Chapter 83: A New Atmosphere

So, when exactly did this ship-wide workaholic fever start? Wayne found himself pondering the question as he sat alone in the corridor, dragging on his cigarette.

Although he was just an ordinary citizen of the Federation, he liked to analyze social trends. He figured the root of this phenomenon had to be traced back to the very beginning.

Perhaps the first signs appeared back on the Moon, during the final days of the Noah Project at the lunar base.

Back then, everyone was working themselves to the bone, driven solely by an ideal, the dream of a sea of stars. When the international crews from the southern hemisphere first learned they were actually going into deep space, they had gone absolutely crazy with excitement.

Some of the high-level staff knew the truth about the impending apocalypse and were working desperately just to survive. But the vast majority of the engineers had no idea what was coming; they were bleeding themselves dry out of pure, idealistic passion!

Then, after the Noah launched, that feverish atmosphere didn’t vanish. Instead, it intensified.

The Federation Government was officially established and immediately launched massive infrastructure projects. The Wolfpack Design Bureau and the Tesla Institute were the first to spark the new wave of scientific competition. Their intense, head-to-head rivalry to solve engineering bottlenecks naturally influenced the rest of the crew.

Aboard the Noah, there was no physical separation between the working class and the scientific elite. The ship was a closed environment; everyone constantly bumped into each other in the halls and cafeterias.

If the brilliant department heads were working sixteen-hour shifts, leaving early and coming back late, how could an ordinary citizen justify slacking off?

By that point, the crew had already grown accustomed to the high-intensity grind.

Later, the outbreak of the Martian pathogen and the subsequent launch of the Third Industrial Revolution formally solidified this feverish culture, sweeping everyone up in its wake.

Professor Hao Yu, Dr. Felix, Professor Chernov… whether they were master engineers or brilliant scientists, they all possessed wildly different personalities, but they shared one defining trait: an absolute, fanatical passion for their work.

These role models woke up at 06:00 and didn’t return to their quarters until 22:00 every single day. Their booming voices could be heard echoing in the corridors, the elevators, and the mess halls. They weren’t fighting; they were engaged in heated, passionate debates over conflicting scientific theories.

This intense dedication at the top directly motivated the middle management.

Seeing the department heads burning the midnight oil every day, the mid-level scientists and engineers became equally fanatical. Their dedication, in turn, motivated the junior researchers and the floor workers…

Wayne frowned, taking another drag. There was actually a scientific basis for this. In Old World psychology, it was called the “Law of Imitation.”

The sociologist Gabriel Tarde had been the first to study it, theorizing that individuals in the lower strata of a society instinctively imitate the behaviors of those in the upper strata. Furthermore, in an enclosed environment with no outside interference, once the imitation begins, it grows exponentially and spreads like wildfire.

That was exactly what was happening on the Noah. Everyone was imitating the relentless drive of the senior staff. Once the feedback loop started, it simply couldn’t be stopped.

And just like that, the era of the Universal Workaholic miraculously arrived.

“The Federation is incredible. Captain Jason is incredible.” After analyzing the sociology behind it, Wayne felt he had stumbled onto the truth. His heart swelled with profound admiration.

“Captain is practically a messiah… If the government hadn’t strictly outlawed it, people would probably be starting a religion around him right now.”

Wayne felt a warm, steady light radiating deep within his chest, a psychological “sun” that Jason had provided for the entire crew.

This warmth dispelled the lingering terror and existential dread of the apocalypse. Even though the average citizen didn’t know all the classified details of their survival, they had grown accustomed to the comforting presence of that “sun.”

Sometimes, Wayne still missed his old life. He still grieved for his deceased wife and daughter. But the longing and sorrow no longer crippled him. If it weren’t for the solace and collective purpose the Federation provided, a single year wouldn’t have been nearly enough time for him to recover from that kind of trauma.

Has it really been a year since the Old World ended? Wayne thought, marveling at how fast the time had flown.

He walked slowly down the promenade, but he didn’t feel lonely. Passing acquaintances frequently nodded or waved, and he returned every greeting.

People’s faces were bright, filled with genuine smiles and mental contentment. The entire Federation truly felt like one massive, extended family.

Wayne loved this new atmosphere.

Life in the Federation had become wonderfully simple. Interpersonal relationships were straightforward, stripped of the toxic corporate politics and financial backstabbing of the Old World. Amassing personal wealth was no longer the driving force of human existence.

People’s morals had also clarified. So did Old World crimes—fraud, extortion, armed robbery were practically non-existent. When you lived in a closed metal tube with fifty thousand people, everyone was at least a familiar face. It was incredibly difficult to get away with a crime.

Most importantly, workplace suppression was a thing of the past.

As long as your technical skills were sharp, you could be promoted from a junior researcher to a team lead in weeks. If you were truly brilliant, you could jump from team lead to sector supervisor just as fast.

Those who are capable do more. Everyone pulls their weight. That was Wayne’s personal philosophy now.

Scientific research was a brutal meritocracy. Anyone trying to fake their way into a management position was instantly exposed. If a team realized their supervisor was incompetent, they wouldn’t tolerate it; they would just request a transfer. There were thousands of open positions across the Noah. Why suffer under a bad boss when you could literally walk down the hall and get a new job?

Only true technical experts commanded the respect required to lead a team.

If you could do the math, you led the project. No false modesty required. If you couldn’t do the math, you stepped down and went back to studying. There was no shame in it. A new cultural trend was taking root: a deep, universal reverence for raw intelligence and applied knowledge.

Initially, the sheer velocity of these demotions had caused some bruised egos. A sector supervisor suddenly being bumped down to a junior researcher was naturally awkward. But once the brutal meritocracy became the accepted norm, no one cared anymore. Everyone had their specific strengths, and stepping down from a role that was outside your expertise was just considered efficient.

The ambitious but untalented grifters of the Old World had been entirely weeded out. Everyone knew their limits. Taking on a project you couldn’t handle was just asking for public humiliation.

Wayne had already completed three major engineering cycles, once as a team lead, and twice as a junior researcher. If he didn’t have the math to back up a leadership role, he would have died of embarrassment trying to fake it. But when he knew the math, he never hesitated to take charge.

This era was truly wonderful. It was a golden age of passion and vitality!

And yet… Wayne couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.

He thought about it carefully. Ah, right. I’m lonely. He was still young, only in his early thirties. He had a long life ahead of him, and he eventually wanted to start a family again.

He shook his head, pushing the thought away. Romance couldn’t be forced; it relied entirely on fate. Look at Zack and Victoria, they had practically stumbled into each other during a viral outbreak.

“It’s only 20:00. I don’t have shift tomorrow. I might as well hit the cyber cafe and blow off some steam.”

The newly opened cyber cafe was massive, boasting nearly five hundred high-end terminals. But given the sheer volume of crew members looking to relax on their first day off, five hundred machines weren’t nearly enough. The room was packed.

Fortunately, the cafe lobby connected directly to the indoor sports arena, creating a massive open space with a free, high-speed local area network (LAN).

Hundreds of people had simply hauled their personal laptops from their dorms and set up camp on the floor or the arena bleachers, logging into the LAN just to soak in the chaotic, lively atmosphere.

The scene hit Wayne with a wave of intense nostalgia. It reminded him of his university days a decade ago, hauling his rig to a dingy Old World internet cafe with four of his buddies, lining up their screens, and playing Defense of the Ancients or League until the sun came up.

A decade had passed in the blink of an eye. He hadn’t touched a video game in over a year. He felt a sudden, powerful itch to play.

Since there were no open terminals, he jogged back to his quarters, grabbed his heavy-duty engineering laptop, and claimed a spot on the arena floor, jacking into the ship’s LAN.

The network directory was flooded with classic Old World strategy games: Warcraft, StarCraft, Command & Conquer, and various MOBAs.

With Earth gone, international copyright law was officially dead. The ship’s software engineers had cracked the DRM on thousands of archived games and uploaded them to the public server for free. It was a golden age of digital piracy.

“Hey man, you up for a round of StarCraft III?” A young guy sitting across from Wayne asked, gesturing to his screen.

StarCraft III? Wayne blinked. When did that even come out? Sometime right before the apocalypse?

Unfortunately, Wayne had never played it. He shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, brother. It’s not that I don’t want to play, I’ve just literally never booted it up. I’d be dead weight.”

The young guy shook his head. Stomping a total newbie was no fun. “Want me to teach you the build orders?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Let’s just play our own stuff.”

Wayne scrolled through the directory until his eyes lit up. He had found an absolute classic: Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

Ironically, it was a legendary franchise developed by the prisoner, Calvin. The series had reached its third iteration before the apocalypse. Given Calvin’s current residency in the Noah’s brig, it was safe to say there wouldn’t be a fourth.

He booted up the game, opened the LAN lobby, and saw dozens of open lobbies.

Wayne casually joined a 1v1 match against a player named “Ivy.”

By sheer coincidence, both players locked in the Soviet Union faction.

Wayne found this highly amusing. Looking at the lobby stats, almost everyone on the ship was playing the Soviets.

The Soviet faction possessed a devastating, iconic late-game unit: the “Kirov Airship,” a massive, heavily armored zeppelin that carpet-bombed ground targets.

Because the Noah’s premier heavy manufacturing facility was named the “Aegis Industrial Complex,” and the Kirov Airships were essentially flying industrial fortresses, the engineering nerds on the ship had developed a massive affinity for the faction.

The match started. Wayne instinctively deployed his Construction Yard, trained an attack dog to scout the map, and immediately realized… his opponent wasn’t building any defensive units. They were just aggressively teching straight to a War Factory?

Are they seriously trying to rush a Kirov Airship on minute one? Wayne almost burst out laughing. What an absolute noob. Who tries to play a peaceful economic simulator in a real-time strategy game?

He quickly pumped out a dozen cheap, light tanks and rolled them straight into Ivy’s base. Because the opponent had zero defenses, Wayne flattened their entire infrastructure in under ten minutes.

Clearly furious, “Ivy” immediately sent another match invite. Wayne accepted.

History repeated itself. Wayne crushed them in under ten minutes.

[Ivy]: How can you be so unreasonable?! A flurry of angry messages popped up in the game chat.

Wayne was thoroughly confused. Unreasonable? It’s a war game! He replied with a long string of question marks: [Wayne]: ???????

[Ivy]: If you aren’t going to build Kirov Airships, why are you even playing Red Alert?!

Wayne chuckled. Alright, so that’s the house rule. Being polite, he typed out a quick [Wayne]: Sorry about that, and they restarted the match.

This time, there was an unspoken agreement: it was a pure tech-race to see who could build the airships first. But even tech-rushing required strategy, you had to balance your harvester economy and optimize your build queues.

Wayne was a veteran. He knew the build orders by heart. He was vastly superior to the noob sitting across the digital battlefield.

When Ivy finally built three Kirov Airships and smugly floated them across the map, they arrived to find Wayne’s base defended by more than a dozen of his own. The ensuing anti-air slaughter was absolute.

[Ivy]: AGAIN!

Wayne won again.

[Ivy]: AGAIN!

Wayne won again.

[Ivy]: AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!

After winning eight matches in a row, Wayne started to feel guilty.

It was getting embarrassing, but the opponent simply refused to quit. Winning a dozen games and then abruptly logging off felt incredibly toxic, but he didn’t know how else to end it.

He rubbed his temples, a headache forming. How can someone be this incredibly stubborn?

He finally decided to throw the game just to get rid of this annoying player.

In the final match, Wayne deliberately botched his build order and let Ivy’s Kirov fleet slowly carpet-bomb his base into oblivion. As the “DEFEAT” screen flashed across his monitor, Wayne let out a massive sigh of relief. “Thank god. I can finally go to sleep.”

Suddenly, a blonde woman sitting on the bleachers not far from him leaped to her feet.

“YES!” she screamed, her ecstatic cheer echoing across the crowded arena. “I WON! I FINALLY WON!”

Still cheering, she spun around and locked eyes directly with Wayne’s bewildered stare…

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep