Chapter 206: Industrial Cooperation

With the signing of this contract, a large number of Federation merchants began to enter the Star City from the Cosmic Silk Road, opening up this vast market.

Within just 50 years, these merchants completed the construction of factories, ranging from small toy and snack manufacturers to large-scale weapons and equipment producers, covering the entire industrial chain of the Star City and providing the Olive Branch Civilization with an abundance of material goods.

After another 200 years, through several rounds of business cycles, some merchants went bankrupt, while others developed new industries that aligned with the Olive Branch Civilization, thus truly establishing a solid presence in the Star City.

Unlike the lower-level civilizations of the Earth era, higher-level civilizations do not create job opportunities through their factories. Instead, they develop supporting facilities to meet the needs of more life forms.

The Federation's task is simple: produce goods and find a balance of interests.

They ensure that the Olive Branch Civilization's lives do not perceive these goods as having excessive profits, which could lead to them taking over the production. At the same time, the Federation also avoids being left with nothing.

Even if an item has only a 5% profit margin, they will still produce it, minimizing their own profits as much as possible.

A 5% profit margin sustained over 20 years can result in a 100% return. If you factor in the factories, the Federation can break even within 120 to 150 years. Initially, the Federation's trade with the Star City was heavily in deficit.

However, after approximately 470 years, the trade deficit turned into a surplus, and the Federation began to genuinely extract resources from the Star City.

After around 700 years, the Federation's commercial scale in the Star City had expanded to 500 billion billion Federation coins. At this point, the Federation coin began to infiltrate the Star City from the bottom up.

Chu could no longer prevent this.

It's important to remember that the Star City has long since freed itself from the Shared Consciousness Cluster and embraced self-governed democracy.

When the will of the lower levels surpasses that of the upper levels, the upper levels cannot interfere.

It was at this point that Chu realized he had overlooked something, or perhaps it was his inherent way of thinking that created this massive loophole.

He still considered himself the manager from the past, capable of controlling everything, even though a significant portion of the decisions were made by the Shared Consciousness Cluster. In reality, it held immense power.

Now, however, his power has been stripped away, and he is unable to change what he perceives as mistakes.

The only consolation for Chu is that the Energy Coin itself does not have a high premium, and the Federation can only earn a premium of less than 10%. After all, the Energy Coin is energy itself.

Chu made efforts to develop an alternative currency, even going so far as to make the energy and face value of the coin equal.

However, the Federation mandated that purchases could only be made using Energy Coins. They directly equated Chu's Energy Coins with Federation Energy Coins, meaning that for every Energy Coin Chu produced, he would lose the same amount. If he continued to produce Energy Coins, the Federation would profit by 20%.

Consequently, Chu decisively stopped producing new Energy Coins.

Building on this, the Federation issued new high-denomination Energy Coins, utilizing more advanced and reliable technology. They managed to pack 222 million degrees of electricity into the original Energy Coin, making one high-denomination coin equivalent to eight regular Energy Coins. Additionally, they reduced the premium on the high-denomination Energy Coins to 7%, allowing Federation Energy Coins to infiltrate various aspects of the Star City.

To appease Chu, after earning profits for 100 years, the Federation sensed that Chu might not be able to hold back any longer. They promptly handed over the minting rights to Chu, allowing him to produce all the Energy Coins within the Star City.

Chu was left dumbfounded.

However, before he could fully process this, he quickly discovered that the Federation had started recruiting lives from the Olive Branch Civilization in the Star City to produce high-end goods, including weapons and battleships.

These lives from the Olive Branch Civilization are mechanical in structure, known for their precision, reliability, tireless work ethic, and astonishing computational power. Due to their advanced structure, their computational power is generally several dozen times higher than that of Federation robots, ranging from 12 to 20 times.

Such a workforce is perfectly suited for high-precision tasks and is extremely cost-effective.

Why are they so cost-effective?

The lives of the Olive Branch Civilization have infinite lifespans, and the concept of time is irrelevant to them. You could say that they work for 100 years, get paid once every 100 years, and take a five-day break every hundred years.

They have no time costs.

Such outrageous demands are nothing to the lives of the Olive Branch Civilization.

The Federation noticed that the lives of the Olive Branch Civilization have structures similar to auxiliary brains. They can put their primary consciousness to sleep and let the 'auxiliary brain' manage their bodies.

It's like having two consciousnesses: one that sleeps during the day and plays games at night, and another that sleeps at night and goes to work or school during the day.

The willingness of the Olive Branch Civilization's lives to serve as cheap labor also saves the Federation a significant amount of money in robot production.

Furthermore, in the Star City, the Federation began collaborating with ordinary lives from the Olive Branch Civilization, utilizing their technology to build new battleships.

To ensure Chu had no objections, the Federation gave him shares in the battleship factories and transferred a large amount of funds to the Star City every year.

The bond of interests began to take effect after 1000 years.

Unbeknownst to them, the Star City and the Federation had become a unified entity, a community of shared interests.

Due to the extremely low profits of these goods, it was impossible for the Star City to take over these factories and kick out the Federation. The cost of restructuring the system would make the payback period for these factories extremely long. Moreover, a portion of the profits was directly transferred to the Star City, creating numerous interest groups within the Star City, numbering in the tens of millions.

These interest groups supported the Federation and even subtly opposed Chu.

Everything was interconnected.

The Federation also engaged in extensive propaganda within the Star City, touting the Star City's strength and portraying the Federation as a remote and backward place. This led to Federation lives facing significant discrimination within the Star City.

As a result, the lower-level lives in the Star City had little desire to oppose the Federation.

Chu had made countless efforts over 1000 years, but he found that the Federation's infiltration was too deep. Before he could react, the Federation and the Star City had become one.

Now, Chu even feels that calling himself the leader of the Federation is not entirely out of place.

But this is not the most terrifying part.

The most terrifying aspect is that Chu keenly feels the Star City's tremendous progress over the past 1000 years, far surpassing the previous 10,000 or 20,000 years. It's as if the world has been turned upside down.

This is also the primary reason why Chu hesitated to overthrow the Federation in the Star City after realizing their invasion.

He even doubts whether he could have done a better job than the Federation after taking over.

In reality, the Federation's task is straightforward: to stimulate the entire Star City's production capacity.

If each life in the Star City originally produced only 60% of their potential, the Federation has now increased that to 90%. This 30% increase is equivalent to boosting a country's GDP from 10 trillion to 15 trillion.

Moreover, the Federation's presence has further stimulated the Star City's economy, leading to a more than threefold increase in its economic output over 1000 years.

Don't underestimate this threefold increase.

Since the Energy Coin is the currency, the economy is essentially energy. Over 1000 years, the Star City has made a 0.1-level progress in energy.

This is an incredibly rapid advancement for a 2.4-level civilization, even if it still falls short of the Federation.

With the Star City earning so much, what has the Federation gained?

Battleships!

Weapons!

In the previous 1000 years, the Federation had already produced an excess of weapons for the Star City, then shifted the Star City's demand to energy. Since the entire Star City is a battleship and a weapon, with an enormous amount of energy, they can become incredibly powerful and unmatched.

All the Star City's income is converted into these weapons and battleships. Leveraging the Star City's industrial capabilities as a higher-level civilization, along with the well-developed facilities from the previous 1000 years, the Federation only needed 400 years to build 12 new giant ships, which are even more advanced. Each ship has a size of 1000 kilometers.

The weapon systems also incorporate some modes from the Olive Branch Civilization's weapons, although they are outdated. However, due to the difference in civilization levels, the Federation's use of these weapons is considered an advancement.

These battleships will be deployed in the war against the Silk Civilization, and the Federation has promised that after this war, even if the Star City does nothing, it will still receive 40% of the spoils.

This is equivalent to obtaining 40% of a 2.3-level civilization, which Chu is more than happy to accept.

This is also why Chu allowed the Federation to build giant ships and weapons.

In fact, the stronger the Federation becomes, the better it is for Chu, as long as he can control the degree of their strength. It is extremely dangerous to let the Federation surpass the Star City at any point.

Fortunately, there is still a gap between the Federation and the Star City, and with the Star City's development, this gap will not narrow in the short term.

The 40% of the Silk Civilization is also crucial in stabilizing Chu's position, as the Star City receives almost half of it, ensuring that the Federation does not immediately close the gap with the Star City by occupying the Silk Civilization.

However, Chu has one point of confusion.

"Are you going to take these battleships back?"