APTnovel Chapter 658 The Gap Between Great Xia and Kona
Chapter 658 The Gap Between Great Xia and Kona
Han Niba ignored their madness; he didn't understand the technology.
Moreover, I didn't even finish reading the reply.
His gaze passed over the group of almost frenzied scientists and landed on the last few lines of text that had just appeared on the main screen.
The Kona civilization has suspended its core chain reaction protocol.
However, if the homeworld's main defenses collapse, the protocol will be restarted.
The Watchers are a type of advanced artificial intelligence, incapable of responding to Great Xia's goodwill with biological emotions; they can only make rational judgments.
However, according to the Kona Civilization's Fire Seed Agreement, any cooperation that can increase the probability of civilization's continuation is worth pursuing.
Please reply as soon as possible, Da Xia.
May both sides cooperate amicably to jointly drive out and eliminate the demon race, and create a better future together.
When Han Niba saw the "Penetration Protocol for Chain Explosion of Earth's Core" message, he nodded slightly.
Blue Star told them to "hold on," and the other party listened.
A powerful artificial intelligence, devoid of emotions, yet capable of choosing to postpone self-destruction based on its calculated survival probability.
That's good. Great Xia still has time to gain more benefits from this civilization.
Scientists, however, are clearly not interested in this.
Their attention was completely absorbed by the technology catalog, and they were huddled together, pointing at the items on the screen and arguing heatedly.
Just then, the door to the command center was pushed open.
Qian Zhenhua practically ran in, his old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses nearly flying off.
Liu Chengen followed behind him.
The two rushed to the screen terminals of the crowd one after the other and scanned through the major categories of the technology catalog from beginning to end.
He counted, his lips moving silently.
After counting, the old man took a deep breath, looked at Han Niba, and his eyes shone brightly:
"Complete! General Han, their technology tree is complete!"
"Each major category has systematic sub-branches; these aren't isolated breakthroughs, but rather a cohesive whole!"
Liu Chengen was much more pragmatic than him.
The arrogant old man came in without saying a word, went straight to the nearest terminal, and entered keywords to search for biological-related entries.
He turned a few pages, then suddenly stopped.
I took off my glasses, wiped the lenses, put them back on, and looked at them again.
"They're also quite advanced in biological research," he murmured.
"Although we are different species, we can learn from each other's ideas!"
He then flipped through a few more pages, his brow furrowing:
"But their research on the biological nature of demons hasn't made much progress either."
He turned to look at Qian Zhenhua:
"This shows that the demon race's biological defense mechanism is indeed a cross-civilization problem, not because we are stupid."
Qian Zhenhua ignored him completely, staring intently at the screen as he quickly checked the screen.
The two joined the scientists' discussion, and the entire area became incredibly noisy.
The room was filled with technical jargon and terminology, leaving laypeople completely unable to understand.
Han Niba stood still, quietly watching these people who were usually the most rational, but now they were as excited as if it were New Year's Day.
He waited for fifteen minutes.
As the discussion gradually shifted from initial fervor to concrete analysis, Han Niba spoke up.
"Quiet."
In the command center, all sounds gradually faded away, and the scientists all turned to him.
Han Niba looked at Qian Zhenhua:
"Academician Qian, can you determine how many years ahead their overall technology is of us?"
Qian Zhenhua pushed up his glasses and pondered for a moment.
The initial fervor upon seeing the catalog has faded, replaced by a calm and critical examination.
"General Han, this question cannot be answered simply by the number of years, but I will try my best to explain it clearly."
He walked to the main screen and pointed to the directory structure, saying:
"The Kona civilization has a very complete technology tree, and every important branch of technology has extremely comprehensive horizontal applications."
"This is their greatest advantage, and also what we lack most."
"To give an example."
"We have made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology, but so far it has only been applied to energy supply and engine propulsion."
"The technology itself is fine, but it takes time, inspiration, and a lot of trial and error to scale it up horizontally."
Han Niba nodded, signaling him to continue.
"The principle is actually very simple," Qian Zhenhua said.
"Before the apocalypse, most of humanity's civilian technology was built upon the foundations laid by military research during World War II."
"That wave of breakthroughs in basic technologies took decades to truly penetrate into every application area, which led to the modernization that followed."
"We are facing a similar situation now, but it is more extreme."
He emphasized:
"After the discovery of Terra, the technological limits of Great Xia were broken one after another, including nuclear fusion, antimatter, electromagnetic weapons, plasma technology, new materials, quantum computing, AI, and so on."
"These all erupted in a short period of time, with the main trunks growing extremely high, but the horizontal branches and leaves have hardly grown yet."
"There's only one main reason," Qian Zhenhua said, holding up one finger.
"No time!"
"All our resources are being poured into war and survival, and with the added threat of the apocalypse, there's simply no room left for horizontal improvements."
Han Niba said in a deep voice:
"I need specific quantifications, such as how many years it would take us to catch up with the Kona civilization?"
Qian Zhenhua took a deep breath and gave his judgment.
"If we follow our current pace of technological progress, it would take us more than a hundred years to catch up with the Kona civilization's technology tree."
This number caused many people present to change their expressions.
In modern times, the Great Xia Dynasty is experiencing rapid technological breakthroughs in various fields, and is already in a period of technological explosion.
I never expected that the Kona civilization would be so far ahead!
If the Great Xia Dynasty before the apocalypse had almost stagnated in technological development, how much of a difference would there be?
Three hundred years? Five hundred years?
Qian Zhenhua seemed to know what everyone was thinking and said:
"However, this 'leading' needs to be defined; it refers to leading in terms of completeness, not in terms of level."
He pointed to a certain area in the catalog:
"From the perspective of the highest point of the technology tree, we are not inferior to them, and in some areas we are even superior. For example, antimatter technology."
"I am certain that the next major technological hurdle in nuclear fusion will be antimatter technology."
"Judging from the catalog, the Kona civilization has no entries related to antimatter."
"Of course, it's also possible that they've withheld some information from the upload; this remains to be seen."
"But if they don't actually have it, then antimatter is a unique card in our hand."
Han Niba's eyes flickered slightly.
Qian Zhenhua made the final summary:
"So the truth is, our technological ceiling is not low; we are far from reaching the top."
"What we lack is the time to turn existing breakthroughs into systematic applications."
"The greatest value of Kona's catalog is that it can directly tell us how to develop each technical branch and where to go."
"With it, we can save at least a hundred years of trial and error."
"Of course, it's also possible that they've gone down a different path, and there are other branches that we haven't discovered yet, but that's not something we need to consider right now. We can develop our own technological branches later."