The hallmarks of the Human Industrial Revolution had mostly been breakthroughs in energy and power. Therefore, modern historians believed that during the Third Industrial Revolution, humanity would inevitably gain access to cleaner new energy sources with higher utilization rates.
And now, humanity had indeed acquired them. As Mercury Base underwent further construction, countries around the world began producing components and materials related to extracting Solar Energy. In the Era of Great Cosmic Development, whoever gained the ability to venture out first would get the biggest slice of the cake.
When photographs of Mercury Base were released through official media outlets in various countries, most ordinary people felt as though they had been transported into another age. They thought it was a scene from some new Hollywood blockbuster, or the result of a photographer so desperate for fame that they had edited the image.
After official media confirmed the photograph's authenticity, a storm of public opinion swept across the globe. That French historian's article was dug out from some forgotten corner—he had been right. The Third Industrial Revolution had begun.
One accepted view among mainstream historians was that the beginning of humanity's Third Industrial Revolution was marked by the successful construction of the first Solar Energy collection station on Mercury.
Humanity's ability to harvest Solar Energy painlessly meant many things, but people still only cared about two questions—how hot could water burn, and how far could rocks fly?
The facts proved that the Third Industrial Revolution would be the most important Industrial Revolution in human history, because this time, the rocks flew very far—dozens of light-years, in fact.
Once this fact had been confirmed, another kind of confusion followed. People had not prepared themselves to accept that humanity had become an interstellar civilization. The spaceships had flown too far, while their