Hope

Personnel, supplies, equipment, fuel.

Everything on Callisto that could be moved was loaded onto the spaceship.

As for the things that could not be moved—ground facilities such as factories, Nuclear Power Plants, and Orbital Mass Accelerators—they could only be left behind to wander through the universe with Callisto.

"Time really flies. I never thought I'd be over sixty in the blink of an eye."

Already aboard the spaceship, Yue Yuan watched transport modules docking with the vessel through the porthole and could not help sighing over the passage of time.

Years spent in hibernation did not count toward one's age. This had been stipulated by Earth Era law, and the New Government had inherited the regulation. Thus, if Yue Yuan did not enter hibernation again in the years to come, he would soon become the oldest human alive.

Though he was advanced in years, he still looked like a young man, no different from when he had been in the Vast Sea.

"Chief Yue, these were collected online. Please take a look." Just then, a crisp voice rang out behind him.

It was Long Xiaolin, Yue Yuan's current assistant and secretary.

Yue Yuan turned around and saw Long Xiaolin floating over from the hatch, a tablet in her hand.

Since some personnel and equipment had yet to board, the giant cylindrical spaceship had not begun rotating. The people aboard were therefore still in a Weightless State.

Yue Yuan took the tablet and glanced through it before casually asking, "There are quite a few. Which name do you prefer?"

The massive cylindrical spaceship had been completed but had not yet been named, so Yue Yuan had asked Long Xiaolin to collect suggestions. The tablet contained the candidates remaining after several rounds of screening.

Yue Yuan looked them over. There were eight names in total: Shenzhou, Humanity, Mountain Moving, Kunlun, Noah's Ark, Callisto, Hope, and Sky Pillar.

It seemed the relevant experts had already held a round of voting on these names, since Yue Yuan saw support percentages marked beside them.

Hope had received the highest number of votes, followed by Humanity, Shenzhou, Noah's Ark, Kunlun, and Callisto. The last two, Sky Pillar and Mountain Moving, had received less than five percent combined.

The purpose of this round of voting was to eliminate the two lowest-ranked names before submitting the remaining six to Yue Yuan for his final selection.

"Noah. I think Noah's Ark is especially good. Just as the person who suggested it said, this spaceship is humanity's last hope. It will carry us to The Other Side of the Starry Sky, where we can multiply, survive, and carry humanity's future forward," Long Xiaolin said without hesitation.

Apparently, one of Noah's Ark's many votes had come from her, and she seemed eager for the ship to bear that name.

But the final decision rested with Yue Yuan.

"Noah's Ark."

Yue Yuan muttered the name. To be honest, he did not particularly like it.

It was not that he had any prejudice against Noah's Ark. He simply felt that this ship had been painstakingly built through humanity's hard work. It had not been constructed according to divine revelation, nor had it been bestowed by a god, so the name did not suit it very well.

Besides, the ship was shaped like a huge cylinder, not remotely like an "ark."

In that case, Noah's Ark would be no better than Kunlun. Of course, Yue Yuan had ruled out Kunlun as well—not because Kunlun was a bad name, but because regional names of that sort were not suited to humanity's sole vessel.

Shenzhou was not bad either, but considering that many of the more than eighty thousand people had once belonged to other nations, Yue Yuan ruled that out too.

That left Callisto, Hope, and Humanity.

Each of the three names had its own merits. Callisto carried symbolic meaning, because Callisto had saved humanity, and humanity had used Callisto's resources to build the spaceship. Naming the vessel after it would undoubtedly be the best way to commemorate the planet they were about to leave behind.

Humanity needed no further explanation. Humanity.

Hope, on the other hand, carried no particular association. As its name suggested, it simply and directly expressed that this ship was humanity's hope.

Yue Yuan hesitated for a long while, unable to make up his mind.

After a moment, Yue Yuan slowly released the tablet, letting it float quietly before his chest. Then he extended a finger and gave it a light tap, sending it drifting slowly toward Long Xiaolin.

"It will be called Hope."

Hope. Simple and direct.

It was humanity's hope, and civilization's hope as well.

Given Yue Yuan's usual temperament, he would have been more likely to choose Callisto. But just then, he had thought of a better use for that name.

That was the warship that still existed only on blueprints.

Although its construction plan had previously been canceled, three mounting ports had still been reserved. The three reserved positions were spaced 120 degrees apart, clearly intended for the future mounting of warships.

Though Yue Yuan had said at the time that humanity could afford to operate at most one warship, the designers would not foolishly reserve only a single position.

There were not enough people now, but there would be someday.

So long as humanity successfully overcame this crisis, warships would certainly be built.

When that time came, it would be called the Callisto Warship.

With Long Xiaolin's departure, the name of this residential cylindrical spaceship was settled: Hope.

Huaxia had previously followed a basic naming convention for spaceships: warships were called "warships," while general-purpose spacecraft were given the suffix "ship." The New Government continued to use the same convention.

Thus, the large cylindrical ship, a comprehensive residential vessel, was named Hope, while future warships would be named in the form of XX Warship.

Hope was 980 meters long and consisted of ten five-hub disks stacked together, with a radius of 550 meters. The outermost layer of each disk was connected to a sixty-meter-high suspended building module. At full capacity, it could house up to 140,000 people. Its current population was more than 88,000.

It was a Residential Spaceship, equipped with a complete Electric Force system, Air Circulation System, water circulation system, and, naturally, a waste disposal system.

Beyond that, Hope had dedicated cultivation modules for agriculture, artificial starch production modules, and specialized modules for clothing and fabric production, washing and hygiene supplies, and other basic necessities.

It had everything needed for eating, drinking, defecating, and living.

Hope drew its power from three large Fission Thrusters positioned outside the rear of its central axis.

Since it had no forward thrusters, Hope could only brake by activating the Steering Engines on the stators at both ends, along with the vector engines on the outer sides of the large end disks for Attitude Adjustment. It would turn around first, then decelerate with reverse thrust.

The large disks at both ends did not rotate with the disks of the Living Module. They were fixed to the stators, so from an overall perspective, Hope resembled a huge cylinder with stationary ends and a rotating middle.