Homo Sapiens

Luzon.

Panay Island, First Shipyard.

With the official completion of the third Super Luzon-class Amphibious Assault Ship—the Ceylon—all the technicians and engineers focused their attention on a battleship whose hull was currently being generated.

Designer Sen Shangzhe finished reading the test report in his hand, a satisfied smile on his face. "The tests on the Longge Lang Giant Cannon are complete. Everything is proceeding as expected."

Yino had also seen the brand-new test report. "After we reinforced the structure, the hull is now strong enough to withstand an 800mm, 60-caliber main cannon."

The massive battleship being generated before them was the 75,000-ton Pacific Battleship, an improved design developed by Yino, Sen Shangzhe, and their team based on the Great Luzon-class Amphibious Assault Ship.

It completely abandoned carrier aircraft in favor of a single 60-caliber, 800mm giant cannon, while retaining its submersible capabilities.

Although the shell’s muzzle velocity was only about 5.5 kilometers per second due to the different caliber and measures taken to reduce recoil, it could still cross the Kármán line with great ease.

More than the giant cannon, however, Sen Shangzhe was concerned with the battleship’s power system.

Speak of the devil.

Luzon Electric Company, the firm responsible for developing the power system for the Pacific-class Battleship, had sent a team to the First Shipyard today.

"Designer Sen, I’m Meng Xin, chief engineer of Project Helios." A very young man greeted Sen Shangzhe.

This youthfulness was, in fact, a characteristic feature of Homo Sapiens Company’s research teams.

Take Meng Xin, for example. He graduated from Jinling University in ’16, then went to France to pursue his doctorate. He also interned for a time at Alstom in France, where he was mainly involved in nuclear reactor design.

Of course, he wasn’t qualified to design a reactor on his own; he had only participated in some of the work under his advisor.

In March of ’20, Meng Xin chose to leave Alstom for identity-related reasons. He then applied for a position at General Electric, only to be rejected there as well.

After that, he was recruited by the Human Resources department of Homo Sapiens Company and came to Luzon to work on gas turbine design.

Then, last May, Meng Xin successfully passed the trial for New Human employees and was transferred to Project Helios at Luzon Electric Company (known publicly as the Second Design Group for Supercritical Gas Turbines).

Over the past half-year or so, Meng Xin had experienced the incredible advantages of being a New Human firsthand, and all his abilities had improved to varying degrees.

And with Dr. Levis’s completion of the Firefly-type hydrogen bomb design in Black Tiger Canyon, Meng Xin gained access to a vast amount of test data on nuclear fusion and fission.

This data also played a crucial role in Project Helios.

Sen Shangzhe asked with some urgency, "Dr. Meng, can your reactor be installed on the ship now?"

"The fission reactor is ready, but the fusion reactor isn’t yet." Meng Xin shook his head helplessly.

Sen Shangzhe stared at Meng Xin, speechless. "My standards aren’t that high! A fission reactor is fine. I wouldn’t even dare to dream of a fusion one."

’He’d only found out a few days ago that Project Helios had already completed its nuclear fission reactor and was now working on miniaturizing a nuclear fusion reactor. The news had almost sent him into an existential crisis. After all, his super-battleship only needed a fission reactor; he had never requested a fusion reactor at all.’

Meng Xin shrugged. "It’s a real shame. Project Helios has only completed its first phase. I was hoping to design a miniaturized nuclear fusion reactor for you."

Heh... Sen Shangzhe and Yino’s lips twitched.

The two of them knew full well how difficult it was to miniaturize a fusion reactor. At this stage, a fusion reactor was essentially a small-scale nuclear detonation.

It involved digging a large pit underground and converting it into a "nuclear blast furnace" that could withstand fusion explosions of under 10 tons in yield.

The energy and thermal neutrons produced by the explosion would heat the composite ceramic inner walls, and the thermal energy would then be used to power gas turbines for electricity generation via an outer hydrothermal circulation system.

Because the explosion of a Firefly-type hydrogen bomb produced very little radioactive contamination and its yield could also be compressed to be very small, it could be used as a reactor for power generation.

Currently, Project Helios had already completed its first experimental 3-ton yield fusion reactor.

Sen Shangzhe, Yino, and the others had only recently started paying attention to the internal research journals on this topic.

When the two of them saw this type of fusion reactor, they were quickly reminded of a fusion power plant design proposed by the old Soviets back in the day.

This method was the most feasible way to achieve fusion at present, but its drawbacks were also very obvious: the equipment was enormous and incredibly difficult to miniaturize.

’Even a Pacific-class Battleship couldn’t accommodate this type of fusion reactor. For now, it’s best to just stick with a fission reactor!’

Meng Xin took out his biological tablet and pulled up several design proposals. "These are the more mature nuclear fission reactor designs I have right now. Take a look and see which one is most suitable."

Sen Shangzhe took the tablet and began to examine them carefully.

Project Helios had designed a total of three types of fourth-generation nuclear fission reactors: the sodium-cooled reactor, the high-temperature reactor, and the thorium-based molten salt reactor.

Yino, who was standing to the side, spoke up immediately. "We can rule out the high-temperature reactor. That thing isn’t suitable for a battleship."

"That leaves the sodium-cooled reactor and the thorium-based molten salt reactor," Meng Xin said. "I personally recommend the thorium-based molten salt reactor. While the company has no shortage of Uranium-235, it’s primarily used as a raw material for atomic bombs. Thorium, on the other hand, won’t compete for the raw materials needed for our nuclear warheads."

Still looking at the files, Sen Shangzhe asked while keeping his eyes on the tablet, "Does the company have sufficient reserves of thorium ore?"

Meng Xin explained, "More than enough. We discovered a massive rare-earth mineral deposit on the seabed of the Sulu Sea, which contains about 190,000 tons of thorium. Including reserves from other areas, the company controls somewhere between 860,000 to 930,000 tons of thorium resources. That’s enough to last us for a very long time."

After reviewing the designs for the sodium-cooled reactor and the thorium-based molten salt reactor, Sen Shangzhe ultimately chose the latter, which had a relatively lower power output.

He chose the thorium-based molten salt reactor because of its high degree of safety. Especially with the added advantage of Homo Sapiens Company’s advanced materials, the reactor’s core component—the molten salt heat exchanger—could have a service life of about 12 years.

That was already the best performance for any molten salt heat exchanger currently available.

Moreover, the thorium-based molten salt reactor didn’t require a bulky hot water circulation system, which would effectively reduce the internal space occupied by the reactor. At the same time, it didn’t need to use seawater for cooling, lowering the probability of infrared detection.

"According to the data you provided, the Pacific-class will need three thorium-based molten salt reactors, each with a power generation capacity of 200 megawatts."

Meng Xin nodded. "No problem. It will take about half a month to prepare all the components and nuclear fuel for three 200-megawatt thorium-based molten salt reactors."

Sen Shangzhe glanced at the hull’s generation speed. At this rate, the hull would be complete in about two weeks. He asked,

"The reactor components need to be installed in advance, don’t they? Otherwise, I’m worried they won’t fit inside."

Meng Xin shook his head. "No need. We can break it down into smaller components, which can be brought in through the small hatches. In any case, the thorium-based molten salt fuel itself isn’t radioactive, so it can be injected last."

"I’ll leave it in your hands, then. On my end, I’ll aim to complete the first ship of the Pacific-class around March." Sen Shangzhe was eagerly anticipating the debut of the Pacific-class Battleship.

With intercontinental missiles not yet mature, the large shells fired by the giant cannon had to be freed from fixed emplacements to further enhance their deterrent power.

And that was the very purpose of the Pacific-class Battleship’s existence.