Young man—ptui, Brother Shao, want to team up? This chapter is full of background exposition

The cold wind howled bitterly.

The world was desolate.

In fact, every industry was desolate as well.

Since August 11, 2013, the future course of this world had completely veered off track.

Humanity's fantasies had become reality.

This world had welcomed unknown Invaders.

But the Invaders were not the alien warships of fantasy. They were colossal Beasts that crawled out of a suddenly appearing wormhole deep beneath the Pacific Ocean!

The first Beast was later named Knifehead.

Before it appeared, no one had believed that walking slabs of flesh could withstand their technological weapons.

After it appeared, people learned just how powerless modern technological weapons were against such colossal Beasts.

After Knifehead came ashore in San Francisco, people poured endless ammunition onto it for several hours, yet still failed to stop its advance. In the end, they had no choice but to use three Nuclear Warheads to destroy it. But by then, a prosperous city had also become ruins, the graveyard of the colossal Beast known as Knifehead.

What terrified the world even more was that the attack of this colossal Beast was not an isolated incident. Six months later, the second attack arrived silently when no one expected it, followed by a third attack nearly four months later, then a fourth three months after that.

During those three attacks, humanity once again had to deploy its ultimate weapons to avert disaster. Aside from suffering massive casualties and the destruction of cities once more, people repeatedly witnessed the helplessness of their own technological weapons against these colossal Beasts! The radiation from ultimate weapons could be reduced to a minimum through various methods, but the toxicity of the monsters' blood, after seeping into the soil and evaporating, would turn the area into a barren land of death.

Driven by these successive crises, the authorities of every nation could no longer stand by, nor could they continue treating such Beast attacks as natural disasters or accidents. They completely abandoned their fantasies and began to cooperate.

In 2014, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, or PPDC, was established. Its headquarters was set up in Xianggang.

At the first PPDC summit, numerous scientists put forward their own proposals. Some suggested researching more reliable specialized lethal weapons. Others, at the urging of the financial groups backing them, proposed building massive walls to block the monsters! Some even proposed a giant mech project to build humanity's own monsters to fight the invading monsters: the Jaeger Program. At the time, however, this proposal was not a high priority among the many varied plans.

Because no one could estimate how long it would take for the project to succeed.

But Jasper Schofield, the scientist who proposed the project, did not give up. He approached one of the PPDC leaders who was very interested in his plan, Stacker Pentecost, hoping that he would invest the funds under his control into the project. After gaining investment and support, he also brought in his former student—and rather disgracefully, former lover—Catherine Lightcap, a renowned scientist in the field of brain neuroscience.

And in only three months, Jasper and Catherine's research team achieved astonishing results, coming incredibly close to success. In less than two more months, the Prototype of the first product of the Jaeger Program, Brawler Yukon, had entered testing. This explosive research progress, as though aided by God, caused the governments that had previously doubted the project to increase their investments.

However, things never went smoothly.

The first human-machine link test failed, resulting in the death of the test subject. The test proved that one person's Neurons simply could not bear the mental burden of linking with and controlling a Jaeger Program product. A shadow fell over what had once been a highly promising project. Stacker Pentecost's enthusiasm also cooled after repeated setbacks. Yet by then, the sunk costs he had invested in the project had already left him with no way out. He could only grit his teeth and use every connection and contact he had to gather more funding for Jasper and Catherine.

And Jasper and Catherine truly seemed like children chosen by fate. In only eighteen days, Catherine developed the Drift System, which could synchronize the brainwaves of two pilots.

When another Kaiju attack appeared two months later, Catherine personally took the field with her partner Sergio, piloting the first Prototype Jaeger, Brawler Yukon. For the first time, humanity accomplished the feat of defeating a colossal Beast with a Jaeger. This greatly encouraged the despairing public and sent the popularity of Jaegers soaring across the world!

As the first PPDC-backed project to achieve success in actual combat, the nations behind it took the opportunity to decide on their direction.

Jaeger maintenance bases sprang up one after another. Military weapons and personnel from various countries moved in, while the Jaeger Academy, which had swept the world, began recruiting students globally.

Everything seemed to be developing for the better.

By then, nearly eleven years had passed since the first Kaiju appeared.

Over those eleven years, the changes in this world had exceeded anything anyone could have imagined a decade ago. Nearly all of the world's resources had been poured into the Jaeger Program, this money-devouring Beast. If not for the project's many branches and the numerous technological breakthroughs that could be applied elsewhere, the finances of nations around the world likely would have long been unable to endure the Jaegers rolling off production lines like dumplings into boiling water. Even so, the Jaeger Program had placed unbearable strain on national budgets.

As everyone knew, when too much was invested in war, investment in society would inevitably suffer. Though the nations of the world had not quite descended into utter chaos, aside from a few countries and cities, many places were still in disorder. Some even had bizarre Kaiju-worshipping groups running rampant. They believed Kaiju were humanity's punishment and that humans should not resist, but instead accept them joyfully and devoutly.

Of course, after ten years of publicity and battlefield achievements, Jaegers had no shortage of worshippers as well. Some fanatics even opposed the Kaiju-worshipping groups that regarded the monsters as Gods of destruction, instead viewing Jaegers as guardian Gods. They also called the seven famous pilots and Creator groups of the past decade the Seven Great Machine Deities!

Catherine Lightcap, who created the human-machine mental Drift System and gave Jaegers consciousness.

Jasper Schofield, the father of Jaegers, who promoted and created the first Jaeger.

The genius Cai Tiantong, who knew every detail and piece of information about every monster, including holding the authority to classify and name Kaiju.

The Strange Person duo Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb, who studied monster weaknesses and used their own mathematical models to research and predict Kaiju attack frequency, numbers, appearance times, and more.

The only Jaeger pilot known to the public to have independently controlled a First Generation Jaeger, Coyote Tango, and defeated a Kaiju after his Companion was severely injured and lost consciousness: Stacker Pentecost, Marshal of the PPDC and instructor at the Jaeger Academy.

And finally, Luke Field, who mysteriously appeared three years ago and single-handedly helped Shao Industries rise from the brink of collapse, turning it into a Magnate in the world's Jaeger industrial chain.

Shao Zhiwen, the head of Shao Industries, gazed at the desolate scenery outside the window and could not help recalling his first meeting with Luke Field. That shockingly young man, and his greeting—"Young man—ptui, Brother Shao, want to team up?"—remained vivid in his memory even now. Of course, what left an even deeper impression on him, and made him immediately put aside all concerns and choose to partner with Luke Field, was the miniature mechanical monster over two meters tall standing beside Luke Field at the time.

It was the first Kaiju that everyone could recognize at a glance: Knifehead!

It looked as though it had been assembled from a pile of scrap metal. It was unpainted and somewhat ugly, but it was exceptionally lively and obedient!

PS: In the movie, the first Kaiju was bombed for six days. Of the three Nuclear Warheads, two failed to hit vital areas, while the one that did hit a vital area finally killed it. Here, I used the few hours from the comics. Six days would make the First Generation Kaiju's defenses a little too ridiculous.

PS2: Mailing the contract did not go smoothly today. Several courier services would not deliver to Shanghai. In the end, I found Boss Shun, but they only accepted it for now. If they can send it tomorrow, they will; if not, they will return it. What a hassle.