[Empire Log: Establishment of the Spy Network] [The first batch of agents we dispatched have all infiltrated the M'tok Union and begun establishing a preliminary spy network to carry out reconnaissance orders. We believe the empire will soon receive a steady stream of intelligence on them.] [Xi Yan's instructions: Hopefully, the real-world espionage system won't be too useless.]
How Agent Krauk Lee was doing in the distant M'tok Union did not particularly matter to Xi Yan for now. With the espionage system in Stellaris being practically useless, no player ever paid attention to spy networks.
For Xi Yan, gathering the most basic intelligence on the M'tok Union in the short term would be enough.
Still, those were all excellent agents, and the empire had invested heavily in them. Xi Yan did not want them all to die out there.
The agents had only just entered enemy territory and had yet to establish themselves. It really was not a good time to contact them.
Xi Yan called the Academy of Sciences again to ask about its progress on synth technology.
Mardun told him that major technical difficulties had emerged, and they might need several more years to develop it.
The Academy of Sciences had initially misunderstood him, assuming that Xi Yan only wanted intelligent robots capable of performing more complex tasks. Only later did they realize that the robots he wanted were outright mechanical life: synths with fairly intelligent consciousnesses that could perform complex work and live like humans.
Developing them would have an enormous impact on society, triggering a series of ethical, moral, and employment issues. Xi Yan remained unmoved, however, and insisted that they research them.
The final verdict was that even with Beta's assistance, the research would take ten years.
Creating a mechanical species from scratch