Chapter 16: An Investment in a Better Future
Translator: ShutDoor
For starters, I planned to spare no expense on the research laboratories.
Of course, I had spared no expense on the other facilities either, but only within the bounds of what I considered necessary.
Like when I built the munitions factory and chose to produce only ammunition, excluding artillery shells.
As I explained before, producing artillery shells was incomparably more difficult than producing ammunition, and the amount of consumables used in the process, such as explosives, was beyond imagination.
That did not mean the shelter had no artillery shells at all.
I had gotten some sense of how dangerous one-sided bombardment could be while serving alongside artillery in an armored unit, so I had at least acquired mortars to provide a minimum level of self-defense.
I planned to address this properly later when I built the shelter’s self-defense systems, but for now, I would invest only as much as I deemed necessary.
The research laboratories were different. Here, I intended to account for every situation I possibly could and spare no expense from the very beginning.
More specifically, I planned to build facilities capable of supporting research in every field, including biology, IT, chemistry, physics, and materials engineering.
The reason became obvious as soon as I checked the 「Research」 tab.
[ Research information ]
「Research is primarily conducted in laboratories. Specialist personnel and advanced equipment are required for greater efficiency.」
▶ High-Efficiency Closed-Loop Process for Self-Sufficient Vaccine and Antibiotic Production
(Closed-Loop Vaccine & Antibiotic Synthesis)
[Research difficulty]
★★☆☆☆
[Estimated research time]
⦁ Base: 1,840 hours
⦁ Optimal environment: 620 hours
⦁ Can be reduced further by assigning additional specialist researchers
[Required research personnel]
⦁ Life sciences researchers × 3 or more
⦁ Chemistry researchers × 2 or more
⦁ Medicine and pharmacy researchers × 2 or more
[Research laboratory requirements]
⦁ BSL-3 biosafety laboratory and negative-pressure isolation system
⦁ Organic synthesis and analytical chemistry laboratory
⦁ Immunology and biosafety validation laboratory
[Equipment requirements]
⦁ Ultralow-temperature freezer and liquid nitrogen storage equipment
⦁ Automated ampoule filling machine and autoclave
⦁ Precision centrifuge and refrigerated incubator
[Research efficiency]
⦁Fully equipped: 100%
⦁Some equipment lacking: 65%
⦁Minimum requirements met: 35%
⦁Nonspecialized facilities: 10% or less
[Unlocked upon research completion]
└ Immune System Enhancement Research
└ Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic Development
└ Emerging Infectious Disease Analysis
└ High-Efficiency Pharmaceutical Synthesis
└ Long-Shelf-Life Pharmaceutical Development
[Warnings]
※ Poorer research environments increase research time and the probability of failure.
※ Research efficiency will decrease significantly if the laboratory’s biosafety level falls below the required standard.
※ Contamination or equipment malfunctions may occur during research.
※ Additional safety equipment may be required depending on the substance being studied.
.
.
.
After all, I would need every type of facility to operate the place properly.
‘Why is this so long?’
Every time I saw the endless lines of text, I felt my mind going numb.
Building a single shelter was enough of a headache. How many people could possibly outfit even those research facilities properly?
Of course, research itself was possible as long as I had researchers, even without properly equipped facilities.
But it was quite literally only ‘possible’.
Productivity would fall below half, the success rate would plummet below 30 percent, the risk of accidents would skyrocket, and the research time could increase more than tenfold.
And I did not want to take that risk. Once I had confirmed all that, I glanced at Ann.
As though she had been waiting for it, Ann gave me the answer I wanted.
“You would like me to prepare data categorizing traditional pure sciences and interdisciplinary applied fields into those that are promising today and those that would be promising under specific disaster scenarios.”
“How long will that take?”
“I can give you a verbal summary immediately.”
“Then talk me through it. I’ll take notes.”
“Certainly.”
Ann’s explanation could be summarized as follows.
With society currently functioning normally, the most promising basic-science fields were quantum physics, genetics, molecular biology, organic and inorganic chemistry, applied mathematics, and statistics.
Interdisciplinary applied fields combining them included synthetic biology, the development of new drugs and materials, quantum computing, next-generation energy and materials engineering, and brain-computer interfaces.
“However, the disciplines in this category lose their value if social infrastructure collapses.”
That was only natural. What use would developing new materials be after the country collapsed? Even plastic could not be made without petroleum.
That went without saying for cutting-edge technologies like quantum computing, which were difficult to commercialize immediately and required looking years or even decades ahead.
The disciplines that came next, however, were far more practical.
The basic fields included microbiology and virology, botany, soil science, organic chemistry, and analytical chemistry.
Simply put, these were the disciplines required to test contaminated drinking water and food, respond to new variants of infectious diseases, and produce basic necessities such as disinfectant, soap, and medicine.
The interdisciplinary applied fields included resource-recycling agriculture, disaster and clinical medicine, water treatment and environmental sanitation engineering, off-grid energy engineering, materials recycling, and metallurgical engineering.
Every one of them was a field whose value would explode after civilization collapsed rather than while it was functioning normally.
They might receive relatively little attention in the present world, but the situation was different if one had to live in a shelter cut off from outside society, as I did.
They were all necessary, from securing water and food to treating disease, processing waste, recycling scarce resources, and generating power ourselves.
Amazingly, there was even technology for turning plastic back into oil through pyrolysis!
The problem was personnel.
How many people would it take to get all those research buildings up and running?
“Assuming the core systems in each research building are fully automated, two hundred people will be sufficient for minimum operations, including the principal investigators for each field.”
“…That’s fewer than I expected.”
There would be more than just one or two research buildings. If anything, it was amazing that only a few hundred people could operate them all.
“In the system we are building, an ultrahigh-performance AI and the central server will preprocess 80 percent of the experimental data and automate a substantial portion of the work, from reagent management to basic culturing with robotic arms. Moreover, many of the disciplines are closely interconnected, allowing personnel to work across fields.”
“An ultrahigh-performance AI?”
Instead of answering, Ann tapped her head a couple of times.
Ah, I understood.
According to Ann, a biology specialist could also handle basic analysis for medicine and infection control, while an analytical chemist could also analyze new materials or soil composition.
It was an approach that could not be attempted in the excessively specialized world of modern science, but in the extreme environment of the shelter, efficiency had to be pushed to its limits in that manner.
“Of course, independent research aimed at overcoming a field’s critical limitations will remain entirely the responsibility of its specialists, but personnel can readily substitute for one another when it comes to maintaining basic systems and producing test data.”
“And if necessary, we can just have them study other fields?”
“That is another reason.”
These were people talented enough to earn doctorates. With their foundation of knowledge, would they not be able to use textbooks and research papers to be ready to work in other fields much faster than ordinary people?
What if they refused because they did not want to study another field?
Well, what else could I do?
I would have to ‘persuade’ them.
*****
When most people imagined a research laboratory, they probably pictured researchers in protective suits peering into microscopes or examining culture dishes in a pristine white, antimicrobial space.
In reality, however, if one had to name the single most important piece of equipment in a laboratory, the surprising answer would be a computer.
That was because a significant portion of research depended on computers, including analyzing experimental data, comparing countless papers and previous findings, and running simulations.
With a research program spanning as many fields as the one I was planning, the amount of data to be processed would also increase exponentially, making high-performance computers effectively indispensable.
In that respect, the server room I had built in advance was extremely useful.
The researchers could work on individual workstations under ordinary circumstances, then use the compute servers in the server room whenever they needed intensive calculations or large-scale data processing.
Not to mention that it already stored massive collections of academic papers and all manner of research data for reference.
“Though I doubt you had considered all this when you built it, Administrator.”
“Hey, a win’s a win.”
In the end, we selected seven basic disciplines, including virology and analytical chemistry.
We selected another eight disciplines directly applicable to production and survival, including agricultural engineering and food engineering.
Finally, we selected eight disciplines responsible for the shelter’s development and future, including materials engineering and aerospace engineering.
This was after excluding disciplines such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, which did not require separate dedicated laboratories, and fields such as medicine and pharmacy, which required their own facilities and operating systems.
That left a total of twenty-three types of research buildings to construct.
Of course, a single research building did not consist of only one laboratory.
A virology research building alone required additional spaces separated by purpose, such as a cell culture room, analysis room, and biosafety laboratory. Fields that used large equipment, such as materials engineering and aerospace engineering, also required separate testing facilities in addition to their research buildings.
If I packed them with state-of-the-art equipment without regard for cost, the resulting complex would hold its own against the research facilities of the finest universities in South Korea or anywhere else in the world.
And if I added large shared instruments, various analysis facilities, biosafety facilities, and even pilot plants…
“At that scale, it would be closer to an international research complex than a university.”
Ann added,
“For reference, you should bear in mind that South Korea’s major state-run research complexes are generally operated by around two hundred core researchers and support personnel.”
Including their dependents would already push the number well past eight hundred. She was telling me to think carefully.
Still, what else could I do? If I wanted a future, I had to accept them.
There was one problem, though.
The research facilities were shaping up to be far larger than I had originally imagined.
The virology research building alone was a perfect example.
The individual laboratories themselves were surprisingly small, with around sixty pyeong being enough. But actually operating the facility required changing rooms, showers, sterilization rooms, waste-processing rooms, mechanical rooms, shared equipment rooms, and more, instantly increasing its size to eight hundred pyeong.
Soil science could at least make do with around two hundred pyeong, but water treatment engineering and agricultural engineering started at several thousand pyeong.
As for aerospace engineering… that hardly needed saying.
“Aerospace engineering will require at least five thousand pyeong, including a large testing building and assembly floor.”
“F-Five thousand pyeong!”
At that size, assuming a ceiling height of ten meters, construction alone would cost 8.2644 trillion won!
“Mechanical and manufacturing engineering will also need a generous three thousand pyeong to allow prototypes to be fabricated efficiently.”
I grew dizzy every time Ann recited the minimum area required for each research building.
We had not even installed the expensive research equipment inside, yet the cost was already in the trillions.
“S-So how much is all of it!”
“The estimated total is…”
Ann paused briefly before answering.
“Based on a minimum total area of fifteen thousand pyeong, 12.4 trillion won. Based on the maximum area of eighty thousand pyeong, 76.116 trillion won.”
“S-Seventy-six…!”
Once I factored in the internal facilities and research equipment, that meant I would need to allow a generous 100 trillion won in the budget.
It was an enormous sum equal to one-tenth of my total funds. Considering that I had spent 83 trillion won in total so far, the price was truly staggering.
Then Ann added something.
“One hundred trillion is an incorrect estimate.”
Did she mean it could be done more cheaply? I looked at Ann with a glimmer of hope.
But Ann shattered that hope.
“Assuming we stockpile every kind of consumable, reagent, component, and spare piece of equipment in advance so the research facilities can operate for decades while completely cut off from the outside… you should budget at least 170 trillion won.”
“O-One hundred seventy?!”
This time, I was genuinely speechless.
That was equivalent to several years of South Korea’s defense budget. Was it really right to pour that much money into a single research complex?
“In South Korea’s case, that budget is used to defend fifty million citizens. In your case, Administrator, your population will number only a few thousand at most, so you would be overinvesting by spending several hundred times as much per capita as South Korea.”
“…”
I knew that.
B-But was there any other way?
No matter how much I thought about it, there did not seem to be.
And no matter how I looked at it, money spent on research facilities was closer to an investment than a waste. Even during the apocalypse, I still had to think about the future.
Ordinary people would struggle just to survive from day to day, but with 1 quadrillion won, I could aim higher. No, I had to.
Once I thought of it that way, I regained my composure sooner than expected.
“…If we’re going to invest in it anyway, let’s do it properly.”
“What do you mean by ‘properly’…?”
“Let’s do everything we can.”
First, an emergency isolation system allowing the central system to seal off the relevant research building immediately in the event of a fire, hazardous-material leak, or other emergency.
Second, a multilayer security system separating ordinary research areas from high-risk research areas and controlling access privileges and movement routes by security level.
Third, a management system that would automatically manage the research materials and reagents in storage while recording inventory levels and usage history.
Fourth, an ultralow-temperature storage center consolidating all cold-storage facilities, including ultralow-temperature freezers.
Fifth, animal-testing facilities, cleanrooms, sterilization facilities, waste-processing facilities, and all the shared analytical instruments and testing facilities required by each research field.
Sixth, advanced automation systems and robotic equipment to operate the vast facilities efficiently with minimal personnel.
And finally, so many spare parts that we would still have plenty left no matter how freely we used them.
I would cram in every ancillary facility that belonged in a top-tier modern research complex.
At the very least, I never wanted the researchers who came to my shelter to say, ‘We can’t do it because you don’t have such-and-such equipment here.’
“How many people did you say this would require?”
“With four hundred core researchers plus support personnel, the minimum permanent staff would be approximately seven hundred. Assuming families of four, that would form a community of around twenty-eight hundred people.”
A vast workforce and survival community comparable to a national research complex.
…This felt like the tail was wagging the dog, but after investing this much, I would be finished if I failed to bring in any researchers.
There was no turning back now.
Thud!
With the familiar sound of heavy footsteps, the Juggernaut emerged through the fog.
The Juggernaut handed me a map marking the key chokepoint positions and surveillance zones within a three-kilometer radius of the shelter’s center.
“Thanks.”
It gave a brief nod.
I did not know what kind of hell would unfold in this world.
But I would survive until the very end.
And I would seize the future itself.
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