Chapter 181: The Artificial Earth
Whether it was the new room-temperature superconductors or the advanced superalloys, the sudden influx of revolutionary materials brought incredible convenience to the Noah’s structural modifications. Naturally, it also triggered a massive wave of public invention.
Putting all vital engineering aside, the sheer volume of amateur gadgets and creations was enough to give the Federation’s top brass a massive headache.
The room-temperature superconductors, in particular, captured the public’s imagination. Magnetic levitation trains and cars had existed for a long time, but suddenly people were building magnetic levitation elevators, maglev backpacks, maglev skateboards... an endless stream of random, mostly useless toys flooded the community sectors.
Frankly, if people really wanted to float in the air using superconductivity, they would be better off just taking a walk up in the Noah’s low-gravity zones.
These superconducting materials weren’t standard steel; they couldn’t just be churned out by the tens of thousands of tons overnight. The manufacturing process was incredibly complex, demanding a massive amount of energy and raw resources, which meant production capacity was severely bottlenecked.
Every single research lab on the ship was practically begging for a shipment. Some teams needed it to test specific theoretical physics, while others wanted to see if the formula could be further improved. This created a massive problem: supply couldn’t even remotely meet demand.
Given the Noah’s current industrial capabilities, setting up an entirely new production line for the superconductors would normally only take a few days, so the actual machinery wasn’t the issue. For the fully automated Aegis Industrial Complex, manufacturing the necessary equipment was a breeze. By simply inputting the schematics, the fabricators could construct the machinery with a precision margin of 0.1 micrometers, practically flawless.
What truly troubled the Federation was the severe shortage of raw materials and available manpower. Expanding production lines required sweeping logistical adjustments across the entire ship.
Yet, the demand for the superconducting material was astronomical. Countless specialized engineering projects required it, as did dozens of high-priority laboratories. Worse, the senior scientists were demanding their material quotas with the ferocity of armed robbers, threatening to riot if they didn’t get their shipments immediately.
"Synthesizing this material drains massive amounts of resources and power. Using that precious energy to build hoverboard toys for kids is a serious problem, isn’t it?" officials from the Department of Resources complained endlessly, spending their days making frantic phone calls to appease the enraged scientists.
Jason, however, left these minor squabbles to the bureaucrats; his focus was strictly on the big picture. He didn’t have time to micromanage every minor dispute. If the captain had to deal with every little administrative headache, the rest of the Federation government might as well pack up and quit.
Currently, his attention was completely monopolized by the massive, ongoing structural modifications to the spacecraft.
The initial ecological restoration plan proposed by the biology department had left Jason and the core committee speechless; at first glance, it seemed utterly absurd. However, with the staunch backing of prominent figures like Roman, the ambitious plan was gradually approved and put into motion.
To date, the Noah had undergone countless minor adjustments, but only three major structural overhauls. This current project would be the fourth.
The first major overhaul was the integration of the Lunar Base into the Noah; the second was the massive retrofit completed above Mars; and the third was the emergency relocation of the civilian residential sectors to the core of the ship right before the supernova impact.
While the previous renovations had been localized, this fourth project was a comprehensive, ship-wide transformation. Once completed, humanity would have a safer, more stable, and vastly more comfortable living environment.
According to the new blueprints, the civilian sectors would be divided across three main gravitational tiers: a middle tier with standard, Earth-like gravity; an upper tier with low-to-medium gravity; and a lower tier with high gravity.
The primary residential and industrial zones were currently situated in the ship’s center. The Federation had no intention of moving them, as the core would always be the most heavily armored and secure location. Placing the residential zones near the outer hull in the original design had been a grave mistake, while it made boarding and disembarking easier, it severely compromised civilian safety.
Based on the distribution of gravity across the upper, middle, and lower decks, the engineers divided the ship into distinct functional sectors.
The topmost zero-gravity zone would remain dedicated to specialized laboratories that required weightless environments for their research.
Just beneath that, the low-gravity zone would be transformed into an artificial atmospheric sector, a cloud and rain zone as well as a primary water storage area. Because the Noah’s internal honeycomb structure had sustained heavy damage during the journey, several decks had merged into massive, open chasms stretching from top to bottom. The scientists planned to artificially cool this low-gravity zone. As water vapor rose from the lower decks, it would condense in this chilled environment, forming real clouds and producing the natural rainfall that humanity so desperately missed!
The middle standard-gravity tiers would house the residential blocks, the industrial sectors, and several large natural parks.
While the human cities would be shielded from the weather, the natural parks would be exposed to the artificial atmosphere above. Rainwater would fall into these parks, pooling into natural lakes and flowing streams, creating a simulated Earth-like ecosystem.
Beneath the cities lay the high-gravity zones, which would house heavy storage, power generation plants, heavy-duty experimental labs, and even more expansive parklands.
Further down, where the gravity was more than twice that of Earth, the scientists planned their most ambitious project yet: a functioning marine ecosystem! This immense cavern would store massive reserves of water and connect directly to the parks and the atmospheric zone above. As water evaporated from this artificial ocean, it would rise into the cloud zone, rain down on the parks, and flow through the rivers back into the ocean, establishing a perfect, self-sustaining water cycle.
Finally, the lowest and highest-gravity zone would contain the ship’s captured magma core, utilizing it for geothermal power generation and central heating. If the magma’s temperature ever dropped, it could be cooled and mined to replenish their raw material reserves.
"This plan is magnificent!" Jason exclaimed as he reviewed the models. This layered, vertical structure formed a massive, interconnected biosphere. While it couldn’t perfectly replicate Earth, it possessed incredible self-regulating capabilities.
It was brilliant. Truly brilliant.
Of course, the Federation currently didn’t have the sheer volume of water or biological resources required to actually fill an ocean. For now, it was just a master blueprint. But the moment humanity found a resource-rich planet to harvest, this dream would become reality!
If they actually pulled it off, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call the ship an artificial Earth. Though it would be a miniature version, it would possess a fully functioning, Earth-like ecosystem.
Alongside the environmental terraforming, the Noah’s defense grids were undergoing a comprehensive overhaul, covering electrical security, weapons systems, and cybersecurity.
For electrical safety, the ship’s aging power grid was being entirely replaced with the new room-temperature superconducting cables, virtually eliminating power loss. Simultaneously, two massive backup power stations were being constructed to guarantee the Noah’s power supply would never fail, no matter the damage taken.
Cybersecurity was another massive priority. The IT department was splitting the ship’s original, unified network into three strictly segregated intranets: a Security Network, a Research Network, and a Civilian Network.
The Security Network, which controlled the power grid, life support systems, weapons depots, and navigation would be monitored directly by the central AI. It would be entirely air-gapped, physically isolated from the other two networks with hardwired local connections only. The central computer would no longer allocate any of its processing power to the civilian or scientific sectors, making remote hacking or systemic breaches virtually impossible.
The Research Network, powered by the new quantum computers, would link the databases of the various laboratories and maintain incredibly strict encryption protocols.
Finally, the Civilian Network would handle public communications, entertainment, and daily life, maintaining standard security protocols.
After signing off on the final directives, Jason leaned back in his chair and let out a long, deeply satisfied sigh. He felt genuinely invigorated.
The Noah’s internal security was finally ironclad. Aside from their lingering resource shortage, things were looking up.
Once those artificial oceans and forests finally bloomed, the Noah would truly earn its name as humanity’s ultimate Ark.