The Sacred Falcon Class Battlecruiser, accompanied by the Escort Ships Tai'a and the Giant Que Number, emerged from the shattered Warp Bubble. This was also Bai Zhongqi's first time experiencing such faster-than-light travel; now Earth lay more than four light-years away, and in front of them was a slightly smaller blue-green planet, which held a different kind of charm.
Similarly, aboard the Sacred Falcon, C country's representatives Xiang Fei and Ye Qing gazed at the blue-green planet, deep in contemplation.
Dr. Ye Qing had originally been visiting Ruyi City for a tour of learning. When Xiang Fei heard that Iridium Star's people were going to take him to a habitable planet in the Centauri Alpha Galaxy, he immediately went to find Ye Qing and brought him along, with three others joining them as well.
"Director Xiang, we are the first group from Earth to step out of the Solar System, which is definitely something to celebrate," Ye Qing said with a smile after the initial shock.
Xiang Fei found the thought quite exhilarating and said, "That planet is habitable. The Iridium Star people say its population is concentrated in only a small area, with more than half of the planet still undeveloped. If we join the Star Alliance, we can obtain land there, and it will be by units of at least a million square kilometers."
Ye Qing smiled slightly and responded, "I'm afraid that's the real purpose behind Iridium Star inviting us for this interstellar voyage."
Xiang Fei, no fool himself, quickly grasped the underlying meaning. He said, "The main obstacles to joining the Alliance have already been cleared, and now the issues are minor details. It's not impossible to resolve them later."
He naturally felt a sense of urgency, as people from the Iridium Star United Empire's Foreign Ministry had already made it clear to him in private conversations that if C country did not finish the negotiation to join the Alliance before Iridium Star officially colonized the Emerald Sea Star, then C country would have no share in it.
Even as a territory of Iridium Star, C country would enjoy some preferential treatment as a member state, but it wouldn't be the same as owning the land.
The Star Alliance's solution to newly incorporated territories has been enshrined in the Star Alliance Charter. Whoever finds it obtains it; in the case of joint discoveries or after consultations, the land can be divided.
Another approach is to consider the newly incorporated land as a directly governed territory of the Star Alliance, which means it is managed directly by the Star Alliance Council and, in name, does not belong to any member state of the Star Alliance. However, member states can treat this area as their own, conducting immigration, trade, and investment development.
On the bridge, Bai Zhongqi issued commands. "Tai'a and the Giant Que Number will stay in orbit of the Emerald Sea Star. The Sacred Falcon will head to the Legendary Continent to commence construction projects."
In front of everyone, a holographic screen was materializing, displaying the freshly captured and processed satellite imagery of the Legendary Continent of the Emerald Sea Star. The Legendary Continent spans over approximately 58 million square kilometers, even more substantial than the Eurasian Continent on Earth.
This was due to the younger geological structure of the Emerald Sea Star compared to Earth, comprising four tectonic plates: one plate for both the Northern and Southern Continents, one for the Legendary Continent, and two oceanic plates.
The topographical complexity of the Legendary Continent is no less than that of Eurasia, straddling the hemispheres and taking the shape of an irregular dumbbell, wide in the north and south but narrow in the middle. Even at its narrowest, it is not a land isthmus like the Americas on Earth, being more than a thousand kilometers in width.
In the northern hemisphere portion of the Legendary Continent, the central to western areas are mountainous and plateaus, similar to the Northern Continent, and because the average global temperature is slightly lower than Earth's, the temperature in the central and western regions is colder, with even the high plateau areas in a perpetual state of ice.
Only a basin on the West Coast has a temperature and humidity suitable for habitation.
On the east coast areas of the Legendary Continent's northern and southern hemispheres, there lie vast and continuous plains where more than ten rivers, comparable to the Amazon River and Yangtze River, originate from the western mountains and plateaus and flow eastwards into the azure sea. The plains have an average elevation of 10-500 meters and are covered with endless broadleaf forests.
Similarly, due to the lower temperatures, even the tropical regions of the Legendary Continent do not exceed 30 degrees Celsius in the summer, while winter temperatures range between 5-15 degrees Celsius. As for the areas above the 50th parallel north and south, which on Earth are the temperate zones with suitable climates, on Emerald Sea Star, they are covered by tundra and ice fields.
Bai Zhongqi chose the first city-building site on the east coast of the Legendary Continent's northern hemisphere, around the 15th parallel north. If it were the Eastern coastal region at the 15th parallel north on Earth, it would have a tropical monsoon climate, but on Emerald Sea Star, the climate here is more similar to the Jiangnan region of the Yangtze River Delta.
The Sacred Falcon is equipped with powerful anti-gravity engines, allowing it to freely navigate within the atmosphere and even land on the surface. This capability is not something many of the older Empire main battle ships possess, as they are several kilometers in length and weigh millions of tons.
Without anti-gravity engines, it would consume an enormous amount of energy to break free from a planet's gravitational pull.
Bai Zhongqi said to Captain Xu Lanzhou, "We shall call this new city Su'ao, built upon the plain and beside a great river. Surrounding it is vast and fertile land, more than enough for our needs."
Bai Zhongqi did not choose to build the city along the coast, as that would limit the use of the surrounding land, and besides, Su'ao City's main mode of future transport would rely on airships rather than sea transport.
Even considering water transport, the big river next to Su'ao has an average depth of more than 11 meters, deep enough to accommodate large cargo ships of tens of thousands of tons, so that would not be an issue.
"The atomic substance construction equipment on the Sacred Falcon, along with the engineering drones and unmanned engineering vessels we brought, can build an agricultural city here within two weeks. I plan to station three mobile infantry regiments of the Assault Corps here to form an Agricultural Soldier Corps.
They will not only engage in agricultural production but also gear up for battle and take military action when necessary," Bai Zhongqi's thoughts were clicking into place.
He now had an increasing number of assault corps composed of bionic humans, becoming more effective at ordinary farming tasks. With just a program update, these bionic humans could switch between being farmers, workers, teachers, and warriors.
Although the people of Iridium Star could not expect the bionic humans to produce creative results, in terms of repetitive and mechanical production, the superiority of bionic humans was far greater than that of ordinary humans.
The giant Sacred Falcon slowly descended through the atmosphere, its friction with the atmospheric layer generating heat, which was blocked by the Sacred Falcon's powerful shields.
In fact, because of gravity control, the descent was not at the velocity one would expect for something of the Sacred Falcon's mass – the anti-gravity engines moderated the process, thus even the frictional heat was not as severe as when China's Shenzhou spacecraft entered the atmosphere.
Dozens of engineering drones had already cleared a patch of land in the target area before the Sacred Falcon landed. The smaller, floating robots had even completed the relocation of wildlife nests, to minimize unnecessary animal casualties.
Such actions might seem superfluous and time-consuming to Earth's forest developers, but for the people of Iridium Star, maintaining ecosystems and care for other species is a fundamental ethic of being an advanced intelligent lifeform and a universal civilization.
All life is deserving of respect.