Chapter 400: Wartime Hibernation Plan

Things rarely go smoothly.

Just as the senior scientists were enthusiastically developing nanorobots, hoping to eventually rival Tier 3 empires, a new logistics report landed on Jason’s desk, leaving him with a massive headache.

"...In summary, the total resources consumed to repair Deep Space have exceeded our projections by 18.7%. The structural damage was far more severe than initially estimated, and much of the salvageable material was lost to the void.

This forced the engineering teams to tap into our strategic reserves to restore our mothership..."

Jason had vaguely suspected that they were burning through resources faster than expected during the repairs, but he hadn’t dwelled on it.

Deep Space had to be repaired regardless of the cost. It had to be pristine, considering this voyage would take centuries. However, the final statistics still caught him off guard.

"We’re critically low on methane. We burned through so much of it during the battle... and our reserves of titanium, zirconium, and other heavy metals are also heavily depleted?"

Overdrawing these resources meant they had to cannibalize other projects to make up the shortfall.

An 18.7% deficit was a staggering figure, enough raw material to manufacture a thousand Space Swallow fighters!

After all, repairing a forty-kilometer-long spaceship was no small feat. Jason let out a heavy sigh.

"Jason, we absolutely cannot halt the production of the strike craft," Austin insisted, following him down the corridor and talking a mile a minute. By the time they reached the captain’s quarters, Austin was practically shouting.

"As you saw out there, with our current military tech, drone swarms and close-quarters dogfighting are our most lethal assets. We can’t just stop building them!"

"We need at least two thousand Space Swallows on standby. Otherwise, if we get ambushed again, we won’t even have a vanguard to buy us time... We’d be completely wiped out!"

"Alright, alright, I know," Jason replied, rubbing his temples before firmly shutting the door to his quarters. "The military budget won’t be cut! You’ll get every last cent."

In a desperate interstellar retreat, military assets were non-negotiable. Better safe than sorry.

The combat drones weren’t just offensive weapons; they were essential meat shields necessary for evasion.

This meant he had to siphon resources from one of three other sectors: R&D, civilian commodities, or the doomsday emergency reserves. But every option was a nightmare.

Cut R&D? Impossible. The senior scientists would riot. They were at a critical juncture in nanorobotics research.

While manufacturing the nanobots didn’t consume much raw material, the required infrastructure, scanning tunneling microscopes, high-precision machining tools, and diagnostic arrays, demanded massive amounts of resources.

The scientists weren’t satisfied with basic tools; they wanted to rely entirely on Elara’s fabrication abilities for perfection.

Cut civilian commodities? Should they make life even more miserable for the general public by decommissioning their automated service bots? The scarcity of organic compounds was a genuine crisis.

Synthesizing organic matter from inorganic base elements was incredibly inefficient; the energy costs were astronomical.

What about the doomsday reserves? Those were strictly designated for extinction-level scenarios. It wasn’t time to touch those yet!

Jason ran a hand through his hair in frustration. If only they had an abundance of raw materials! If they just had a few centuries to peacefully mine and develop, the Federation would be an absolute powerhouse!

Seeing Jason agonizing over the numbers, Austin chuckled dryly. "...Stopping the ship to mine an asteroid belt is out of the question. If we get caught while anchored, everything we sacrificed will be for nothing.

The Viridians are the perfect cautionary tale. Who knows what kind of deep-space tracking tech The Annihilators possess? We cannot afford to drop out of warp to mine."

"That’s why I strongly suggest we initiate the mass stasis protocol. We sleep while the ship carries us hundreds or thousands of light-years away.

Once we’re safely out of their territory, we wake up and rebuild. The time spent in stasis... well, it doesn’t really count as lost time. We just sleep through the most boring, dangerous part of the trip."

Jason remained silent. He helplessly tapped his terminal, bringing up dozens of formal petitions and a mountain of statistical charts.

"Look at this," Jason said. "The problem is... these people are impatient. Asking them to sleep for even a year or two feels like a death sentence to them! Look at all these resource requisitions, the list is a mile long.

The logistics department has already filed multiple complaints with me. How are we supposed to survive the next few centuries if this burn rate continues?"

The screen displayed the names of dozens of prominent department heads who all wanted to run long-term, resource-heavy research projects.

While scientists didn’t hold direct political office, their social influence was immense in a society that practically worshipped scientific progress. Their demands couldn’t simply be ignored.

Austin stared at the lists with a bizarre expression for a long moment before sighing.

"We simply don’t have the resources right now. We can’t let them run wild. Are you the commander, or are they? If the Federation issues an executive order, they’ll obediently get in the pods..."

Jason patted Austin on the shoulder and smiled faintly. "It’s not that simple, Austin. You’re still operating on the authoritarian mindset of a primitive civilization. That’s too blunt.

Nowadays, everything has to be grounded in reason and consensus. We can’t just enforce martial law over a budget deficit!"

"With our current level of societal productivity, every citizen enjoys a high standard of living from birth. They don’t have to fight for basic survival anymore.

Life is about self-actualization. Our education system actively steers people away from shallow materialism, fostering unity, mutual aid, and a deep devotion to our civilization.

It elevates their perspective from individual desires to the collective survival of the species..."

"In this era, our citizens are incredibly free. Honestly, if it weren’t for the existential threats lurking in the universe, the Federation government would practically be obsolete... wouldn’t you agree?"

Austin remained silent. It was true. During peacetime, the government’s administrative burden was virtually zero. The public was highly educated, self-disciplined, and the society was post-scarcity enough to function on autopilot.

If the government had dissolved, society would have kept ticking. But out here, the future was defined by the threat of war.

"The public is enlightened," Jason continued. "They aren’t foolish. They can think critically and make their own choices..."

Austin interrupted him, raising an eyebrow. "Are you saying we make stasis optional? Hibernate if you want, stay awake if you don’t?"

"Wouldn’t that be a disaster? If one person sleeps for centuries while their peers stay awake, they’ll wake up completely displaced from time. They might step out of the pod and not recognize a single person around them!"

Jason rested his chin on his hand, thinking aloud. "Which is exactly why the Federation needs to establish a structured, rotational schedule. Instead of putting someone on ice for three hundred years straight, we cycle them.

Three months in stasis, followed by a week awake. We rotate the entire population of eight hundred thousand in shifts, and coordinate global wake-periods so everyone can reunite during the New Year holidays..."

He clapped his hands together. "If we crunch the numbers, for a population of 800,000, each person would only consume about one month’s worth of living resources per year. We’d save an astronomical amount of civilian and research materials."

"Over a 300-year voyage, each individual would only biologically experience... about 25 years. That’s a highly acceptable compromise."

"Plus... this rotational system ensures we always have an active crew of around 66,000 awake at any given time. The ship is never left unmanned. What do you think?"

Austin’s furrowed brow finally relaxed. After pondering the logistics for a long moment, he nodded. "That actually... sounds like a solid plan. Scientific progress will be bottlenecked, sure, but it won’t completely stop."

Jason nodded. "As for the exceptions—pregnant women, newborns, and the more stubborn department heads, we’ll hash out the specifics in a committee meeting..."

And so, the Federation committee plunged into a grueling, month-long debate over the Mass Stasis Initiative.

They meticulously mapped out rotational schedules, shift durations, and specific allocations for different demographic groups.

Over the course of the month, they managed to negotiate with the more fanatical scientists, allowing them slightly more frequent wake-cycles to ensure they wouldn’t fall behind on critical research trends.

Exactly one year and six months after the brutal engagement in the Digg-114 system, the Federation officially ratified the Wartime Stasis Initiative to carry humanity through the long, agonizing darkness of their escape...

The Great Slumber had begun.