Chapter 11 Black-Box Manufacturing Machine
Helping the Wasteland Society establish production capabilities was part of Gu Hang’s plan from the beginning.
He wasn’t interested in the meager mineral output of the Wasteland Society; these people struggled to sustain themselves, let alone provide surplus value.
Only by developing them could Gu Hang achieve his goals.
And Gu Hang’s goals were far more ambitious than merely collecting taxes from these people.
He wanted to make the entire planet more prosperous. He needed more armies, more weapons and equipment, more material foundations…
The Wasteland Society was a starting point, but also an important prototype. If successful, he planned to replicate this model repeatedly.
But first, he had to perfect this prototype.
Originally, his plan relied on the ‘Quintet,’ a starship floating in the sky.
When Gu Hang set off from the sector capital to serve as the Governor of Fury Owl Planet, he certainly wasn’t going alone.
He was one of the core members of the Gu family, a long-established political family in the Pegasus Sector.
A Watcher-class strike cruiser of the Imperial Navy of the Pegasus Sector, the ‘Quintet,’ carried him from the sector capital to here.
After completing its mission of escorting the Governor, the ‘Quintet’ did not leave.
It would remain in orbit around Fury Owl Planet for two years, executing its mission.
It would follow the Governor’s orders, serving as the strongest support for the Governor’s efforts to rejuvenate the planet.
Only Gu Hang received such treatment; the previous Governors were sent off with just a frigate.
In theory, with the ‘Quintet’ floating in orbit, Gu Hang could do as he pleased on Fury Owl Planet.
There was nothing in the wastelands that could threaten the ‘Quintet.’
On the contrary, the ‘Quintet’ could conduct terrifying orbital bombardments on any location on the planet’s surface.
Additionally, the ‘Quintet’ could provide Gu Hang with significant assistance in other ways.
This massive starship, extending eleven kilometers long, housed a crew of over a hundred thousand.
Among them were mechanical soldiers, slaves, combat personnel, technicians, elite marines, engineers, psioners…
Various individuals, performing different roles.
In a sense, such a massive starship was like a floating city in the sky.
The crew was primarily replenished from various planets, but opportunities to leave were rare due to the lengthy space voyages.
Many crew members were born on the starship, lived their lives there, and likely died there, never having left.
This enormous sky city could provide Gu Hang with many resources. His initial three thousand slaves, three hundred mechanical soldiers, and thirty marines were brought down from the starship.
For the construction needs of the Wasteland Society, he originally planned to bring resources down from the sky.
The ‘Quintet’ could provide manpower and weaponry.
When Gu Hang said he would select a hundred soldiers from the Wasteland Society and arm them, it wasn’t an empty promise.
The guns and ammunition were planned to be brought down from the starship.
However, some of the production equipment in his plan was harder to obtain.
He originally planned to get it from Revival City, after all, he was the Governor of the planet and the head of the ‘Alliance’ on Fury Owl Planet.
Even if his control over the Alliance was insufficient, there were always ways to get some resources.
But now, that wasn’t necessary.
The system’s 【Technology】 feature provided items far more valuable than any resources he could gather.
Without further ado, he called Patel over and told him about setting up the production line, which excited the leader of the Wasteland Society immensely.
After sending Patel off, Gu Hang left the Wasteland Society and went to the outskirts.
His soldiers were also stationed outside, and the people of the Wasteland Society were gradually coming out, led by an individual named Old Butch, to start building their surface camp.
Patel, meanwhile, began selecting the hundred soldiers from the Wasteland Society, quickly finalizing the candidates.
To be honest, Gu Hang wasn’t very satisfied with using the people from the Wasteland Society as military recruits.
They were laborers by trade but malnourished, making it difficult to develop strong and robust physiques.
They not only appeared somewhat small and thin, but their bodies also had many hidden injuries from years of hard labor.
Although they had a tenacious spirit and work ethic, they still couldn’t be considered excellent recruits.
But he had no other options at the moment.
The three thousand slaves brought down from the starship to the temporary camp weren’t much better either.
Next, Gu Hang left a hundred mechanical soldiers behind and took the rest of his people, along with the newly recruited hundred young men from the Wasteland Society, to the temporary camp.
He didn’t plan to wait for Yan Fangxu, who was off to eliminate the remaining ‘Prisoners.’
That guy wouldn’t encounter any problems.
After completing his mission, Yan Fangxu still needed to leave a squad of elite marines to command the mechanical soldiers stationed at the Wasteland Society.
Those brainless mechanical soldiers had no independent combat capabilities.
…
After a few hours, Gu Hang returned to the temporary camp.
The entire camp still looked like a bustling construction site.
After initially leveling the land and using local materials to build a rudimentary perimeter wall and simple structures, most of the slaves were focused on one main task: constructing the landing zone.
The landing zone was for the starship—not for the entire starship to land, of course, but to facilitate the transport shuttles coming down from the starship to interface with the ground.
This wasn’t the most efficient mode of transportation.
On planets with better conditions, space elevators and orbital starports are the primary means of interstellar transport.
However, given the current conditions, Gu Hang couldn’t afford to build a space elevator or a starport. He had to rely on the ships aboard the starship for transportation between the ground and space.
Hence, a landing zone, or even an airport, was needed to improve efficiency.
Completing the entire project would be significant, but there was no need to do it all at once; initially creating something usable would suffice.
After briefly checking the engineering progress, Gu Hang found an empty spot outside the camp and materialized the two black-box manufacturing machines.
The two machines were indeed ‘black boxes.’
Constructed from an unknown, pitch-black material, they formed two large, square black boxes.
One was large and one was small, resembling two buildings.
There were two ‘doors’ at the front and back—one for inputting materials and one for outputting products.
Gu Hang scratched his head, feeling a bit dumbfounded.
The system didn’t mention that the black boxes would be this large.
How was he supposed to move them?
He would need engineering machinery; using manpower alone would be too much.
But upon further thought, Gu Hang realized he didn’t necessarily have to move these two machines to the Wasteland Society.
He could import ore from the Wasteland Society to use the product black box—although this slightly went against his promise to Patel to establish a production line for the Wasteland Society.
However, it didn’t necessarily conflict.
The product black box would be used to produce the highest quality alloy plastic steel materials, and the output wouldn’t be large.
As for the production line for the Wasteland Society, it could rely on the various components produced by the mother-machine black box, transported to the Wasteland Society, and assembled on-site to build the alloy smelting plant.
It was foreseeable that as the two camps continued to develop, transportation and communication between them would become more frequent.
Building roads was essential, but transportation equipment was also crucial.
He didn’t want his subordinates to push carts back and forth for eight hours each trip.
Vehicles and engineering equipment were very much needed.
He looked up at the sky.
It seemed he still needed to tap into the resources of the ‘Quintet,’ including the hundred sets of weapons and equipment promised to the Wasteland Society.
But just thinking about dealing with that woman made Gu Hang feel a bit annoyed.