Chapter 160: Civilization Level Standards

"Paradise Island is really no good! I'm absolutely not going there."

Lao Yu said, his mouth turned down.

His younger brothers also shook their heads slightly, and some of them revealed fear in their eyes.

"That's a place that can swallow people alive. We've docked there a few times for work, and during that time, we always slept on our own ships, never daring to spend the night in the space station's hotels."

"On the bustling streets of Paradise Island, you'll brush shoulders with wealthy merchants dressed in luxurious clothes, accompanied by their replicant female companions."

"Those women look eighteen or nineteen years old right out of the cultivation tank, beautiful like celestial beings! At first glance, Paradise Island does seem like a very enticing place, that much cannot be denied."

"But just 20 meters away, a trash can holds the body of a mercenary killed in a gang shootout, with blackened fingertips sticking out from under the lid. The stench of corpses and perfume mix together… In short, if you can avoid going, don't go!" Anton's tone was earnest, apparently having personally experienced some unpleasant things.

Hmm, it felt a bit like a doomsday city. Lu Yuan listened with great interest, very much wanting to visit.

"What about Paradise Island's overall strength? How does it compare to New Hope?" he then asked.

"Stronger than New Hope."

Lao Yu took a sip of rice porridge, answering without a hint of hesitation.

It seemed the strength gap between the two was quite obvious, to the point of being generally acknowledged by most people.

"Paradise Island surpasses New Hope in both wealth and fleet size, by more than double. Moreover, the population there is extremely dense; the officially announced figure alone is over 8 million, but in reality, it's at least double that, with too many unregistered residents."

Anton added, "Furthermore, Paradise Island is not like other space stations that lack natural resources. That place is built inside a hollowed-out asteroid, and that asteroid was known as the treasure of this starfield during the golden age. It contains massive amounts of high-quality zero element ore, and it hasn't been mined out even to this day, far from it."

"That asteroid fortunately escaped the doomsday catastrophe. Its current rulers are actually descendants of the mining company from back then," Lao Yu continued.

"After the disaster, they made their fortune by selling zero element. In addition, many black technologies from the golden age were preserved inside the asteroid, and it's said that some of the ships from back then are still there."

"For example?"

Lu Yuan was particularly interested in black technology.

"For example, Paradise Island has artificial gravity field generators inside; that's their unique secret. As for the golden age ships, that's more of a legend; no one has actually seen them. No one can say how much strength Paradise Island secretly hides, so the major powers don't really dare to provoke them."

Hmm…

Lu Yuan pondered for a moment, maintaining his composure on the surface, but his brain was racing.

Good heavens, 16 million people, and sitting on rich zero element mines!

Even if limited by systemic debuffs, leading to most of those 16 million people being low-productivity poor citizens;

Even if there were many gangs and professional criminals, this population base was still terrifying enough.

It seemed neither Paradise Island nor New Hope were forces that Cangyuan could directly contend with at present.

Unless there could be a comprehensive generational suppression in weapon performance, winning by quality over quantity.

And he needed to develop faster!

"So, is Paradise Island considered a first-tier power within the Star Alliance?"

He continued to inquire.

Facing this question, Lao Yu was silent for a few seconds.

"If you mean the narrow sense of the Star Alliance, then yes! Paradise Island has at least 30 battleships, large and small, second only to the 【Human Exploration Federation】 and the 【Jialan Community】, and their technology is all 7.5th level."

"Narrow sense? 7.5th level?"

Lu Yuan frowned; the information in that sentence was too much.

"Oh, I apologize, Executive Officer, I was too vague."

Lao Yu remembered that Cangyuan was a new force "returning as a king" from the outside, so he put down his bowl and chopsticks, sat up straight, and reorganized his words.

"It's like this, don't let the 'Alliance' in the name Star Alliance fool you; in reality, the members of the Star Alliance are not allies, and their relationship is not close."

"About forty percent of the members regularly attend Star Alliance joint meetings, considered council-level powers. Our homeland, New Hope, is a permanent council member, and the council is located in New Hope."

"But even among these council members, friction and even war are commonplace, especially between New Hope and Paradise Island, two space stations with overlapping industries and mutual competition."

"The remaining sixty percent of forces have only nominally joined the Star Alliance, sending observers to council meetings who speak little and rarely vote, or simply just list their name, like the 【Free Merchant Alliance】 I mentioned to you before."

"As for the broad sense of the Star Alliance, it refers to the entire Star Alliance starfield we have explored, containing approximately 2500 star systems,"

"as well as the independent forces within them that do not join, do not interact with, or even do not recognize the Star Alliance's status."

Lu Yuan: "From what you're saying, the strongest known power currently is an independent power?"

Lao Yu: "Yes, it's an interstellar nation called the 【Super Democratic Empire】, claiming to be descended from the great UEG. It possesses a vast fleet and controls 19 habitable planets, while the Star Alliance's largest council member, the Human Exploration Federation, only controls 5."

Lu Yuan and Jubian exchanged glances, both nearly failing to keep a straight face.

"'Super Democratic Empire'? Is that really what it's called?"

"Yes—" Lao Yu blinked a few times, "Is there something wrong with that name?"

"No problem at all, it's great!"

It was truly hard to comment, but well, they could call themselves whatever they liked.

You are a commoner, I am the emperor and master; with both commoners and masters, why is it not a post-apocalyptic democracy?

"Alright! I understand. What about this 7.5th level technology standard?"

"We adopted the UEG standard from before the catastrophe," Anton answered for his master, "This standard categorizes all civilizations in the universe by their technological level based on how they produce energy artificially, with level 9 being the weakest and level 1 being the strongest."

"Tell me in detail!"

Jubian was particularly interested in this topic.

"Well, first is the most primitive Level 9 civilization; all civilizations that have initially mastered spaceflight capabilities, using chemical combustion, nuclear fission engines, or continuous uncontrolled thermonuclear explosions as energy for spacecraft, belong to Level 9 civilization."

"Then there's Level 8 civilization, which refers to those that have mastered controllable nuclear fusion reactor technology. Most of the forces in the Star Alliance are at this level."

"Level 7 civilization refers to those that have mastered the secrets of cold fusion and can build cold fusion reactors without inertia or magnetic confinement. First-tier Star Alliance powers can build small cold fusion batteries, but cannot build giant cold fusion reactors, so they are Level 7.5 civilizations."

"Level 6 civilization refers to those that can acquire antimatter in large quantities. In the entire Star Alliance starfield, currently only the Super Democratic Empire has antimatter energy cores equipped in small quantities on their capital ships. Their technological level is between 6.7 and 6.5."

"As for Level 5 and higher civilizations, they touch the boundaries of our cognition. Archaeologists believe that they must at least be able to use miniature black holes as energy, but too many pre-catastrophe documents have been lost, so no one can be sure. By the way, you should be clearer about this evaluation standard than us."

"Cangyuan's standard is still a bit different from the UEG's."

Lu Yuan said, his expression unchanged, skillfully employing his lying ability.

"According to Cangyuan's standard, Level 4 civilizations use vacuum zero-point energy, and Level 3 civilizations can harvest dark matter and dark energy on a large scale."

Since the previous Cangyuan is gone, I'll set the new standard.

This feeling is truly good!

"I see—" Lao Yu looked reverent.

As expected of a survivor from the golden age!

"By the way, shouldn't the mass-energy conversion efficiency of antimatter be higher than black hole Hawking radiation? Why is its level lower?" Lu Yuan tilted his head and quietly asked Jubian.

Jubian thought for a moment and replied, "That's right, positive-negative matter annihilation has 100% mass-energy conversion efficiency, theoretically the highest, but black hole engines might be easier to achieve ultra-high power, and the research and development technical difficulty is also higher. I'll have to ask the Mage about this."

Alright then.

Since it's the common standard of the Star Alliance, it might as well be used for reference.

Now, "Star Sea" finally had not only player character role-playing levels but also faction technology levels. In the future, there could also be military strength levels and industrial capacity levels, with the specific standards to be written by the butler.