History of Human Space Exploitation

Chapter 49 The Mouse Hole in the Wall

"Students, please sit down, we will start class."

"Students, let's talk about the ancient use of chemical energy into kinetic energy to launch metals and explosives, to destroy the opponent's facilities, or to kill the opponent's personnel."

"When we were still on the earth, whenever the two armies faced each other, they usually used the above method to gain ground and air superiority, and then wiped out the opponent's effective forces, and then won the war. What we will focus on today is the twentieth century. The offensive and defensive battles of several cities in the 21st century."

"Although throughout the 21th to [-]st centuries on the earth, there have been almost countless wars between countries, and in these wars, battles or battles, the offensive and defensive battles of key cities played a very important role. The reason Yes, after humans entered the age of industrialization, cities tended to gather functions such as material production, transportation hubs, political and economic personnel centers, etc. Moreover, due to cluster effects and marginal effects, larger cities generally greatly reduce the number of people because of their scale. The cost of living and other related costs constitute the strategic value of these key cities."

“Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, there have been countless battles for cities, such as Baghdad, Berlin, Peking, Belgrade, Budapest, Seoul, Warsaw, Kiev, Jinzhou, Kuwait City, Chongqing, Leningrad, Rotterdam, Moscow, Nanjing, Pyongyang, Shanghai, Stalingrad, Taiyuan, Wuhan, Saigon, Hong Kong, Singapore, Changchun, Changsha, Brussels, London and Tokyo. Today I am not going to describe all the offensive and defensive battles for these cities, because some of them were in those cities The war did not involve ground forces, such as Chongqing, London, and Tokyo. We will not focus on places that were so brutal that the attackers and defenders fought for hundreds of days, such as Stalingrad, Leningrad, Taiyuan, Changchun, and Wuhan. "

"What we focus on today are those battles and battles in which the offensive and defensive sides repeatedly competed for a city over a period of time, such as Changsha and Seoul."

"The four battles of Changsha took place in 1939, September 1941, December 9 and 1941 respectively. The Japanese army as the attackers in the first three times all failed, but the fourth Changsha city in 12 was lost. In Among the three city offensive and defensive battles we are going to discuss this time, although there is no obvious generational difference in weapons and equipment between China and Japan in the defense of Changsha, the difference in the level of industrialization and the quality of personnel warfare between the two sides is the greatest. Under such circumstances, the tenacity embodied in the first three defensive victories is still worth learning for us descendants who have been separated by thousands of years."

"The third city to talk about is Seoul. During the Korean War of 1950-1951, in less than a year, the largest city on the Korean peninsula at that time, and in the following years, changed hands four times. The first time was in June 1950, when North Korea captured Seoul from South Korea. The second time was three months later, when the coalition forces after Incheon landed took Seoul back from North Korea. The third time was after the Chinese Volunteers joined the war, at the end of 6 The city was taken again from the coalition forces. The last time was in March 1950, and the coalition forces took Seoul again while the other side was retreating strategically."

"I don't know if you have any insights from these historical materials? Every offensive and defensive battle of this kind of key city means the casualties of tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides, as well as hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. Now we are looking at the history written in these words Sometimes, you may only see numbers like 'thousands', 'tens of thousands', 'hundreds of thousands' or 'millions', but these statistical 'big numbers' contain one by one A life as vivid as ours, one real person after another!"

"The wars we are talking about today all took place in the 21th and 3000st centuries, but everyone feels that the human society we live in is [-] years older than the urban offensive and defensive wars just mentioned. Have you made any progress?"

"I don't think so at all."

"If human beings have made any progress in this area, how can we use this white mineral to write on the black paint wall in our classroom today? Why can we only use metal to make gears and metals today?" Reeds, and then assemble a mechanical computer that is only equivalent to the 50s and [-]s on Earth, and use punched paper strips to calculate those complicated numbers?"

"Students should have heard of what happened 153 years ago, right? Even if you haven't read the information specifically, I believe you must have heard your elders or people around you chat and discuss about that incident, right? Today, Just follow the tragic ancient wars we discussed just now, and tell everyone about this."

"At that time, our area of ​​about [-] cubic light-years was also called the E star region. E here does not represent the sequence discovered by humans, but in the entire Virgo supercluster, politics, The ranking of economic status. Among the more than ten star regions at that time, we were considered a very good place."

"However, human beings' thirst for resources and the inferiority of mutual distrust naturally make several regimes in our star sector hostile to each other. Mutual hostility will naturally be like human beings in history, using military means to deter each other. gain the greatest benefit."

"Albert Einstein, the author of the theory of relativity, once said that if the third world war of mankind was a nuclear war, then it is certain that the fourth will use stones and sticks. In the age of the earth, human beings developed fission and fusion Weapons, nuclear-armed countries have threatened to end each other in this way several times. Fortunately, all these deterrents have stopped at propaganda and preparation, and none of them have been implemented. Nuclear weapons themselves have also made mankind To the dream of outer space."

"However, the people of the E sector 200 years ago were not so lucky. Although the smallest regime at that time was based on planets, planetary systems, or star systems, even the most destructive fusion weapons could hardly cause damage to a planet as a whole." Considerable damage. However, all regimes know that they can deploy star-level nuclear weapons around Star Tunnel 1-2-9, the only communication link between Sector E and the outside world."

"The importance of star tunnels for human beings to travel in the universe, you can go to the books and information. This artificial celestial body is roughly obtained by blasting a gaseous planet of a certain mass with a star-level nuclear weapon. If it is just an ordinary spaceship shuttle, it is very stable. .However, if the Star Tunnel is impacted by the same star-level nuclear weapon, it will be easily destabilized and annihilated. Knowing this, all regimes in the E sector are in the 1-2-9 Star Tunnel They have deployed star-level nuclear weapons that they control, but they all claim that they are only used for 'security guarantees, not actual wars'. Based on the experience of human history, every regime and the people of every regime think so."

"However, the madness of human beings is unpredictable. The interstellar war between regimes that started 157 years ago led some extremists to plan the sabotage operation 153 years ago. These people used modified The high-speed spacecraft with high-performance fusion engines passed through the no-fly military zone deployed around several large-scale star-level nuclear weapons. Among the 29 spacecraft, 7 directly hit the blasting point around the Star Tunnel and detonated Nuclear weapons."

"You know, even if these spaceships equipped with improved fusion engines detonate themselves in the star tunnel, it is not enough to affect the structure of the star tunnel. Those extremists naturally know this, so they planned such an action .”

"Everyone knows what happened after that. Our E star area is completely isolated from the universe with hundreds of billions of humans. Even if we redevelop a star-level nuclear weapon with the same equivalent to blast a gaseous planet a few years later, the star tunnel and It is known that the possibility of human space connection is less than one in a trillion."

"Speaking of it, it is truly ironic that the various government headquarters that were planning to attack several planets or planetary systems before receiving the news of the annihilation of the Star Tunnel all stopped within a standard hour after receiving the news. All military operations and planning. From this point of view, human beings really do not have the kind of physiological and civilized genes that learn from each other.”

"What's more, due to the convenience of the star tunnel itself, very few star regions of our type will develop fully self-sufficient technology and light and heavy industries. The result is that after we are cut off from human society, those remaining star regions Spaceships can be repaired and used for less than 200 years at most. And computers for daily use, even calculators, we cannot build from scratch in a short period of time."

"Fortunately, the "History of Human Universe Development" compiled 300 years ago has many types on various planets, including backups of paper and copper engravings. This prevents us from directly degrading in the past 100 years. In the barbaric state, some genes of civilization can still be retained."

"The human history of the past ten thousand years tells us that from the primitive period of gnawing and beating each other with teeth and fists, to running with both feet or riding a horse, stabbing each other with knives, guns and arrows, and then using chemical energy Or nuclear-powered destructive weapons threatening each other's heads, and the goals of human struggle have not changed much."

"From the beginning for a zebra, a mammoth, a berry forest, and a cave, to a mountain fortress, a river, a piece of fertile land, a shipping route for goods, and then a Lagrange The right to deploy a space station at a certain point, the right to charge a star tunnel, or an asteroid rich in rare metals such as tungsten and iridium, human wars and mutual attacks have never ended.”

"There have been many studies in the past that believe that in the age of military needs, the progress of science and technology is often much faster than in the peaceful age of the same period. Such a statement is hard to deny, because several times in the past, great strides in science and technology have indeed been made. It is based on the need for military expansion, so that those countries can increase investment in certain fields. In contemporary peacetime, there are fewer countries that have support and investment in areas with greater uncertainty. Indeed, private research and development and investment are More towards areas with less risk and higher rewards.”

"However, can this be a reasonable reason for us to think that humans are pointing spears or missiles at each other's heads? I don't think so. So far, our group has only once, the only time in history, that all human beings The power to do something."

"It is the end plan of the 23rd century AD. The plan for all human beings to use all resources, all wisdom, and almost all the time in those 200 years to realize their own self-salvation."

"But, after that, have human beings worked together for their own well-being? No..."

"What we said today is just a few words from the academic papers that our scholars in the E star area learned from the painful experience after the destruction of the star tunnel. It is believed that this information is difficult for humans outside the E star area to see. But I believe they will also reflect on this, although for them, there is no such pain as ours."

"At the end of this class, I hope that human beings can make progress! Do you think it will?"

(End of this chapter)