Chapter 495 Kiss of Death

Five years have passed in a flash.

During these five years, the environmental transformation project of Dawn Star has never been interrupted and has been carried out silently.

Compared with the beginning, Dawn Star now has a little bit of the appearance of the Earth.

But it is only a little.

It will still take a long time for humans to truly walk out of the closed city and start living under the blue sky and white clouds.

At the same time, the human body enhancement project is also advancing.

With all members of the Academy of Sciences and the Parliament setting an example, the advancement speed of the human body enhancement project has increased significantly.

Although there are still some old stubborn people who do not trust the so-called genetic modification technology, watching their relatives and friends around them, and even strangers on the street who have never met, take off their exoskeleton armor one by one, shut down the home version of the medical cabin that runs every night, and breathe the breath of freedom...

These old stubborn people can't suppress their inner turmoil and join the human body enhancement project.

It seems that everything is thriving.

But after five years of fermentation, a problem seems to be getting more and more serious.

…

“According to the latest calculation results, the combined fertility rate curve of the human union will intersect with the combined mortality rate curve in three hundred years.”

Zero’s voice echoed in the office.

In the holographic projection, there is a winding curve chart.

The curve that keeps declining at the top represents the combined fertility rate of human civilization.

And the one that slowly rises at the bottom is the combined mortality rate curve of human civilization.

Compared with the calculation results a few years ago, the time for the two curves to intersect has been shortened by nearly two hundred years.

Lv Yongchang sat in the office chair, looking at the two curves that kept extending and finally intersecting in the holographic projection, and sighed softly.

As shown in the chart.

As time goes by, the older generation from Earth and even from Proxima b continues to die, while the number of newborns decreases year by year, eventually leading to the "kiss of death" between the combined fertility rate curve and the combined mortality rate curve.

Especially in the past five years.

The number of newborns each year is falling off a cliff!

For interstellar civilization, the intersection of these two curves means that civilization is declining and eventually heading towards extinction.

Like the human civilization on Proxima, the Human Union eventually encountered this fatal problem.

But there are some differences between the Human Union and the human civilization on Proxima.

The population crisis on Proxima is caused by the small population base and the lack of survival resources.

The Human Union is just the opposite.

The population base is huge, and there are billions of people in the [Home Ship] who have not been awakened and are still in hibernation.

The survival resources are also relatively abundant.

After entering the third-level civilization, especially after the breakthrough of computer technology, the computing power of Zero has been greatly improved, and the productivity level of human civilization has also been greatly improved.

After a hundred years, the environmental transformation of Dawn will be declared a success.

Humans will also walk out of the small closed cities, and the billions of people in the hibernation cabins will be awakened one by one.

But this still cannot solve the problem of declining overall fertility rate.

The reason is very simple.

Compared with the Earth era or the Proxima b era, the cost of childbirth on Dawn is too high.

Whether it is the human body enhancement project or the life extension technology, it is aimed at fully developed adults.

Therefore, before adulthood, humans are still as weak as they were on Earth.

This leads to a problem.

In the 1.9g gravity environment of Dawn, giving birth has become a huge problem.

Newborn babies certainly cannot withstand the 1.9g gravity on Dawn.

Of course, the Human Union Academy of Sciences has also made corresponding solutions.

A large synchronous orbit space station on Dawn.

The ring-shaped space station can generate 1g of equivalent gravity by rotating, which can simulate the earth's environment to a great extent to a certain extent - this is extremely friendly to the growth and development of infants and young children.

Only when they enter adulthood, these new generations born in the space station can receive the transformation of human body strengthening and life extension technology.

The time for this growth and development varies from person to person, and the average time is about 18-20 years.

For the safety of the new generation, the time for the two transformations of human body strengthening and life extension is set at 25 years old.

That is the time when the human brain is fully mature.

At the same time, this is also the time for the new generation of humans to perform the [Coming of Age Ceremony].

Only after completing the [Coming of Age Ceremony] and undergoing the two transformations of human body strengthening and life extension, they are truly new humans.

For newborns, there is nothing wrong with this regulation.

But for parents, this regulation is the culprit for the drastic decline in fertility!

Under the traditional raising model, it is impossible for both parents to abandon their children and live alone on the surface of Dawn Star.

This creates an embarrassing scene.

To give birth to a child, both parents have to spend at least 20 years.

For new humans with an average lifespan of 1,000 years, 20 years is actually nothing.

What's more, the parliament has various perfect safeguards for this long childbearing time.

You can even use childbearing as an excuse to achieve a paid vacation of up to 20 years.

That's what they say.

But if it really happens to you, it's another scene.

Even if the technology of today's human beings can freely travel between synchronous orbit and the ground, the hidden cost of up to twenty years is unbearable for ordinary people.

So...

During these five years.

The three synchronous orbit space stations that have been built are sparsely populated.

The number of newborns is also declining year by year.

In order to try to save the declining overall birth rate, the Academy of Sciences launched a medical cabin for infants and young children two years ago.

After the birth of the newborn, these infants and young children can enter a shallow hibernation state in this special medical cabin.

The so-called shallow hibernation state is very similar to the deep sleep state, and the human body's metabolism and growth and development will not stop.

In other words.

Infants and young children can "sleep" in this special medical cabin until they become adults.

Then complete the [Coming of Age Ceremony] and start their new life.

This greatly reduces the time cost of both parents to raise the next generation, but it breeds another serious problem.

The education problem of the new generation.

No one would be willing to teach a 25-year-old, strong adult to go to the toilet, eat and walk.

What's more, the learning of language skills is often carried out in infancy.

So...

This replacement plan failed just after it was born.

This gave a heavy blow to the already poor fertility rate, causing it to decline even faster.