Hope

As an astronomer, not knowing Callisto's resource distribution was perfectly normal. But Yue Yuan, as the highest-ranking officer of Callisto Base, knew very well that even before the disaster, the base had already possessed data on Callisto's general resource distribution.

Callisto's atmosphere had contained extremely thin layers of Carbon Dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen. Of course, they had long since been entirely blown away by the Solar Wind, which had also heated it from a cold planet with no geological activity into a world where magma bubbled up everywhere.

That heating had not penetrated to the core. Once its surface cooled in a few years, its resources could be extensively mined again. After all, it was a Rocky Satellite, and vast amounts of silicates had not been blown away along with the atmosphere.

Callisto, still in a semi-molten state, was not impossible to mine either. With humanity's current technology, scooping up magma at over two thousand degrees Celsius was not much of a problem, as long as specialized heat-resistant hooks and shovels were made.

The problem was that if the magma was brought back and separated directly, the resulting products would contain pitifully little Heavy Metal, because the Heavy Metals had all sunk downward.

Fortunately, many areas had already cooled. As long as they dug down, they could find Heavy Metal ore. The only certainty was that Callisto had no large cores rich in iron, nickel, and similar elements. That was also why it had no global magnetic field.

Still, iron was one of the most abundant elements in the Solar System. Nearly every Rocky Planet had it. As long as they dug deep enough and dug hard enough, they would always find iron ore. At worst, the reserves would be limited or the purity low. Without considering economic costs, none of that was a problem.

As for oxygen, they merely needed to establish more plantations, take out some of the seeds in the base laboratories for cultivation, and plant everything they could. Combined with chemical production as support, there would be no problem at all.

Carbon Dioxide and the other gases were much the same. Next came massive construction, and they could simply discharge industrial exhaust without restraint.

It could be said that Callisto ensured humanity would not have to worry about going extinct from a lack of resources and energy in the short term. As long as Callisto's nuclear fission fuel was not exhausted, energy would not be an issue.

With Callisto Base's current nuclear fuel reserves, they could last twenty or thirty years without a problem.

So what gave Yue Yuan the worst headache was what came after.

Where should humanity go from here? And how should they go, and from where?

Well. Where they went was not the key. The key question was how to leave.

"Ah, this is truly worrying." Yue Yuan tugged at his hair. After leaving the data center, he had urgently convened several small meetings with different departments to confirm and arrange the large-scale construction plans, but his mind had remained fixed on the future.

After temporarily finishing the day's work, Yue Yuan returned to his residence. He checked the time and discovered that it was eleven-thirty at night.

Callisto no longer had any distinction between day and night. Well, it never really had one before either. It had merely always been Jupiter's daytime before, whereas now it was always the starry darkness of night.

Therefore, Callisto's standard time still followed Earth time, and people had grown accustomed to it over the years.

"Twelve-thirty. That's early." Yue Yuan dropped onto the sofa and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. It had been a long time since he had been alone in such quiet.

In that environment, the kindly figures of his parents involuntarily surfaced in his mind, along with every little memory of living on Earth.

His parents' reminders, his friends' teasing, his comrades' shouts.

For a moment, Yue Yuan's eyes gradually grew moist. This remembrance had come somewhat suddenly, and somewhat late, but only in this rare moment of leisure did he have time to remember everything he had lost.

Taking a deep breath, Yue Yuan tightly closed his eyes and locked those emotions deep within his heart.

After calming himself, Yue Yuan pushed open the door and stepped out of the temporary room. He glanced toward the guard post in the distance. Though it was rather dim, Yue Yuan's excellent eyesight still allowed him to see Zhu Pete chatting with the guards on duty in the duty room.

Laughter rang out from time to time, and they seemed to be having a good time. They were fairly loud, but Yue Yuan did not need to listen closely to guess what Zhu Pete was saying. He was probably once again using his discoveries to entertain people, while exchanging tips on how to maintain a thick, luxurious head of hair.

Zhu Pete had followed him for so many years that Yue Yuan understood him very well.

Yue Yuan had originally come out to remind Zhu Pete that there was an important conference to attend tomorrow. But seeing how cheerful he was, Yue Yuan did not call out to him and instead returned to his room to sleep.

Tomorrow's conference was very important.

At tomorrow's conference, Yue Yuan would put the leadership of Callisto Base, along with every department and position, up for deliberation once more. After that, they would discuss the massive construction effort and how the surviving humans should proceed from then on.

Every matter was of great importance.

Especially the first one.

Yue Yuan had actually considered this matter while they were still underground. But at that time, everyone had been consumed by grief and still harbored fantasies about the great disaster, so it had been too early to discuss such things.

Yue Yuan knew very well that in that environment, even he had clung to the strange illusion that he would not believe it without seeing it with his own eyes. Therefore, after they emerged from the ground, he had ordered multiple powerful Electromagnetic Wave signals transmitted toward the Sun's inner orbit, hoping for a miracle.

From a rational standpoint, this action had actually been unnecessary. The result was as expected: aside from the humans on Callisto, every other base and even Earth itself had perished.

Everyone had now accepted this fact. Coupled with the improvement in their living conditions—at the very least, people knew they had survived for now—it had become necessary to establish the leadership under such circumstances.

The base had originally had a management structure, and everyone had tacitly accepted the existing leadership departments. But after the drastic upheaval they had experienced, there was a vast difference between bringing the matter up for discussion again and saying nothing, allowing things to remain ambiguous.

Even merely reaffirming it would hold extraordinary significance.

Of course, Yue Yuan wanted more than a simple reaffirmation. Based on the current circumstances, he needed to adopt suitable management methods to ensure the survivors could unite as one and survive together in this thorn-filled universe.

Times had changed. Shang Jun had said: "The way to govern a state is to adapt to the country, not imitate the ancients." It meant there was not only one path to governing a nation. As long as it benefited the country, there was no need to rigidly cling to ancient laws and old systems.

They had to adapt measures to local conditions.

Furthermore, Yue Yuan felt that Man Yuemei was a little too ambitious. He could not allow her to keep leading the Security Department alone.

When it came to controlling the apparatus of violence, Yue Yuan believed no amount of caution was excessive.

Although he had always held authority over the Security Department, some things still needed to be done. Therefore, for future stability and in keeping with the principle of preparing for a rainy day, he decided to appoint another deputy minister.

This kind of subject matter was really niche. The follow-up readership, votes, recommendations, and every kind of statistic were disastrously low.