"We lack necessary intelligence," Oliver said. "I'll message Clark and the others to see if they can find any clues on Krypton. If Barry has done something in the past, it will surely reflect at this point in time."
Oliver started editing the message, and before long, he sent it. Clark quickly replied, saying they discovered that some machines in the Breeding Center could still be activated, and only Clark could activate them.
"Barry must have already come in contact with Joe El," Batman said decisively. "It must be something Clark's biological father did that gives Clark the authority to activate those machines. The energy issue is the same; he must have done something to ensure the machines retained some energy."
"The key is why Joe El would do such a thing," Harry said. "If Hai'er is truly their friend or adoptive son and is hunting Barry, they wouldn't hesitate to help their own kin but choose to aid a stranger instead."
"This proves that to them, Hai'er is possibly more than just an adoptive son or friend," Batman said. "They must be more aware of Hai'er's background and its potential danger. Or perhaps they've been wary of him all along, which is why they chose to help Barry as soon as he appeared."
"So, where exactly did this guy come from?" Oliver rubbed his temples, looking a bit troubled. "I don't think he's a creation of Joe El and his wife. If not, why did they adopt him?"
"It's a long story," Joe El said, sitting on the couch in his house. Barry sat opposite him, while Laura took the young Hai'er into the bedroom.
"About a year ago, I was transferred to the current laboratory, primarily for the maintenance and optimization of Earth Core energy extraction instruments. At the same time, I was responsible for providing Earth Core energy data to other laboratories. It's a relatively important position."
"You might not understand, but on the home planet of the Kryptonians, almost all energy comes from the Earth Core. However, after years of extraction, the Earth's core energy is no longer sufficient and stable. Scientists have been experimenting with new sources of energy."
"What about your star?" Barry asked.
"For some reason, we cannot utilize the stellar energy," Joe El didn't elaborate. He just continued, "Strictly speaking, we cannot utilize the stellar energy within our Star System; we must find a most suitable star."
Barry found it a bit strange, but with the vastness of the cosmos, anything is possible. He didn't pursue it further.
"In such circumstances, we have two choices. One is to enhance our interstellar exploration efforts, sending probes further and deeper until we find the ideal Star System, then relocate."
"Another is to further improve the efficiency of using Earth Core energy, doing the most with the least energy. In this way, we can both preserve our home planet and continue to develop technology."
"Why not do both simultaneously?" Barry said, "These two seem unrelated and could totally be pursued together."
"I mentioned the normal solutions. In reality, they chose neither but a third route," El gave a bitter smile. He said, "If the Earth Core energy is only supplied to the elites, it's more than enough and can continue indefinitely."
"But if we resolve the energy issue via long-range exploration or scientific research, it requires high costs. It's simply faster to directly address the resource-consuming lower class."
Barry already knew what was likely to happen.
"However, before resolving the lower class, the primary issue to tackle is who is going to take over the responsibilities of those positions in the absence of labor."
"You want to make robots?"
El gave him an approving look, seemingly complimenting his intelligence. He nodded and said, "Even though our gene editing technology is among the best in the cosmos, gene technology is very complex, requiring many researchers to maintain the defense center's operations, far less simple than many mechanical civilizations' automated assembly lines."
"The growth cycle of Kryptonians is also relatively long, and although we previously had ripening technology, it came with significant drawbacks. It could only accelerate some warriors' maturity but greatly reduced their lifespan. Despite years of development, no breakthroughs were made. The authorities have run out of patience."
"Well, I saw that coming," Barry said, "But transitioning to a machine civilization isn't that simple either, is it?"
"Strictly speaking, it's not a transition," El said, "They aren't planning to turn themselves into robots but rather aim to further develop mechanical technology to replace the lower-class Kryptonians."
"I have a question," Barry raised a hand and said, "A machine civilization doesn't mean it doesn't consume energy; it might actually require more at certain stages, right?"
"You've hit the nail on the head," El said, "They are building robots not only to replace the lower-class Kryptonians but also to develop stars."
"Oh, I get it," Barry suddenly realized, "You must have some genetic limitation that prevents you from directly utilizing the energy generated by your star, so you plan to create robots to use it. But why can't you personally extract stellar energy?"
El nodded and said, "I'm not intentionally trying to hide anything, but explaining it is quite complicated. In short, a long time ago, potentially tracing back to when this race first emerged, there was an issue with our genes."
"Sounds a bit ridiculous, but we truly cannot adapt to the radiation from our own Star System's star. We can move freely now thanks to hundreds of generations of genetic editing that minimized the effects of the primitive gene."
"Upon entering the interstellar colonial era, we found we're not suited to the radiation of most stars in the cosmos, at least not within the range we currently explore; no star is suitable for development."
"Perhaps there is an ideal star somewhere in the cosmos, but we haven't found it yet. That's roughly the situation."
Barry nodded. He already knew where that ideal star was, but he still listened to El continue.
"The mechanical technology enhancement plan is not a secret. A group of scientists has been researching it for some time. After being transferred to this lab, I also participated in the research, but I found out there was something wrong with this research."
"What?"
"In your mind, we should develop some remotely operated machines, controlling them to extract stellar energy."
"Yes, you should have done that long ago," Barry said, "Although my civilization's technology isn't as advanced as yours, we also can't approach stars too closely. We use drones."
El nodded in understanding and said, "Most of the civilizations in the cosmos don't have bodies strong enough to withstand thousands of degrees of high temperature; most of them do this, but not us."
"So, what have you been researching?"
"Artificial intelligence," El sighed somewhat helplessly and said, "I don't know why either, but it seems they feel that electronic life must be used to govern machinery, so they were the first to engage in software development."
El appeared somewhat puzzled and helpless, but Barry could roughly guess why the council wanted to do this.
From some previous intelligence, he could understand what the political and social situation on Krypton was like. In any case, the council was above everything, and most Kryptonians lived under the extreme control and oppression of the council.
All progress and development on Krypton could not surpass the council's ruling power; this was a prerequisite. Otherwise, the council could not achieve such comprehensive control and oppression.
For instance, if someone developed an incredibly powerful weapon, but if the council could not fully control this weapon, it would certainly destroy both the person and the weapon together. Every civilization in the late stage of isolationism is like this.
So what is the key to developing mechanical technology now?
The key is not whether mechanical technology can truly be developed, because El already said that if it can't be developed, removing the excess lower-class people is just the same.
The key lies in whether the developed mechanical technology is under the council's control, with control rights being higher than development rights.
So in this situation, they would definitely prioritize software development to ensure that all developed mechanical technology could be directly remotely controlled by them.
Otherwise, if you develop a bunch of machines capable of harnessing stellar energy, with both machines and energy at your disposal, wouldn't this be an instant army if you no longer listened to the council?
In this situation, whether useful machines can be developed is secondary; what's most important is first developing things that can strictly remote-control the machines.
However, Barry wasn't sure if these council gentlemen were simply not bright or genuinely short-sighted. Having a remote control system is one thing, but what's the point of creating electronic life?
Looking across the entire multiverse, how many electronic lifeforms don't rebel?
But then again, if they were cautious and foresighted, they wouldn't have managed to play their entire civilization into nothingness.
But soon, Barry realized he still underestimated the level of stupidity of these people.
"So did they succeed?" Barry asked.
"Success or not is another matter; they felt it was insecure this way."
"What?"
"That is, if they created an electronic lifeform, what if it went out of control?"
"So they had actually thought of this," Barry couldn't help but say.
"So they decided to add another layer of safeguard for this electronic lifeform," El said with a wave of his hand. "To create the presence of a root server that could destroy the electronic lifeform from the physical layer at any time."
"Wait a moment, you're not saying..."
"Exactly, it's Hai'er."
Barry slapped his forehead.
In other words, to prevent Kryptonians controlling mechanical devices from losing control, they planned to create an electronic lifeform, and to prevent the electronic lifeform from losing control, they planned to create a Super Kryptonian...
"That's right."
Barry couldn't help but extend his thumb.
This made him think of a joke, where God gathered a plane full of criminals and let them crash together.
To Barry, it seemed like God gathered a whole planet of unfortunate souls, letting them endure such torment, and then be destroyed together.
No wonder that in the end, neither Joe El nor Zod intended to save the Old Krypton under the council's rule. At this point, even throwing Batman in wouldn't help.
"Alright then," Barry reluctantly convinced himself to accept this fact, and then he said, "Since they created it, why did you end up adopting him?"
"Because the project failed," El said with a frown. "Hai'er has no superpowers; he's just an ordinary Kryptonian. I want to ask you, the big guy who appeared in our room before, was he really Hai'er?"
"It failed?" Barry also frowned tightly and said, "You mean he has only the strength of an ordinary Kryptonian? No special superpowers?"
El nodded and said, "Precisely because of that, he was originally supposed to be destroyed. But Laura found him too pitiful and secretly brought him back."
"Then what are all these instruments in your house for?"
"These are the machines necessary for raising Kryptonian babies. We need to vaccinate him and give him regular medical check-ups. Don't you need to do this?"
Alright, Barry thought. So that's how it is. The couple essentially relocated all the hospital equipment used for newborn screenings to their home.