Chapter 216: The Assessment of 2,707 Civilizations

Year 259 of the Federation.

All 2,707 slave civilizations have now been fully resettled.

Of course, it’s impossible to give every single civilization their own star system.

The Federation only has a little over 500 unoccupied star systems anyway.

Besides, the number of slaves isn’t really that high. Except for the eight angels, the other races count only in the hundreds each, with the most populous barely reaching just over three thousand.

So, the Federation designated a sector made up of 97 star systems within those 500 or so, grouping together a total of 1,288 planets.

None of these are naturally habitable worlds, but 329 are engineered to sustain life.

All 2,707 civilizations were resettled into these planets.

On the smaller planets, they housed five or six civilizations together, while the bigger planets held a dozen or even twenty or more at once.

After that, the Assessment Division for Subordinate Civilizations was given full responsibility over all these civilizations.

After all…

This department was originally set up to evaluate the potential of other civilizations and determine if they were qualified to become Federation subordinates.

But due to strategic needs back then, ten civilizations within the Wasteland Alliance and another five in the Venus Empire skipped the evaluation and were admitted directly.

That’s why this newly established division spent ages setting up and refining a complete system for assessment.

The irony?

They’ve never really gotten to use it—until now.

This time, with more than 2,700 civilizations, they finally have a real test run on their hands.

It’s the perfect chance to put the entire system to the test in practice and see where things could be improved.

A win-win situation.

Naturally, the whole department—over a thousand people—could hardly contain their excitement.

Finally…

Something real to do!

Soon, they split themselves into groups, each responsible for a batch of slave civilizations.

For instance, those with scientific backgrounds or familiarity with research grouped up to handle civilizations good at scientific development.

Military experts, on the other hand, came together to handle the combat-oriented slave civilizations.

There were also teams of experts in business, economics, arts and so on.

In short, the department sorted themselves into specialized teams and matched up with civilizations in their own field.

Three months later.

An assessment plan for every single race had been drawn up.

And soon, every plan was issued and circulated.

——

The Claran.

This is a race of remarkably frail-bodied people.

They may be humanoid, but an adult Claran only averages about one meter tall. With their skinny arms and legs, they look like you could snap a bone with just a little force.

In stark contrast to their bodies, their oversized heads are extremely disproportionate, and their brains are three times larger than a human’s.

Of course, brain size alone doesn’t guarantee intelligence.

But generally, the bigger the brain, the greater the cranial capacity.

As long as the brain tissues themselves aren’t lacking, they won’t be dumb by any means.

As luck would have it, Claran brain tissue is highly developed—almost on par with humans.

If humans hadn’t recently advanced so much in brain development, we’d still be a far cry from the Clarans.

This time around, the Federation received 3,700 Clarans from Sandik, all meticulously selected and already fully educated as a second-level civilization.

If a first-level civilization got their hands on these slaves, their technology would explode in no time.

Even for a second-level civilization, the Clarans are a priceless resource.

But for humanity, already on the verge of level four, it doesn’t mean much on its own.

That’s why the Assessment Division decided to raise the bar.

Because…

Without enormous potential, the Federation won’t waste resources giving you land or rescuing your people.

The Federation isn’t running a charity.

So, the Clarans received a thirty-year assessment.

Specifically, the Federation dumped a massive trove of information about the Proton Beam technology on them, telling the Clarans to study it.

Their task was simple: improve the technology.

And raise its overall performance by at least 20% for the improvement to count.

The time limit was thirty years.

How many years you take to comprehend the current technology, or how long you spend developing improvements—the Assessment Division doesn’t care.

If you can get it all down today and make improvements tomorrow, you can pass the test and advance to subordinate civilization status on day three.

But you only have a maximum of thirty years.

For the Clarans, this is a seriously tough challenge.

After all, the education they’ve received is only at the second-level civilization standard.

Which means their knowledge base is likewise limited, yet the Federation just threw them level-three tech.

And not just that—they’re demanding the Clarans boost an already mature level-three technology’s performance by more than twenty percent.

It’s almost ridiculous.

But from the Federation’s perspective, if you can’t do that, it means your race just doesn’t have the potential they need and can’t really help the Federation.

And that also means there’s no more reason for your people to exist.

The Federation doesn’t keep freeloaders.

That much is crystal clear to the Clarans—someone briefed them on the entire plan when they were resettled.

So they know what has to be done, and more importantly…

They know the consequences of failure.

In a matter of days, all 3,700 Clarans were split up into groups, each team diving into the Federation’s materials and absorbing knowledge as fast as they could.

To maximize their overall chance of success…

The Clarans quickly elected a temporary leader, who laid down an uncompromising rule.

Every single Claran must devote two hours a day.

What’s that hour for?

Making babies!

They have thirty years, and Claran brains are unique—they reach maturity by age ten.

So if they start mass-producing offspring right now, in a decade or two, they’ll have tons more researchers to help push the project forward.

They could multiply the population several times over, maybe even by a factor of ten or more.

Their odds of success improve accordingly.

So, making babies has almost become as high a priority as the assessment task itself.

Top priority.

And so…

Sleep, eat, use the bathroom, study—and reproduce!

For more than 3,700 Clarans, those five routines never change, day after day…

On and on in endless rotation.