From Terra to Terra, the Star Emperor's Holiday

Therefore, Tairan Space Station must have implemented certain control measures in the recent period to ensure that the news of its research on the Divine Seal would not be leaked.

However, looking at the current situation of the Titan Space Station being infested with zombies, it is obvious that there are also traitors from the Unification Church in the Titan Space Station or the Harmonious Mining Company. They were just researching the divine seal when the Unification Church, having smelled the scent, came knocking on their door.

"Wasn't the Ishimura brought back?"

The Divine Seal No. 12 in Titan Space was created by CEC by extracting information from the brain of Isaac, a survivor of the Ishimura. Now that Isaac has been rescued, there is no reason for them to abandon the Ishimura.

"...Um...The station's management wanted to transform that meritorious old ship into a memorial...While that plan has certainly been halted given the station's current state, the equipment and services aboard the Ishimura have long since been discontinued."

The automation of Dead Space spacecraft is very impressive. A frigate of more than 300 meters can be operated normally by only 32 people, including some combatants who cannot drive.

But the motivation for them to come up with this kind of automation is not some nonsense about reducing staff pressure, but the subscription fee for each spacecraft.

As mentioned earlier, the way giant companies in this world demonstrate their presence is through various monopoly industries and patents. The patent application of this mechanism not only exploits ordinary people, but giant companies also use patents to strangle and hinder each other.

A spacecraft's most important ecological circulation system, simulated gravity system, and even synthetic food production system all belong to different giant enterprises.

If the owner of the spacecraft wants these functions to work normally, he must pay a subscription fee based on the number of crew members.

Taking the ecological circulation system as an example, the cabins that can be supplied by the circulation system are charged on a per person per day basis.

For cabins that cannot be directly supplied with oxygen by the circulation system, charges are based on the number of oxygen cylinders consumed. The accuracy of this charging method is even so outrageous that it is calculated based on how many minutes a crew member spends breathing oxygen.

With this terrifying subscription fee, extremely streamlined membership on each ship has become the primary goal of all companies and governments.

After all, every additional person has to pay a large additional subscription fee. For profit-driven giant companies, it is better to kill them directly than to ask them to spend more money on their employees.

As a large mining ship, the Ishimura has a maximum crew capacity of 1500 people, but this is also related to its special historical status and working mode.

A planet-crushing ship only needs to dig a shovelful of dirt from a planet, and the scraps are enough to pay the subscription fees for various services.

But the past is the past, and the present is the present. The salvaged Ishimura obviously no longer has the same treatment as before. Some of its equipment has been dismantled, and it can no longer rely on mining scraps to pay for various service fees.

"Device disabled?"

Si Ye gave a strange smile.

Even with the Gray Wind clone in his possession, the procedures used by those giant companies to lock down their equipment were no different from paper.

But the atmosphere had come to this point, and Si Ye felt a little sorry for the rope in his hand that was eager to try if he didn't point the finger at the inhuman management and company executives of the space station.

"If your device is deactivated, find someone who can activate it. If you don't have the money to subscribe to the service, find someone who can. I believe that the administrative directors and company executives in the government district will be willing to 'donate generously'."

Si Ye's words were bewitching, as if they were trying to pry open the Pandora's box in the hearts of these survivors who had experienced life and death.

"Those giant companies would rather let their supplies rot in their warehouses than give you what you deserve. Go! Go and take back what belongs to you!"

...

Chapter 294: The Strongest Engineer in Space: Isaac Clarke

As a civilization that has mastered superluminal technology and the theory of grand unification, the martial ethics of the Earth Federation cannot be said to be extraordinary, but can only be said to be shameful.

Even though the Earth Federation has been infiltrated by the Unification Church and has become a sieve, and each colony is as independent as a separatist vassal, the Earth Federation still maintains an attitude of turning a deaf ear and a blind eye.

Because they really can't beat them.

If the Earth Federation rashly launches any counter-insurgency or suppression campaign, it will most likely quickly shift to defending the capital within a few hours of the battle starting, and then be quickly wiped out.

In such a ridiculous situation, when an important colony like Titan Station was attacked by the Unification Church, the station government could not wait for federal government reinforcements. All they could rely on were a small number of mercenaries who were not willing to do the work even though they were paid.

Since they are mercenaries, learning how to slack off and pretend to be working to get paid is a compulsory course.

So when the zombies broke out in the public area, the space station defense force only symbolically took a look at the situation through the link bridge, and then lost half of their lives under the attack of the zombies. They retreated to the government area in a panic, sealed the gates and all freight and ventilation ducts, and no longer cared about the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents and workers in the public area.

In fact, the most effective way to deal with zombies is to destroy the divine seal before they can gather a 'head'. Zombies that have lost the blessing of the divine seal will often lose their powerful ability to move in a short period of time and will be easier to defeat and eliminate.

But for the management government and CEC of the Titan Space Station, the residents of the space station are dead, and the Divine Seal No. 12 that was copied with great difficulty is a more valuable treasure. How to preserve this copied Divine Seal that belongs to the company's property is the top priority.

But some people don't think so.

Isaac Clarke, a special engineer of Harmony Mining Company, is also an eyewitness and survivor of the Ishimura, and an autistic man who fought his way out of the sea of ​​corpses and blood of the zombies.

After experiencing the Ishimura incident, Isaac dormant in the escape pod for three years before being salvaged. The CEC placed him under house arrest in a psychiatric ward under the pretext of 'asylum', extracting from his brain the memories and knowledge instilled in him by the red divine seal on the Ishimura.

With this knowledge and memory, CEC worked with the Titan Space Station government to replicate Divine Seal No. 12.

Isaac was under house arrest in the ward, drowsy due to drugs and other factors, but as the riot on the space station began, the Unification Church's slogan of "All things are one" gave this tough guy who had experienced the Ishimura incident PTSD, and he immediately realized that something was wrong.

After a lot of effort, Isaacs finally got rid of the constraints of the straitjacket. The bloodstains everywhere outside the ward and the missing corpses made him feel like he was back in a dream on the Ishimura.

As a top engineer, Isaac easily converted the medical plasma scalpel into a cutter. Although it was not as convenient as the one used by engineers, he still felt a sense of security when holding this thing.

But what can be said, the Titan Space Station is a large space city with a permanent population of millions. It is not a spaceship like the Ishimura with a maximum capacity of 1500 people. Isaac didn't dare to think about how horrible it would be if hundreds of thousands of people in the space station turned into zombies.

However, Isaac felt that the situation was not as bad as he thought. As he moved forward, he did not encounter any attacks on the road except for a few zombies who were affected by the divine seal and committed suicide and transformed in the room, although he did not see any living people either.

As soon as he walked out of the medical area, before Issas could be alert and observe the environment, the cold muzzle of the pulse rifle hit his forehead from the side.

"Hey, brother, be careful. I'm not hit by those monsters. I'm a normal person."

The presence of survivors greatly alleviated Isaac's increasingly severe PTSD symptoms, even if these survivors were pointing guns at him.

Isaac was really scared and just like the Ishimura, he was the only one left after all the killing. The girlfriend he wanted to save was just an illusion created by that broken Divine Seal.

“No external injuries.”

The survivors obviously did not listen to Isaac's one-sided story, but carefully examined Isaac's body in his hospital gown to prevent him from concealing the truth.

"But why did he come out of the medical area? Aren't there still some zombies there that haven't been cleared out?"

"I…"

Isaac wanted to explain his origins, but the survivor holding a pulse rifle at his side interrupted him.

"Don't talk! We'll make our own judgment and check his identity."

A survivor nearby brought over a panel that looked like it had been removed from a vending machine and swept it across Isaac's face.

drop!

Clang!

There was a crisp sound from a vending machine not far away, and the survivor successfully used Isaac's account to buy a can of soda.

"Hey, man, if you want a soda I can buy you one, no need to point a weapon at my head."

Isaac didn't understand what the other party's intention was, but he tried to speak as casually as possible.

"Are there any monsters transformed from corpses in the space station? I've seen those things before. Honestly, what we should do now is not to waste time, but to find a way to leave this damn place."

"Isaac, a special engineer, but his permissions have been suspended. It seems he has been abandoned by those bastards at CEC."

The panel in the survivor's hand was indeed removed from a vending machine, but the backend permissions were unlocked by several senior executives captured by Si Ye and his men, so the other party's credit account can be directly displayed and the identity of the other party can be confirmed by face-swiping consumption.

"Okay brother, there is no problem with your identity, sorry for the offense,"

The survivor who was holding a gun lowered his weapon and signaled his companion to return Isaac's simply modified cutter to him.

"You know, those lunatics from the Unification Church, the CEC, and the station government won't care about the lives of us civilians, so I don't plan to let them go."

Under Si Ye's influence, the miners and residents who had experienced life-and-death crises naturally no longer had any fear of the company, but instead hated it with a vengeance.

Especially after the workers in the two living stations and the work area communicated with each other, they learned that what they had manufactured in the past was obviously enough for all of them to live a rich life, but CEC and other giant companies did everything they could to cover up and mislead them, forcing them to struggle on the poverty line with no relief. As a result, the survivors' hatred for the company became even stronger.

Isaac was stunned for a moment, then nodded, agreeing very much with the other party's words:

“…You’re right…”

...

Chapter 295 The Amazing CEC Factory

“That’s outrageous.”

Because there were still many survivors in the public area, Si Ye did not lead his men directly to the government area, but instead gathered survivors everywhere. As they walked, they arrived at the shipyard and factory area of ​​the Titan Space Station.

After witnessing the outrageous extent of the CEC factory area, Si Ye felt that the methods used by the big companies in the cyberpunk world to exploit their employees were a bit too childish. When it comes to exploiting people, these giant companies in the Dead Space world have taken exploitation to the extreme.

As mentioned before, each company relies on the patents it holds to completely monopolize the market. This behavior not only occurs in the various functional modules of the spacecraft, but also in the factory.

In CEC's factory, when a worker comes to his workstation, he first needs to pay for the raw materials from the factory, then use the raw materials to spend money to activate the furnace or other equipment patented by other companies, and finally he can start making what the factory requires him to make.

After the products are manufactured, the factory does not pay the workers a stable salary, but chooses to purchase the products from the workers who have completed the products.

Usually the purchase price is kept very low. After deducting the cost of workers previously purchasing raw materials and activating equipment, the profit is shockingly low.

CEC’s explanation is that the more you work, the more you earn. If you work fast enough and do enough, you can still earn a lot of money.

Because the black market operating under the market is often secretly controlled by major companies, and the monopoly companies leave workers with no second sales channel at all. Workers have no choice but to accept this endless extreme exploitation.

As for your statement that you are not afraid of workers’ resistance to this kind of exploitation?

Resist? How could they resist? Raw materials cost money, and the use of the manufacturing station also required payment. Printing a small pistol required four authorizations, and some high-powered weapons required half a platoon of management and executives to obtain full authorization.

The giant corporations in this world have precisely strangled everyone's neck when it comes to raw materials, and not everyone has the skills of Isaac, a top engineer who can modify weapons at will.

"Damn, why didn't I think it was this outrageous when I was playing games before?"

Shocked at the inhumanity of this world's giant corporations, Si Ye wanted to release the nanorobots to unlock these annoying permissions and equipment locks, and then he learned something more abstract.

The payment system and patent protection system of these devices are tied to the entire Titan Space Station and even the entire Earth Federation network system.

Brute-forcing the access rights of a few single devices was nothing, but if Si Ye wanted to rely on network means to activate all the equipment in the largest shipbuilding factory in the solar system, then Grey Wind would have to overwrite the entire space station, or even the entire Earth Federation system, cancel the permanent patents of various companies, and reset various authorizations.

This inefficient detour was time-consuming and laborious. Si Ye felt that it would be faster for him to just call over the Grey Wind's real body and let her transform into a battleship to bombard the space stations of those companies in the outer orbit of the Earth.

"Sir, are you anxious to reopen the shipyard? The executives at the station must have the authorization key. If we find them, the shipyard will surely be able to resume operations!"

This was the leader of the miners following Si Ye. He had previously courageously taken on the job of being Si Ye's tour guide. Seeing that Si Ye seemed to want to restart the entire shipyard, he made a suggestion at the right time.

"…"

Si Ye was originally thinking about whether to lead the fleet in, but he was reminded by the miner leader and remembered why he sneaked into this world.

"Hiss... I cleared the level too early. I'm going to have to go back and face the boss Gray Wind with low health..."

Si Ye's mouth twitched. He should at least stay in the dead space world for a day or two to recover his health, and then go to fight the boss when his health is full.

"Are you sure those executives have the authorization keys to activate the shipyard? I see that the shipyard would be completely abandoned if it weren't for the autonomous mechanical maintenance."