Chapter 500: Give Civilization to the Years, Not Years to Civilization!
"If it goes on like this, then even if we only build one high-energy accelerator on Mars, the Trisolarans would be forced to assign a sophon to interfere."
"Then on Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, even in Pluto's orbit—as long as we spread them far enough apart, the Trisolarans would have to dispatch more sophons to blockade them."
"If we can force the Trisolaran civilization to manufacture a dozen or more sophons, their social economy and order will collapse, just like ours once did."
The councilors present could already reason out the implications of the situation ahead.
Even under the worst assumptions, the Trisolarans might occupy the Solar System, but the number of their people able to migrate here would remain extremely limited.
Other than that handful of lucky ones, the rest would be left behind on their homeworld to die!
This was humanity's greatest advantage. Once the struggle dragged into a prolonged war of attrition, the side to suffer losses would inevitably be the Trisolarans.
At this moment, a great man's monumental treatise On Protracted War surfaced in Luo Ji's mind. The invaders had once tried to conquer the vast Chinese land with a blitzkrieg.
But the vast strategic depth and the sea-like people's struggle gradually wore down the once-fervent invaders. The inability to achieve a swift victory was tantamount to a slow death.
This was the turning point between the two sides!
The Solar System had abundant resources; humanity could squander them at will, building as much as needed.
In that instant, Galnin and the council members were struck by realization. The moment humanity left Earth and gained the ability to exploit planetary resources, they had already found a way to defeat the Trisolarans.
Unfortunately, humanity at that time was too arrogant, trapped in a mental dead end, neglecting fundamental scientific development, and naively believing giant warships and cannons alone could withstand Trisolaran civilization.
They had obsessed over spending vast resources to build fleets, without ever considering how to use the distance between the eight planets to wage guerrilla tactics against the sophons.
Among the councilors were many Chinese, and they too instantly thought of that brilliant leader of old. The strategy to resist the Trisolarans had already appeared three centuries earlier.
The weapons of struggle—it was time to pick them up again.
"So you mean humanity really still has hope…!"
The more Galnin thought about it, the more excited he became. If Luo Ji's plan were followed, they wouldn't need to build ten thousand high-energy particle accelerators. A hundred or two, scattered across planetary orbits, would suffice.
The cost was low, yet the gains might break through the sophon blockade.
The thought of piercing the sophons' stranglehold on micro-scale research made Galnin's breath grow rapid. What a beautiful vision this was.
But just as everyone was about to sink into this wonderful fantasy, Hines poured a bucket of cold water over them:
"If we'd realized this twenty years earlier, there might still have been a chance. But now it's too late—the Trisolarans will never let us do it."
He pointed to the ceiling of the chamber, indicating the space above, where the droplets that had just massacred the European and North American Fleets still floated.
"No one can stop the droplets."
The words snapped everyone back to cold, brutal reality. The Trisolarans' probes were already at their doorstep. At this moment, any move humanity made would be physically disrupted and destroyed by the droplets.
Now that the droplets had entered the heart of the Solar System, they were less than twenty hours from reaching Earth.
That terrifying weapon, able to pierce any armor with ease—piercing Earth itself would be nothing.
Once the droplets reached Earth, nowhere on the planet would be safe. The plan to build high-energy particle accelerators would vanish into thin air.
Humanity's only remaining fleet strength was Asia's 700 starships. A thousand ships had been wiped out with ease by a single droplet—what chance did they have with just this?
Even more despairing was the fact that nine more droplets would arrive in three years. That would be enough to ring every planet in the Solar System. Humanity wouldn't even have the qualification to play guerrilla war.
The Trisolaran main fleet was still 2.1 light years away, but their ten droplets alone could already throw humanity's world into chaos.
Any wise leader or brilliant counterattack plan would be destroyed, wiped out without a trace, by the droplets.
"We should have thought of this earlier. Now it's all too late."
The hopeful flames flickering in the councilors' eyes were extinguished once more. To have hope snatched away again—it was suffocating. Several elderly councilors fainted on the spot, unable to withstand the repeated blows.
"You useless fools! Why didn't you do this earlier? What's the point of building those damn space fleets! We clearly had a chance to win, and yet we've ended up like this!"
The representatives from among the people roared in fury. None could accept that all their sweat and struggle had been for nothing.
The crude, clumsy method once mocked by everyone could have worked from the very start—could have opened a path of salvation for humanity—but they had ignored it.
Silence, regret, frustration, all tangled in every heart.
Hines sighed softly. "We all had the limits of our times. Back then, none of us imagined humanity would even step beyond Earth.
And you were too blindly optimistic, lacking any true grasp of the technological gap."
His words plunged the chamber into a heavy silence. Humanity had come to this point, and the fault could not be pinned on any one person, or any one group.
There had been many chances to defeat the Trisolarans. But time and again, humanity's arrogance and despair had led them to miss every opportunity.
"Perhaps we should examine this inter-civilizational war with higher-dimensional thought. Despair always conceals the seed of life. We will still have a chance. We will…"
Luo Ji murmured. He had never given up on his Wallfacer plan. The reason he refused to resume his Wallfacer status was so that he could cast off the shackles and complete his task.
Yet in truth, his mind held no concrete Wallfacer strategy, no clear path for humanity's salvation.
The only thing echoing in his mind was what Ye Wenjie had once said, two centuries ago, at Yang Dong's grave.
Luo Ji always felt he was on the verge of touching some ultimate truth, but still just a hair's breadth away. That tantalizing, suffocating feeling of near-realization pressed down on him.
While the others despaired over humanity's lost chances, Paul Atreides, silent until now, finally spoke:
"Since I was the one who proposed this plan, naturally I have the confidence to see it through. You just arrange for people to act on it—the rest, I will find a way to handle."
In an instant, all eyes turned back to Paul. Only then did they remember: this meeting had been convened to hear him.
"Your technology… can it deal with the droplets?" Galnin asked, staring at Paul in shock.
To carry out this clumsy plan, the first obstacle was the droplet—without dealing with it, the scheme couldn't be implemented.
"Mr. Paul, I must remind you, the strong-interaction material that makes up the droplets is a hundred times harder than anything in the Solar System. With humanity's current technology, it's impossible to defeat them."
"Unless you've mastered strong-interaction material technology yourselves—or some other breakthrough—just blasting them with cannons won't work."
Heinz stared at Paul without moving. He had no idea how much power the Megacorp behind him truly possessed, nor how much of a difference it could bring to this war.
"I know all about the problems you're talking about—and I'm confident I can handle them."
Paul nodded indifferently, then deliberately turned to face the media cameras to address all of humanity watching the hearing:
"The existence and cruelty of Trisolaris have already proven to us that the universe is not alone, and survival never comes cheap."
"I cannot demand that, when doomsday arrives, you summon the courage to face death and the end of civilization. My only hope is that each of you contributes what little you can for the sake of the human race."
"Do not escape reality through suicide—it only burdens others. Especially jumping from buildings or lying on tracks; that risks injuring others or disrupting transport."
"Do not resort to madness or violence to vent your emotions—that only drags everyone else into despair. Please remain quietly in your rooms and patiently wait for dawn."
"For those who still hold hope for the future, take care of your bodies and minds. Clean up the trash around you, restore order to the cities, and calmly await the government's unified arrangements."
The Megacorp was an organization that respected human nature. It never stood on the moral high ground to coerce anyone, nor did it ever brainwash people into obedience.
No fiery declarations of war, no passionate speeches meant to stir the blood—only calm and reason.
To accept everything with composure, including death itself.
Those already teetering on despair, with minds on the brink of collapse, slowly raised their heads. If human civilization truly was about to perish, then even their conduct in these final moments would determine the dignity of humanity's last journey.
Compared to dying in ugliness and absurdity, a graceful and serene march to death seemed a more fitting character for humanity to leave upon the epic scroll of the universe.
Soon, Paul concluded with the most well-known words in Trisolaran-Earth history: "Give civilization to time, rather than time to civilization."
When his words fell, thunderous applause filled the Wallfacer Plan hearing. Even those in despair regained some will, and the proposal to build ten thousand particle accelerators was formally approved.
But the sword of Damocles hanging above humanity's head had not been lifted. The droplets had already swept past Saturn's orbit, drawing ever closer to Earth.
In the face of such a tangible threat, no speech or resolution could ease people's fears.
How to deal with the incoming droplets became the urgent question humanity had to answer.
Yet for the Megacorp, handling the droplets was no difficulty at all.
They had plenty of ways to take one down.
Not to mention the black hole containment box technology acquired from the Warhammer universe—even neutron alloy plates developed decades ago were enough to shatter a droplet on impact.
And with antimatter weapons, destroying strong-interaction materials like droplets was even simpler.
At this very moment, however, numerous executives at the War Moon headquarters were reviewing footage of the Doomsday Battle, carefully watching the droplets annihilate more than a thousand star-class warships.
They had to admit, the droplet was a tempting little thing—convenient, flexible, and inexpensive to produce.
If a resource-strapped civilization like Trisolaris could build ten of them, then surely the Megacorp could whip up tens of thousands once the tech was theirs.
Of course, replicating droplet-like weapons on short notice was still troublesome. Since there were already ready-made ones available, it was far better to freeload off the Trisolarans—study their droplets and copy them directly.
Jack Wells glanced at the holographic screen, where the human fleet was smashed apart by the droplets like a string of exploding firecrackers, and couldn't help but exclaim:
"Who would've thought that a civilization without even faster-than-light travel could create such an ingenious weapon—and with such formidable technological might."
Dr. Halsey, standing beside him, instinctively offered an explanation: "The environment of a civilization determines its technological tree."
"Humans and Trisolarans live in utterly different environments—naturally, their tech paths diverged as well."
At this, V followed the thread into deeper thought.
If Earth had no iron deposits—or if iron were far less abundant—human civilization might well have followed a completely different course.
Mankind first became Earth's rulers with stone tools, then split into countless races and tribes.
Those who first smelted bronze and forged weapons conquered with violence, establishing early empires—such as the Assyrian Empire in the Middle East.
But soon, the Assyrians fell. The main reason: a seafaring migrant people brought the new technology of iron weapons, defeating the bronze-armed Assyrians.
Iron weapons were cheaper, yet as sharp as bronze, ideal for mass deployment.
Without iron weapons, the brutal Assyrian Empire might have continued to cast its shadow over the Middle East, suppressing its people with blood and terror.
Fast-forward further: without the discovery of iron, even the Industrial Revolution might have been hampered—humanity today would not be what it is now.
"Even on the same Earth, different regions develop at different rates," Dr. Halsey continued.
"More importantly, the Trisolaran universe is far beyond the norm. That cosmos has long been battered full of holes."
"For Trisolarans, developing faster-than-light ships is hundreds of times harder than it is for us to create the Aether Resonance Engine."
Only the scientific nexus members, deeply familiar with the difficulty of research, understood just how hard life had been for Trisolaris.
The pursuit of truth always demands sacrifice—but Trisolaris had to pay a hundred times the cost for less than one percent of the reward.
Because that universe had already been shattered by higher-dimensional civilizations—the curvature of space was no longer natural, but wholly artificial.
Without being able to observe the natural laws of curvature shifts, there was no basis for discussing space-folding tech or faster-than-light drives.
(Show your support and read more chapters on my Patreon: [email protected]/psychopet. Thank you for your support!)