always wanted to thank you for all the support you've given to Starship Earth."

Jiang Yu smiled and shook his head, "Helping you is helping ourselves. In this cold universe, it feels good to have companions."

Now Zhang Beihai gave Jiang Yu the impression of being like Logic after retirement.

The thousand-pound burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

Next, Jiang Yu shook hands with Dongfang Yanxu and others; Chu Yan and Dongfang Yanxu had been taking turns in office.

Currently, Chu Yan had gone to develop another planetary system and was not in the capital of Starship Earth.

At the spaceport, a group of people transferred to a shuttle to return to the ground.

Only a part of Jiang Yu's entourage followed him to land, as the living space on Starship Earth was limited, and there was simply no room for everyone on the ground.

On this planet, there was only one city, called New Boundary City, which Jiang Yu thought was more of a town than a city.

On the ground, there was also a formal welcome ceremony. After all, this was a visit by the head of another state, and naturally, they wanted to appear as warm as possible.

What followed was Zhang Beihai showing Jiang Yu around New Boundary City. The structure here was not complicated; most of it was industrial areas, along with residential areas, and there were hardly any leisure and entertainment areas.

The permanent population here was less than fifty thousand, so the scale of the city was not large.

The population of Starship Earth had once had a serious age gap. When they set out, their interstellar navigational capabilities were very immature, and living resources were limited, so there was extremely strict control over reproduction during the journey.

Upon arriving at the new planet, the population was too small, and everything they did seemed powerless.

For example, climate air conditioning required many people to calibrate and supervise the construction of robots, but due to the small population, even the manufacturing of construction robots was somewhat difficult.

A system like climate air conditioning was a huge project for them, and they simply had no power to deploy it.

Thus, the first thing Starship Earth did upon arriving in the new world was to strive to have children.

At that time, the crew members were mostly middle-aged, and when the children grew up, their parents were already old.

So, during that period, Starship Earth had only the elderly, the young, and children; there were no middle-aged people.

The population had always been Starship Earth's Achilles' heel. With fewer people, there was less demand, which kept Starship Earth relatively small to this day.

Such a small entity was not capable of developing a very strong civilization.

Jiang Yu thought to himself: No wonder the development of humanity in the original work always remained lackluster. Looking at Starship Earth now, it simply couldn't keep up with the pace of the Solar System State's development.

Starship Earth had once considered using clones to alleviate the urgent need, but after the first batch of clones appeared, their social positioning became very unclear.

On the issue of how to treat clones, serious disagreements arose within Starship Earth, and ultimately the plan fizzled out.

New Boundary City only had a few streets, and the buildings were all utilitarian, with not much to see.

This was also a characteristic of Starship Earth. Whether it was architecture, transportation, or anything else, the goal was utility. As for appearances, as long as they were passable, they never cared about aesthetics.

After a brief tour, Jiang Yu and his entourage were arranged to stay in the only hotel, filling it to capacity.

The next day, Jiang Yu led the accompanying officials in the first round of negotiations with Dongfang Yanxu and the officials of Starship Earth.

Since communication had been made well in advance, the negotiation went smoothly.

During the intermission, Jiang Yu chatted with an official from Starship Earth: "Do you have any local delicacies here?"

The food provided by the hotel the previous day was barely palatable, so Jiang Yu planned to go out and find something to eat himself.

The official hesitated for a moment, then said, "Starship Earth doesn't have high demands for food, so there's no local specialty."

"If I have to mention something, it would be the nutrition bars with various flavors. I've heard merchants from the Solar System State complain, wondering why they still have to eat such non-nutritious things like nutrition bars even after settling on a planet?"

As the official spoke of this, he did so laughing, treating it as a funny story.

Jiang Yu had the same question in mind: "Indeed, now that we've settled down, why not improve the quality of life?"

"Life must give way to survival," the official replied. "I suppose this is where our differences lie.

"We believe that everything should be secondary to survival; anything beyond that is just excess baggage of civilization."

Jiang Yu did not continue the topic, wishing he had brought some food along.

The first day's meeting yielded significant achievements.

That evening, Jiang Yu invited Zhang Beihai to dine at the hotel under a personal capacity.

Looking at the simple and unappetizing dishes on the table, Jiang Yu joked, "This trip seems more like a weight loss journey for me."

Zhang Beihai also laughed, then he spoke seriously, "I've noticed this problem a long time ago. The long-term life on spacecraft and the Dark Battles have made the first citizens of Starship Earth generally forget the meaning of life.

"The new generation has never seen the rich and varied life of humanity, so they have gradually formed this survival-centric lifestyle.

"You may have heard about it, there was a time when many people suggested supplementing energy through injections.

"Fortunately, the example of the Black Cuboid People served as a deterrent, otherwise they might have tortured themselves into who knows what."

Jiang Yu stroked his chin and thought for a moment: "I remember that the Solar System State and Starship Earth can enroll in each other's countries for study, right?"

"Yes," said Zhang Beihai, "we established a mutual study program when we formally established diplomatic relations.

"But because we are too far apart, this exchange program is more of a decoration.

"When I awoke from hibernation, the idea of prioritizing survival above all had already become the mainstream.

"Even now that resources are abundant, they're still not put towards living; instead, efforts are focused on developing the New Star System."

At this point, Zhang Beihai sighed deeply, "The long drift in space, combined with the psychological torture of the Dark Battles, has left a lasting psychological shadow on the people.

"To the extent that nobody has any extravagant hopes for life anymore, although I have made efforts, they haven't been very effective."

Jiang Yu gave a wistful smile, "This won't do. It's too dispassionate and too rational.

"Surviving in the universe is difficult, and if we can't maintain a positive attitude, if we can't find spiritual rest in life,

"Living like ascetics solely focused on self-discipline is painful and can easily lead to the collapse of civilization at a basic level."