Chapter 551: Not Loving the Purple Sweet Potato Spirit (Part 2) (Patreon)

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In Mercury's base, Stark looked at the 3D map and marked different spaceships with different colors. He pointed to the few spaceships on the far side and said, "These spaceships look like chemical fuel and can be integrated with Humanity's current science and technology..."

"SPEAR will conduct preliminary inspections and select five spaceships, Russia also has five, and Europe surprisingly wants seven? No, at most we'll give them five. Africa, Australia, Middle East..."

"Mark two more for joint research, Nick! Nick! Remember to arrange security personnel and prevent them from fighting..."

Seeing that many spaceships had already been marked with colors, Stark stepped back and saw even more spaceships that had not been marked yet. He leaned on the lab table in front of him and looked at the unmarked spaceships with a happy dilemma.

In the past, there were many people and few spaceships, or no spaceships at all. The Kree's escort ships were not something that Humanity's civilization could study. Even if scientists could go up and inspect them, it was only for inspection. They couldn't even remove a single part.

Later, with the Chitauri and Dark Elves' spaceships, there were more spaceships, but still not enough for everyone.

These days, there had been fierce disputes in the United Nations meeting room. At first, they wanted to persuade each other with reason, but later they found that physical persuasion was more realistic. Now, Congress requires people sent to the United Nations to have combat training, otherwise, it would be difficult to gain an advantage.

Since Lady Loki expanded her scam to the entire space, Humanity had gained many mid-to-low-end spaceships, some of which were relatively intact, and some were broken into pieces. Some were piled up nearby Mercury, and some were piled up nearby Pluto, depending on which was closer when they were chopped up.

The door creaked open, and Schiller walked in wearing a white coat, holding a medical record book. Stark looked up at him and asked, "You're done with your work, why did you suddenly want to do a psychological check for employees at Sanctum Sanctorum?"

"Anyway, the cost is reimbursed by the United Nations, so why not?" Schiller walked over and put the medical record book aside, saying, "What's more important is that our new alien employee named Black Dwarf has significant psychological problems. If we can deal with his psychological issues, Thanos might thank me."

Stark snorted and said, "If you really deal with his psychological problems, Thanos won't have to pay him a salary, and of course, he'll have to thank you."

"Forget about me, how about you?" Schiller asked.

Stark looked at the 3D map and said, "The United Nations asked me for allocation opinions, and I've allocated all the spaceships. Everyone has a share, and there are still so many left."

"Can't you just give them all away? Each person can have more than ten spaceships."

Stark rolled his eyes and said, "I've said it before, those who can only change light bulbs shouldn't come to my laboratory."

Stark began to explain, "Scientific research is not the more materials, the better. Many projects need to be developed gradually. If the initial project is not completed, it will be impossible to proceed later. Adequate materials can speed up the research process, but there is a limit to how fast it can be accelerated. It's not like giving each person ten spaceships, and the research will be completed tomorrow. If that were the case, what would I be worried about?"

But in the end, Stark conveyed his proposal to the United Nations.

After several rounds of arguing in the meeting room, it was finally decided that the top three countries among the P5 would each have five spaceships, Europe would have three, but they had priority choice rights. Other continents would have one or two spaceships, except for Wakanda in Africa, which would have an extra one because of their strong science and technology advantage.

Knowing that the results had been determined, Stark slapped the table and said, "Summon all the researchers for a meeting!"

JARVIS sent out Stark's meeting invitation, but there was no response for half a day.

Connors called and said he was busy dismantling the first spaceship, Banner had already gone to inspect the Chitauri spaceship, and Reed had terminated his near-Earth research project to study the spaceship and was currently handing over materials.

And JARVIS also brought worse news. He said, "SPEAR has reported that all five groups of scientific research personnel are ready and will be escorted to the spaceship by SPEAR."

Stark looked at the clock. It was only three hours before the results were announced, and they had already boarded the ship, while his team was still scattered and working independently. Even if they were divided into five small groups, each with one person in charge, the team members were not yet determined, and there was no time schedule or research plan.

Stark sighed deeply and opened the Avengers' communication channel, saying, "Avengers, assemble!"

"What? Why assemble? What's going on?" Steve was the first to respond.

"Now, everyone go and find all the scientists you can and bring them here, no matter what they're doing, no matter what their reasons are. Try to persuade them with reason, but if necessary, use physics."

Stark stood up straight, lowered his eyelids, and looked at the map. "Obviously, a competition has begun, and I don't want to lose."

As Stark said, a competition had begun. This competition was not only about the scientific research capabilities of each country but also about organizational ability and speed.

The saying "science and technology tree" was quite apt. Technology must develop step by step, and the skills in front must be learned before the skills in the back. This way, technology gaps can be avoided, and embarrassing situations where the ship is broken and one can't fix it can be avoided.

In this world, whoever learns the first skill can learn the second skill faster, and then the third skill even faster. In other words, whoever takes the first step will take the lead in every step.

The level of research is undoubtedly important, but if everyone is working independently, going left and right on the science and technology tree, some even repeating what others have already done, without communication or coordination, then they will be left behind.

However, most research institutions and researchers that receive private investment work this way. Even if they are official research institutes, they represent different capital. What capital sees is not a bigger cake after leaving space, but the person who grabs the crumbs first wins.

Therefore, their focus on technology research is for their own profit. They prefer to develop technologies that they believe are more advantageous and hope to get a bigger return with less investment.

But if everyone thinks this way, many conflicts will inevitably arise in cooperation. Therefore, at the beginning, research in most countries in this world was chaotic.

Many private research institutions believed that the return on investment was too long, and the potential return was unknown. Many research institutions also believed that stopping their current projects on Earth to develop space travel would cause them significant losses.

In short, the initial chaos eliminated many research organizations without long-term goals, sufficient funds, or even those without brains. The vast majority of the remaining research institutions were backed by their respective countries.

The only exception was the research organization composed of superheroes. Currently, the Avengers and related heroes were relatively independent and not under the jurisdiction of S.H.I.E.L.D. or the government. Therefore, their research was also independent.

The Avengers Research Institute, composed of Stark, Connors, and Banner, three super geniuses, monopolized three spaceships for research.

Stark didn't need to allocate these three spaceships. He had more materials for research and had even begun to decipher the secrets of the Kree escort ship.

If Connors and Banner each led a research team, then one spaceship would be empty. Stark wanted to find another genius scientist to take over this spaceship.

When Nick heard this news, he couldn't wait to introduce someone to Stark.

After arriving at Stark's office, Nick clapped his hands to attract Stark's attention, who was focused on looking at materials.

"You're here," Stark said as he put the cap on his pen.

Stark just looked up and found that Nick was alone. He looked around and saw no one else. He asked suspiciously, "Where is the scientist I asked for?"

"He's right here. Can you find him?" Nick smiled.

"Don't play this game with me. JARVIS, scan."

"Scanning... Special life reaction detected... Projecting."

With a "swish," the projection screen opened, and a person wearing a strange uniform appeared on the screen. His background was even stranger, and it was Nick's clothing texture.

Stark raised an eyebrow and squinted his eyes, looking up and down at Nick. At this moment, a very, very small figure was pulled out of the pocket of Nick's clothes.

After jumping onto the table, the tiny figure waved at Stark and said, "Hello, I'm Hank Pym, and you can also call me by my code name, Ant-Man."

Stark frowned, squinted his eyes, and bent down to look closely at the desktop to finally see the tiny figure. It wasn't an ant, but a person the size of an ant.

As Stark's face approached, Pym hugged his arms and said, "You must be little Tony, right? When I left S.H.I.E.L.D., you were probably still young, so you don't remember me. I worked with your father, Howard..."

Nick quickly walked up, but he didn't know how to cover Pym's mouth. He could only knock on the table to remind Pym to be quiet. But at this moment, Stark had already shouted, "JARVIS, fly swatter!"

With a "whoosh," a fly swatter was thrown over by a mechanical arm. Stark caught it and swung it, and Pym quickly rose and dodged in the air, shouting, "What are you doing? I'm not a fly!"

Stark touched his ear and said, "Really? But I just heard someone buzzing..."

Pym looked at Stark's expression and flew to Nick's ear, asking him, "What's going on? Do they have a bad relationship?"

"Of course, their personalities are exactly the same. Do you think their relationship would be good?"

"Okay, I understand."

Pym immediately flew in front of Stark and said, "I acknowledge that Howard was also a genius. The flying car he made was quite interesting, but compared to me, he was far behind, especially in terms of AI. I'm currently researching in this area..."

"What are you researching?" Another voice sounded at the door. Schiller walked in, staring at Ant-Man in mid-air and repeated his question, "What are you researching lately?"

"AI, what's wrong?" Pym asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Any results?"

"Oh, not yet, but..."

"Really?" Schiller narrowed his eyes, walked over, and looked straight into Pym's eyes, asking, "Is it that you haven't made any progress, or have you forgotten?"

"Or... did someone make you forget?"

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 552: When the Flame is Ignited (Part 1)