Chapter 4404

Humanity had already accepted that it was absolutely impossible to pull out the nails with their current technological means. But the good news was that Martians couldn't immediately replace the human upper echelons the moment they were born; their growth required a certain amount of time.

Although Martians didn't say whether their growth and development speed was the same as humans, considering that the conditions on Mars and Earth were relatively similar, it could be assumed that their growth cycle wouldn't be short, and might even be longer due to their longer lifespan, and their childhood would also be longer.

In other words, there was some leeway for this problem. As long as the nails could be pulled out before a generation grew up, then human civilization wouldn't be completely without hope.

Currently, everyone was pulling out their own nails, still dealing with this matter on a country-by-country basis. After all, there was no other way now; uniting would only increase disputes, so it was better to study separately and pool wisdom; maybe some path would work.

Since it was necessary to transition from short-term work to long-term work, it was necessary to have someone to organize the work. As everyone knows, the most efficient political system in human history is actually a monarchy. In an ideal state, it would be a philosopher king, but in the face of a great enemy, it didn't have to be that philosophical; the key was to have ability.

And precisely because Congress held more than 70 meetings within a week, they also realized: the current political system was useless; it was fine to muddle through things at ordinary times, and everyone would let each other go and get rich together. But it wouldn't work now; the Sword of Damocles was hanging over their heads, and they only had one generation of time to solve this problem. If they didn't want to become Martian slaves, they had to find the most efficient method.

So what was the most efficient period for the United States?

The greenhorns were at a loss, while some old politicians with gray hair were energized; they were familiar with this set of procedures; wasn't this a classic Cold War version reprint?

Although what they had to outrun now was the growing Martians, there was actually no difference, because that red giant would really hang them on street lamps to die, and the Martians would also really step on them. As long as the consequences were serious enough, even if both legs were worn away, they had to take small steps, take big strides, and jog into the new era.

Moreover, under the research of many scientists, three plans were provided for how to pull out the nails: nothing more than diving to dig, cutting in the middle, and space hoisting.

In other words, the technologies they needed to develop were underground excavation technology capable of working in the deep sea and drilling through the crust, weapon technology capable of cutting through such high-strength materials, and hoisting technology capable of working in space. The direction of this competition couldn't be said to be vastly different from the Cold War; it could be said to be exactly the same.

Moreover, these three parties basically had to be parallel. Because they couldn't pull and drag by force, they definitely had to dig out the things underneath; but in order to maintain balance, it was best to hoist them in space; being able to cut was of course the best, as this could greatly reduce the self-weight of this thing, and it would be more convenient when pulling.

Actually, in the conception, if it could really be cut, it seemed that cutting directly was the fastest method, because as long as it was destroyed, it wouldn't take effect. But in reality, the technology of this thing was too advanced, and no one knew where the working hub of this thing was. Even if it was sliced like a radish, maybe what really worked was the part that was stuck into the crust. So just cutting was useless; it still had to be pulled out. Humanity wouldn't allow any part of this thing to remain on Earth; it was best to clear it out completely.

Since it had entered the rhythm of the Cold War again, it naturally needed a leader like Roosevelt. Back then, FDR could lead them to escape the street lamps; then today, who could lead them to escape the Martians?

In fact, their candidates weren't many, because compared to the Cold War period, the leader selected for this period needed to have one most important trait, which was that he himself had to be strong enough.

After all, Martians weren't stupid; they had already infiltrated Earth to this extent, would they just watch you pull the nails out? Throughout the entire plan, they would definitely cause trouble in a thousand ways and obstruct in a hundred ways; destroying production and the like were small matters, the key was that they would definitely attack the core leader, which was the most fatal thing for humanity.

If they killed one as soon as one came up, then it wouldn't take long for humanity to fall into despair. It just so happened that the success rate of doing this was very high, because the physical fitness of Martians was stronger than that of humans, which could be seen from the Luthor Manor murder case: they killed in an instant, without even leaving evidence.

Perhaps increasing security would have some use, but essentially, no human could perfectly protect humanity from the Martians. This wasn't a question of willingness, but a question of ability; it couldn't be solved by finding enough brave men willing to sacrifice.

Not to mention, no one knew when a Martian would mix in; once mixed in, it would be a total loss.

It could be said that the people in Congress these days were truly worried gray-haired: someone made a suggestion, and someone refuted it, but you didn't know if the person making the suggestion and refuting it was a Martian; no one could judge, and arguing back and forth didn't lead to any results.

In the end, it wasn't just the congressmen arguing; almost everyone who could be called an upper-class person and had dealt with the government and the military was involved. It looked like pooling wisdom, but in reality, it was reducing the probability of Martians manipulating the results by creating a chaotic situation.

In this widespread discussion, there weren't many useful ideas, but there was plenty of useless bullshit, and they still achieved the result of arguing back and forth without any results. And just when many people had already given up hope, an idea surfaced like a thunderbolt.

"What did you say?!" The moderator in the center of the Capitol building looked blankly at one of the seats.

"I said, let's choose Superman," Schiller said calmly.

Very unsurprisingly, question marks popped up on almost everyone's heads: "Not a brother, do you mean we want to choose a Martian to be the leader of the resistance against Martians? You fucking were sent by the Martians, right?!!"

However, most of the people who could get in here were smart people; you could say they were bad, but you couldn't say they were stupid. Especially those cunning Cold War-era politicians, they immediately realized that this really had some merit.

Of course, they didn't know that Superman was actually a Kryptonian, but even if he was a Martian, it didn't mean he couldn't be used, and he might even be easier to use than a non-Martian.

The logic was this: if he didn't agree to become the leader of the human side, then it could prove that he was a pure Martian; but if he agreed, it proved that he wasn't in the same group as the other Martians.

There was no option of pretending to agree and then causing trouble, because the damage he could cause if he didn't agree was far greater than if he pretended to agree. If he didn't agree, humanity would have no way at all; the situation had reached the worst degree, all the leaders selected could be assassinated, the plan to pull the nails couldn't be pushed forward at all, the Martians would occupy Earth, and humanity would become slaves.

In this situation, there was no need for any acting; just do nothing and wait for humanity to perish on its own.

Conversely, if he became the leader, even if he really wanted to cause trouble, as long as he agreed, he would become a spiritual pillar for some people; after all, everyone knew how strong he was, people would have fantasies about him, and this would instead give humanity hope, thereby making a response.

In other words, if Superman was on the side of the Martians, then the choice that best served his interests was to disagree; conversely, if he agreed, he was actually undermining the interests of the Martians, which proved that he wasn't in the same group as those Martians.

The politicians' line of thinking was that they didn't believe Martians were all in the same group, just as humans could never all be in the same group; even if most of them were united, there must be someone who held a dissenting opinion.

Among humans, there were good people and bad people, some who could slaughter without scruples, and some who firmly opposed genocide; then it could be assumed that among Martians, there were also people who opposed genocide, and only this group could help humanity win victory.

Since they didn't know more Martians, Superman seemed to be the kindest one; at least he had truly saved a great many humans; and he seemed to be disgusted from the bottom of his heart by the politicians' behavior of treating human life like grass.

In this regard, politicians still had experience: among the protesters who could walk in front of them, who was fishing for fame, and who was truly opposing them out of a sense of justice, they actually saw clearly. Superman was clearly the latter.

If he was kind, just, and compassionate, then even if he was a Martian, he wouldn't agree with his own kind's way of breeding based on genocide. Then, he could become the leader of humanity, or rather, he was the best choice.

Assuming he was a Martian, then he wouldn't be so easily killed by Martians, he wouldn't need humans to protect him, and he had the power to protect himself; he was very famous and had great influence; if he stood on the side of humanity, he would definitely make many people regain hope; although his political experience was insufficient, politics wasn't what was important now; although he hadn't been a leader before, the leaders of the past were different from the current ones; the requirement for a leader now was to dare to take ruthless action.

This brought it back to the fact that Superman hated these politicians, but what he hated wasn't them themselves, but the most unreasonable part of the entire system: bullying the weak, exploiting the public, and disregarding human rights. And the more he hated it, the more he would strike hard in this regard after becoming the leader.

So who did this fist land on?

Actually, it really wasn't the politicians; to put it bluntly, politicians and the military were the ones doing the work, equivalent to the ministers in the imperial court; now was the time to do the work, and their survival still had some guarantee.

The key lay in distributing resources to the bottom layer, and the resources of a society were limited; if you wanted to enrich the poor, you had to impoverish the rich. In other words, if you wanted to solve these problems, you had to strike hard at the rich.

That's right, once the evolution of the system reached the current stage, everyone would make the same choice as FDR, squeezing the means of production out of society like squeezing water from a sponge, and reinvesting them into production, in order to develop productivity most efficiently to cope with the pressure brought by the competition.