The report confirmed that there were indeed more scouts, but it seemed their previous actions of quickly killing the first five they spotted were a good deterrent for now. At least Ridge assumed that was their thought process. Who knew if they even cared about losing those scouts.
He shook his head and made sure to send out a quick Read message so they were aware he saw the report. He then clicked onto Caroline's message.
'Caroline,
Commander, the progress on the outpost has been steady and should reach completion within the week. The munitions factory is also laying its foundations now. Furthermore, I also think it would be a good idea to install some type of watchposts along the long road once it's finished. With the fungi around, I figure at some point they will discover and maybe even ambush our transports, and it'd be best not to leave them so vulnerable.'
Finishing the second message, Ridge could only rub his forehead. He had already considered the possibility of being attacked in the south, not only because Becke had the information that their mining outpost was there, but also because with more and more scouts showing up, it was more than likely they were probing the defences of the base and looking for vulnerabilities.
The main base has a constant patrol of guards and large cannons on the walls, but the large mining outpost only has the now-updated wall, as well as a couple of guards that he only sent over a day or so ago. Not enough to stop a full-scale attack. Not to mention the Veltrite deposit, which is even more isolated. Though he feared the trailblazers and the crew members working on the road getting ambushed more than the small outpost they were building far out south.
As isolated as it was, the terrain was favorable not only for spotting enemies, but also because the battleship would be constantly flying back and forth from there for the time being. The distance in this case being a huge advantage, Becke not knowing about it also helped.
Even when it was finished, the battleship would still be making periodic trips to collect, so all in all it should be much safer than the large mining outpost and even the main base.
He opened the final message from Yayha and read on.
'Yayha,
Commander, with things escalating, I propose we take the initiative and build a factory to produce kinetic rifles. As of right now, quite a few of our troops are, generally speaking, unarmed or using only a single knife in place of a gun.
Once the fighting starts, it's only a matter of time before it becomes quickly apparent that we need more firepower.
I would also like to propose we take the initiative. Given the nature of our enemies, I feel it's in the best interest for us to attack first, without giving them time to grow.'
Ridge, reading this, was actually in agreement with most of it. The only issue he had with what Yayha sent him was that taking initiative meant taking more risks, and with their low population, he really didn't want to do so. The only other thought he had was perhaps relying on the battleship once again. Maybe he could plan something, but for now Ridge wanted to maintain the status quo, at least until some of the construction projects were complete, which shouldn't be too long- a week at most, he gathered from the reports Caroline periodically sent him.
Walking through the main building, he sent out a message to Caroline asking her to plan out a weapons factory and then closed it to focus on other things within the base. Primarily discussions with the scientists. More specifically, Ryan apparently had something to tell him, but couldn't while Ridge was eating breakfast at the cafeteria.
While walking to the laboratory, he received the usual Caroline response when she was busy, which was simply, "Will work on it."
He trusted that she could get it done quickly. Entering the lab, he noticed the two students he previously saw had already seemingly begun to put into practice what they learned, or at least attempting to. Ryan was mentoring them while they attempted to inspect local fauna and glean some kind of information from them. At least that's what he assumed they were doing.
Hopi waved him down, and he crossed the room to join her in watching the new students.
"How goes things at the lab?" he asked.
Crossing her arms, she thought for a moment before speaking, "Good enough, I suppose. Yayha had us take some new students in, but most of our crew has already passed the age of twenty-five, so it's quite hard for them to learn new things. Luckily, not as hard as expected. Soon I think the base should have two more scientists, granted amateur ones."
He chuckled, "More scientists are always better in my opinion; at the very least, once they're competent enough, you should be able to utilize them and speed up your own projects, no?"
"Yeah, I guess," she paused, "Anyways, what brings you to the lab?"
"Ryan," he responded curtly.
"Apparently he has something he wants to tell me. I don't know."
She nodded, and they waited in silence while Ryan attempted to mentor the students. It didn't take long before he seemingly got frustrated and walked over to the two of them while shaking his head.
"Hopi, would you mind swapping places with me while I talk to the commander here?" he said while walking up.
"No problem," she answered back, smirking.
Letting out a breath of relief, Ryan gestured for Ridge to follow him to one of the rooms.
"Who could have known I would have become a school teacher while stranded on an unknown planet?" he said while sitting down. They had walked into presumably one of the meeting rooms within the lab. Looking around, Ridge noticed not only the rectangular table in the middle of the room as well as round chairs extending from the ground, but also data and experiment results sprawled all over said table on paper.
"Cheer up, as I said to Hopi, soon enough you'll get some helpers once they're competent enough," he replied while sitting across from him.
"Right, well, I asked you to come over here during breakfast because I know we are more than likely going to be attacked," Ryan plainly stated.
Raising his brow in a questioning manner, Ridge waited for him to elaborate.
"To be more specific, what I'm alluding to is that we don't have the numbers if such an attack occurred, and we certainly don't have the numbers for a drawn-out war," he continued.
Confused, Ridge had no idea what he was trying to bring up. "What do you mean? I think that's something already known?"
"I think we should create clones or, at the very least, use the genetic material of those on base to essentially grow humans," He finally said.
Frowning, Ridge opened his mouth to respond, but instead thought about his proposal some more. The practice itself had been used within the Coro federation once, before being forbidden, so he knew they technically had the technology and know-how somewhere within their database. The problem was the reason the Coro federation outlawed it in the first place, as well as the food situation.
At some point within Coronian history before the space age, the birth rates had begun to decline drastically; no one knew the exact reason, though from what Ridge read in his free time, it could have been something with the environment. He was unsure, and so was most of the larger population at the time.
So, to combat this, many individual states within the federation pursued and invested heavily in researching artificial humans grown within vats or incubation pods or, to be more specific, ectogenesis. From what Ridge knew, it went well; at least, it was able to slowly increase the population of the world once research was completed and reverse the trend of decline. The problem then was that at some point people had begun to speak out against the practice, claiming it was immoral and challenged the fundamental definition of humanity, family, and human rights.
To put it bluntly, they felt it would commodify humans and, in time, corporations and local governments would use this technology to grow humans for specific purposes like organ harvesting, cheap labor, or military use.
Ridge wasn't sure about all the reasons since some parts weren't recorded within the large database that was eventually established at the start of the space age. At any rate, all this led to a civil war, and after much destruction, the second faction against ectogenesis was able to emerge victorious, not without loss and destruction, however. From some of the notes he read by historians recording the data, apparently a huge chunk of both artificial humans and regular humans had died during the war, and the environment on the planet only got worse.
Though it also had its benefits. The rapid development of technology and the focused attention of the human race on reviving their planet eventually led to the space age, when it was proposed that they should invest more heavily in venturing out into space and spreading the human species across their home system in case of failure to revive the planet.
Before the civil war even occurred, space technology was already growing more and more sophisticated, so after the entire human race made that decision, it was only a matter of time before they could achieve that goal.
"I know what you're thinking, but despite our history, I don't think we really have the luxury to care about moral rights and what's good or bad," Ryan interrupted, seeing him in deep thought.