Chapter 3530: This Man Comes from Krypton (8)

"We lack necessary intelligence," Oliver said. "I'll send a message to Clark and the others to see if they can find any clues on Krypton. If Barry did something in the past, it must have repercussions in the present timeline."

Oliver began drafting the message and sent it off shortly after. Clark replied quickly, stating that they had discovered some machines in the breeding center were still operational, and that only Clark could activate them.

"Barry must have already made contact with Jor-El," Batman said decisively. "It must be that Clark's biological father did something to give Clark the authorization to start these machines. The energy issue is the same; he must have done something to ensure the machines retained a certain amount of power."

"The key is why Jor-El would do this," Hal said. "If H'El really is their friend or adopted son, and H'El is hunting Barry, they couldn't possibly choose to help a stranger over their own kin."

"This proves that H'El is likely more than just an adopted son or friend to them," Batman said. "They must know more about H'El's origins and understand his danger. Or perhaps they have been guarding against him all along, which is why they chose to help Barry the moment he appeared."

"So where did this guy come from?" Oliver rubbed his temples, looking troubled. He said, "I don't think he was created by Jor-El and his wife. If not, why would they adopt him?"

"That is a long story," Jor-El said, sitting on his sofa. Barry sat opposite him, while Lara had carried the young H'El into the bedroom.

"About a year ago, I was transferred to this laboratory, primarily to maintain and optimize the core energy extraction instruments, and also to provide core energy data to other laboratories. It is considered a relatively important position."

"You might not understand, but on the home planet of Krypton, almost all energy comes from the core. However, after years of mining, the core's energy is no longer sufficient or stable. Scientists have been trying to find new energy sources."

"What about your star?" Barry asked.

"For some reason, we cannot utilize stellar energy," Jor-El didn't elaborate. He simply continued: "To be precise, we cannot utilize the stellar energy within our own star system, and must find the most suitable star."

Although Barry found it a bit strange, the universe is vast and full of wonders. He didn't press the issue.

"Under these circumstances, we have two choices. One is to increase our space exploration efforts, launching probes into deeper and more distant reaches until we find the star system of our dreams, and then move."

"The other is to further improve the efficiency of our core energy utilization, doing the most with the least amount of energy. This way, we can preserve our home planet while continuing to develop our technology."

"Why not do both?" Barry said. "The two don't seem to conflict; surely you could pursue both simultaneously?"

"I was speaking of normal solutions. In reality, they chose neither and took a third path." El offered a bitter smile. He said, "If core energy were only supplied to the upper classes, it would be more than enough and could last indefinitely."

"And if we were to solve the energy problem through deep space exploration or scientific research, it would require significant costs. It is simply not as fast as directly eliminating the lower-class people who consume the resources."

Barry already knew what was going to happen.

"But before eliminating the lower-class people, the first problem to solve is who will take over their duties once the labor force is gone."

"You want to build robots?"

El gave him an approving look, as if praising his intelligence. He nodded and said, "Even though our gene-editing technology is second to none in the universe, genetic technology is complex and requires a large number of researchers to maintain the breeding center's operations. It is far less simple than the automated assembly lines of many mechanical civilizations."

"Kryptonians also have a relatively long growth cycle. Although we previously had maturation technology, it had major flaws and could only be used to mature some warriors, while also greatly reducing their lifespans. After many years of development, there have been no breakthroughs. The masters have run out of patience."

"Fine, I knew it would be like this," Barry said. "But transitioning to a mechanical civilization isn't that simple, is it?"

"To be precise, it's not a transition," El said. "They don't intend to turn themselves into robots; they just want to further develop mechanical technology to replace the lower-class Kryptonians."

"I have a question," Barry raised a hand. "A mechanical civilization doesn't mean it won't consume energy; in fact, at certain stages, it should consume even more, right?"

"You've hit the nail on the head," El said. "They are building robots not only to replace the lower-class Kryptonians but also to exploit stars."

"Oh, I understand," Barry realized. He said, "You must be under some kind of genetic restriction that prevents you from directly utilizing the energy produced by your star, so you plan to build a batch of robots to do it. But why exactly can't you mine stellar energy yourselves?"

El nodded and said, "I'm not trying to be secretive, but it's a bit too complex to explain. In short, a long, long time ago, dating back to when this race was first born, our genes developed some problems."

"It sounds ridiculous, but we truly cannot adapt to the radiation brought by the stars in our own star system. Being able to move freely today is only possible after hundreds of generations of gene editing, which minimized the impact of our original genes as much as possible."

"After entering the era of interstellar colonization, we discovered that we are not adapted to the radiation of most stars in the universe. At the very least, within the range we can currently explore, there isn't a single star available for exploitation."

"There might be a 'just right' star in the universe, but we haven't found it yet. That's about it."

Barry nodded. He already knew where this "just right" star was, but he continued to listen to El.

"The mechanical technology advancement plan is not a secret; a group of scientists has always been researching it. After I was transferred to this laboratory, I participated in the research, but I discovered that there were some problems with it."

"What?"

"In your mind, we should be developing some remotely operated machinery to remotely mine stellar energy."

"Yes, you should have done that long ago," Barry said. "Although my civilization's technology isn't as advanced as yours, we actually can't get too close to stars either, so our method is to send drones."

El nodded in understanding and said, "Most civilizations in the universe don't have the physical strength to withstand temperatures of several thousand degrees, so most of them do it that way, but we don't."

"What did you go off to research?"

"Artificial intelligence," El sighed helplessly. "I don't know why, but they seem to feel that electronic life must be used to rule machinery, so they prioritized software development."

El appeared confused and helpless, but Barry could roughly guess why the Council would do this.

Through previous intelligence, he knew roughly what the political and social situation on Krypton was like—the Council was above all else, and most Kryptonians lived under the Council's extreme control and oppression.

All progress and development on Krypton could not supersede the Council's rule; this was a prerequisite. Otherwise, the Council could not maintain such comprehensive control and oppression.

For example, if someone developed a super-powerful weapon, but the Council couldn't fully control it, they would destroy both the person and the weapon. Every civilization in its late stages of isolationism is like this.

So, what is the key to developing mechanical technology now?

The key isn't whether mechanical technology can actually be developed, because El already said that if it couldn't be developed, eliminating the excess lower-class people would be the same.

The key is whether the developed mechanical technology is under the Council's control. Control is more important than the right to develop.

Therefore, in this situation, they would certainly prioritize software development to ensure that all developed mechanical technology could be directly controlled by them.

Otherwise, if you developed a bunch of machines that could mine stellar energy, and you had both machines and energy, wouldn't that be a ready-made army if you stopped listening to the Council?

In this situation, whether useful machines could be developed was secondary; first developing something that could strictly control the machines was the most important thing.

However, Barry didn't know if these Council masters weren't very bright or if they were truly short-sighted. Setting up a remote control system is one thing, but why create electronic life?

Looking across the entire multiverse, how many electronic life forms don't rebel?

But thinking about it, if they were cautious and far-sighted, they wouldn't have managed to destroy their entire civilization.

But Barry soon realized he had underestimated the extent of these people's stupidity.

"So, did they succeed?" Barry asked.

"Success is one thing, but they felt it wasn't safe enough."

"What?"

"That is, what if they created an electronic life form, but it went out of control?"

"So they actually thought about that," Barry couldn't help but say.

"So they decided to add another layer of insurance for this electronic life," El waved his hand and said. "They wanted to create an existence capable of destroying the electronic life's root server at any time from a physical level."

"Wait a minute, you don't mean..."

"That's right, it's H'El."

Barry slapped his forehead.

In other words, to prevent the Kryptonians controlling the mechanical equipment from going out of control, they planned to create an electronic life form, and to prevent the electronic life form from going out of control, they planned to create a super Kryptonian...

"That's exactly it."

Barry couldn't help but give a thumbs up.

This reminded him of a joke about God gathering a plane full of criminals and letting them crash together.

In Barry's view, God had gathered a planet full of losers, letting them suffer such torture together, and then perish together.

No wonder by the end, neither Jor-El nor Zod intended to save this old Krypton under the Council's rule. By this point in time, even if you threw Batman over, it would be too late.

"Fine," Barry reluctantly convinced himself to accept this fact, and then he said, "Since they created him, why was he adopted by you?"

"Because this project failed," El said, frowning. "H'El has no superpowers; he is just an ordinary Kryptonian. I should ask you, is that big guy who appeared in our house earlier really H'El?"

"Failed?" Barry also frowned tightly. He said, "You mean he only has the strength of an ordinary Kryptonian? No special superpowers?"

El nodded and said, "Because of this, he was supposed to be destroyed. But Lara thought he was too pitiful, so she secretly brought him home."

"Then what are these instruments in your house for?"

"These are machines necessary for raising Kryptonian infants. We need to inject him with various vaccines and give him regular check-ups. Don't you use them?"

Fine, Barry thought. So that's it. The couple had moved the hospital's various equipment for newborn testing back home.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 3531 =====