Chapter 58: Are you going to get lunch as soon as you enter the venue?
Everything is over, the adventure in "Overlord" is finally completed. Although no additional benefits were obtained, the fifteen trapped people were successfully rescued, and no one was missing. There were no injuries or sacrifices among the rescuers.
"...Finally I've collected enough reward points...It's getting colder, and I've spent enough money. Let's stop the game now!"
In the "Command Center for Combat Against Aliens" located in Beidaihe, our protagonist Wang Qiu muttered while staring at the server transformed from "The Book of Time Travel", "...in order to allow millions of players to enter this online game. Helping us improve our scores cost more than 20 yuan. A special fund of 100 million yuan... The preparations for the real world have been completed! I don't want it to end up like the opening scene of "Sword Art Online", where tens of thousands of vegetative people suddenly appeared and their bodies were lying in the hospital. The soul traveled to another world! ”
"...Don't worry, the central government is more concerned about this matter than you!" Political Commissar Guo replied calmly, "...We have completely shut down the Internet and stopped the server and deleted our accounts twelve hours ago. All players have It’s normal. There is no abnormality. The public announcement is that the public beta is over, and it is claimed that a new version of the game will be released after the server is stopped and the settings are modified. Of course, this new version of the game will never be available again.”
"...What about the other world? How do you explain it to Ainz, the Lich King who has a primary school graduate degree?"
"...Tell the truth! Of course, we only told the truth partially. We told him that there was something wrong with the server's program and needed to be reset, so we needed to stop the server, end the open beta, and pop out all the players. Ainz also expressed his understanding - anyway, he Even if you don’t understand, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Political Commissar Guo sighed, "...However, in order to get together easily, we left him a gift - printed out with the 'Office Golem', our Japanese middle school textbooks, from junior high school to high school. Everything is available, and there is also a complete set of textbooks from the Department of Law at the University of Tokyo. This way, he can continue to study on his own in another world, and he will not be unable to be a ruler because he only has the education level of a primary school graduate."
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"...You have traveled to another world and you still need to go to an adult college? This is really... Oh! Forget it, let's end it like this!"
Wang Qiu showed a dumbfounded expression and stretched out his hand to activate the default program on the server. The next moment, with a burst of dazzling white light, the server transformed from the "Book of Time Travel" in front of him changed back again. The original appearance of the bulk of "The Book of Time Travel".
At the same time, on the surveillance screen hanging on the wall, the last two trapped travelers in the plot of "Overlord" - the two twin sisters lying in the special care ward of a hospital in Changsha, Hunan, were also there. Under the watchful eyes of doctors and nurses, he gradually regained consciousness.
At this point, the rescue mission in the plot world of "Overlord" has finally been successfully completed.
However, Wang Qiu, who originally thought he could rest for a few days, was urged by his superiors and had to launch the next rescue plan non-stop.
What made him even more distressed was that the assigned mission location was an unprecedentedly difficult plot world.
"..."Marvel World"? Five trapped people? Why did the Central Committee let us go to this world in the first place?"
Looking at the short prompt message on the "Book of Time Travel", Wang Qiu's head was as big as a bucket for a while, "...This is the real dragon's pond and tiger's den!"
——The so-called Marvel world, also known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), is a collective composed of a series of movies independently produced by Marvel Studios (Marvel Studios) based on the characters in Marvel comic publications. imaginary world. It includes "Iron Man", "Thor", "Captain America", "Hulk", "Spider-Man", "Avengers" and many other components.
In short, this is a dangerous world with strong people and constant battles... Of course, that's all. The worlds Wang Qiu traveled through before were not necessarily peaceful. But the problem is that the intensity of combat in "Marvel World" is completely different from Wang Qiu's previous experience! Things like Resident Evil zombie siege are nothing compared to the battles in the Marvel world!
Look, the Hulk is still alive and kicking when thrown to an alien planet with his shirt off, Captain America can kill from one end of Nazi Germany to the other with a shield, Ant-Man Scott is so powerful that he can't defend against small things, S.H.I.E.L.D. The flying aircraft carrier suppresses the world, Iron Man Tony is the most "scientific" "Yes, but there is no pressure to defeat five infantry divisions by one person... In front of these superheroes and super villains who are enemies of them, let alone the standard combat equipment of the People's Liberation Army, even if they use Dora The magical props obtained from the dream plane may not necessarily be beneficial!
However, Political Commissar Guo said that setting the next mission location to the Marvel world is also of great significance.
"...Do you know what the biggest gain from the central think tank is after studying the information obtained from the plot world of "Overlord"? It does not come from that fantasy world, but from the protagonist Lich King The future Earth before Ainz traveled! That decadent world where classes were solidified, the environment was ruined, and technology was regressing, but policies of obscurity and knowledge blockade were implemented, and even illiteracy was everywhere!”
Political Commissar Guo sighed and said with a serious expression, "...In such a world, human civilization has almost no future! However, although he is very reluctant to admit it, according to the analysis of the central think tank, if human beings have been unable to achieve New technological breakthroughs will launch the fourth industrial revolution, then we The future of these people is really likely to be as bleak as "Overlord" - what many people don't know is that starting from the late 1970s of the last century, there has been an overall revolution in technological development. The Great Stagnation has gradually come to all mankind!”
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For Chinese people in the early 21st century, the so-called stagnation of technological development seems to be some kind of absurd absurdity
——In the growth experience of the "post-70s", "post-80s", "post-90s" and even the "post-00s" generations, "progress" has always been the main axis of the times, and the things around us There seems to be endless change, and science and technology are the masters behind all these changes.
On the one hand, science and technology have penetrated into every corner of daily life. In just thirty years, countless products and services that were only available to the elite in the past have rapidly spread to the masses, such as mobile phones, computers, the Internet, and so on. On the other hand, the surging technological wave has impacted the social structure and promoted the birth and rapid development of many new industries, such as Taobao stores, smart offices, civilian electric vehicles, etc.
In the eyes of most people, the development of science and technology, which makes life changing with each passing day, seems to continue to develop forever. How can there be a phenomenon of "technological stagnation"? But in fact, the growth rate of science and technology in human society has indeed slowed down.
The reason why ordinary people in society, especially in China, feel that science and technology are developing faster and faster is mainly because the scientific and technological level of Chinese society has lagged behind the world for a long time. Since the reform and opening up, China has actually spent decades It has digested and absorbed three hundred years of Western scientific and technological achievements. In the process of China's integration into the world, it has absorbed various advanced technological achievements from all over the world in a voracious manner, which has led to drastic changes in the face of Chinese society. It has given ordinary people the feeling that science and technology are naturally amazing. The world is changing too rapidly.
But for Western countries, in the half century since the successful Apollo moon landing, apart from the brilliant IT technology, there have been no revolutionary changes in other technical fields. If we peel back the superficial glitz and noise of the global scientific community and examine the essence, we will be surprised to find that in many technical fields, human beings have actually fallen into a quagmire.
——In the field of aviation, there was only a dozen years between the time the Wright brothers’ wooden biplanes took to the skies for the first time and the aerial battles of World War I. From then on, it took more than sixty years for the jet engine to appear, for the Boeing 747 jetliner to enter service, for cross-continental and transoceanic flights to become commonplace, and for the global air traffic network to be successfully established. The speed of change can only be described as rapid. .
However, starting from the 1970s, the development and changes of aviation technology suddenly slowed down. The Boeing aircraft and B-52, which were produced in the second half of the last century, are still in great power until the beginning of the 21st century. Of course, thanks to the revolution in IT technology, the new Boeing passenger planes are more comfortable and have better communications and entertainment, but there are no major breakthroughs in terms of load capacity and range, which is enough to show that aviation technology is advancing at a snail's pace.
In the field of energy, the main theme of the first industrial revolution was coal and steam power, the main theme of the second industrial revolution was oil and electricity, but the third industrial revolution was inherently lame in terms of energy, and the scope of use of nuclear fission was still limited. There are many restrictions. So far, the global energy market is still dominated by oil and coal. Since the first oil crisis in 1973, during every energy crisis, someone has always jumped out to call for a new energy revolution. But the cold fact is: So far, all photovoltaic and wind power technologies have not achieved revolutionary breakthroughs. The cost of power generation is far higher than that of thermal power, and the production process is not environmentally friendly. They must rely on large government subsidies to survive. .
In the field of nuclear energy, it took less than eight years from the earliest discovery of nuclear fission to the explosion of the first atomic bomb. It can be said to be extremely fast. Next, it took humans just a few years to develop nuclear fusion hydrogen bombs and nuclear-powered submarines. But then, controllable nuclear fusion has been studied for more than half a century, and no one knows how much manpower and material resources have been consumed. So far, there is still no possibility of success.
In the field of aerospace, there has been no major innovation in rocket propulsion technology since the 1980s. The attempt to develop a space shuttle also proved a failure. As a result, the cost per unit mass of space transportation remains high. Larger-scale space operations Exploration and construction struggled. Talking about the history of human beings rushing into space, it originated from the V1 and V2 rockets developed by Nazi Germany during World War II. Less than thirty years later, the Apollo lunar landing spacecraft successfully visited the moon, expanding the space span of human activities. It was stretched more than a hundred times. At that time, many scientists optimistically predicted that humans would establish space colonies in Earth orbit within thirty years and would also land on Mars. In the same period, space science fiction works such as "Mobile Suit Gundam" were also based on the above speculations and launched various imaginations about the future of human space era. But now it seems that there are no revolutionary changes in rocket propulsion technology. Even in another fifty years, the prospects for establishing space colonies and manned landings on Mars are slim.
Even in the most popular field of information science, the basic framework of communication has not changed much since Shannon proposed his theory. Neural networks were lively for a while, but everyone soon felt that the future was bleak and did not engage in it. Well, the ancestor of all current computers is the Turing machine. In fact, the working principles of even the latest computers are not much different from those of the Cold War era computers. The only improvements are the computing speed, unit volume and storage capacity, and the distance from the final physical technology bottleneck is getting closer and closer. Recently - Readers who are familiar with computers probably know that compared to the first decade of this century, has the rate of computer performance upgrades become slower and slower in recent years?
In the field of biology, since the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, scientists have declared countless times that they will enter the century of biotechnology and manipulate DNA like building a house. As a result, until now, humans still "know it but don't know why" about the principles of DNA. For example, why a change in a gene can lead to the difference between a high nose bridge and a low nose bridge, and what the intermediate process is, is still unclear. .
People during the Cold War once optimistically claimed that they would be able to understand the thinking characteristics of the brain by the year 2000. But now, human beings’ understanding of the brain is not much different from that of fifty years ago. If anything, it is the realization that the brain is far more complex than we can describe with current human knowledge. Then, in the 1980s, "People's Daily" interviewed a medical expert. The expert was very optimistic that by 2010, humans would defeat cancer. This was based on the previous progress of human medical technology. However, it seems that this goal is obviously difficult to achieve. Not only cancer, but also the treatment effects of many diseases are improving at an alarmingly slow rate. In fact, the progress of medicine and biology in recent years is mainly due to the advancement and diffusion of IT technology.
In terms of materials science and chemistry, you can look around you. Many processes and technologies have been around for decades, or even half a century. There are many, many more examples like this. So far, the reason why human society believes that technology is developing rapidly is based on the two centuries of experience since the Industrial Revolution. However, this does not fully prove that science and technology will develop rapidly in the future.
Since a new round of scientific and technological revolution has been delayed, science and technology are likely to enter a period of stagnation in the coming years. As for the length of this period of stagnation, it will be a very long period of time, if not forever.
In fact, human civilization has experienced a similar "technological stagnation" a long time ago - in the process of transition from primitive society to ancient society, a technological revolution represented by agriculture, horses, wheels, metallurgy, and writing, It liberated mankind from the age of ignorance and led to an explosion of rapid progress. But after that, the development speed of human civilization dropped significantly. In the following thousands of years, if religion and culture are not taken into consideration, the changes in human society can only be described as slow in terms of technological level. For example, in China, the difference in daily life between Han Dynasty farmers and Song Dynasty farmers was pitifully small. In the West, the living environment of serfs in the Middle Ages was really not superior to that of slaves in ancient Greece. It was not until the advent of the Age of Discovery and the Industrial Revolution that human life rapidly underwent earth-shaking changes.
Of course, if it is just that technology stagnates and allows future humans to live the same life as we do now, then there is nothing unacceptable for ordinary people. But the problem is that when technology no longer advances, the global population is still increasing...
“…Since World War II, the reason why the world has been able to enjoy universal peace for so long is no longer like in the past, when every major country must regularly use wars, famines, plagues and massacres to eliminate part of the surplus population. The key is because of advanced technology. The popularity and diffusion of food has given the world a way to feed more people However, if the fourth industrial revolution is delayed and the population continues to increase, competition among countries for resources will become more intense, and peace and development will no longer be the world’s priorities. Main theme! Finally enter a very bad future! ”
Political Commissar Guo said with a serious expression, "...In the Marvel world, there is a treasure that can allow us to achieve technological breakthroughs and even start the fourth industrial revolution! That is Iron Man's Ark Reactor! As long as there is a glimmer of hope, we You should get it..."
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In short, under the persuasion of Political Commissar Guo, Wang Qiu finally agreed to enter the Marvel world - he would have to leave sooner or later anyway, and there was no way he could escape. Since it was his first time to enter this plot world and he didn't know where he would end up, Wang Qiu only brought along political commissar Guo and four well-trained National Security Bureau agents. Everyone was dressed in suits and leather shoes, with pistols and a full set of secret service equipment hidden around their waists. They were armed to the teeth.
Then, with a flash of white light, they suddenly discovered that they were in a closed space filled with the smell of detergent.
"...This seems to be an...ordinary-looking...women's room?"
After looking at the flush toilet in the cubicle next to him and noticing that there seemed to be no urinal here, Wang Qiu couldn't help but scratch his hair and said in a dumbfounded voice.
On the other side, although the agents were a little embarrassed, they spread out in a professional manner. After a quick search, they immediately found that there was no one in the women's restroom, and there were no windows. It was impossible to tell whether this was Somewhere, I don’t even know which floor this is,
So, after a brief exchange, an agent quietly approached the door with a pistol, intending to peek through the crack of the door to see what was going on outside... But in the next moment, accompanied by a scorching flash and an earth-shattering explosion, this agent The poor agent was engulfed in flames!
At the same time, Wang Qiu was also thrown away by the air wave, and hit the ceiling with his head. Then his eyes went black in pain and he fainted.
At this point, about a minute after entering the Marvel world, this small team suffered a bloody and tragic blow...
(End of this volume)
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※PS: Guess which scene in the Marvel movie world this is?