Homo Sapiens

September 11, 2022.

Bantun Island.

Shipyard No. 3.

Inside a fully enclosed dry dock, over a dozen employees stood in the overhead control console, looking down at the behemoth below.

Designer Yino and Engineer Huang Weida were among those in the control console.

Watching the water level in the dry dock rise and the ship’s hull slowly float to the surface, Huang Weida wore a look of relief. ”We’ve finally finished construction on the Malacca.”

”Are we really going to use the first one as a transport ship? It feels like such a waste!” Yino was also thrilled with the giant vessel they had designed.

Huang Weida shook his head. ”We have no choice. The company already has enough warships. With the production capacity of our shipyards, there’s no need to focus all our efforts on building more.”

The current warships in service with the Homo Sapiens Company were as follows:

3 Pacific-class Battleships.

13 Great Luzon-class Amphibious Assault Ships.

11 Luzon-class Amphibious Assault Ships.

57 Manila-class Frigates.

32 Tuna-class Attack Nuclear Submarines.

6 Orca-class Strategic Nuclear Submarines.

Additionally, there were 8 Sumatran Crocodile-class Landing Ships, 30 Tiger Crab-class Air Cushion Ships, 35 Blue Whale-class Supply Ships, 21 Blue Whale-class Special Ships, and 1 Sea Plow Channel Dredger.

This fleet was already massive, and for the next 10 years or so, the Homo Sapiens Company would continue to build 15 to 20 ships annually.

This rate of construction had actually been scaled back from its wartime footing. If the previous wartime production mechanism were still in place, the shipbuilding volume would be more than ten times higher.

After all, the Homo Sapiens Company had applied so many new technologies and materials to its shipbuilding techniques that its construction speed was astonishingly fast.

After research and discussion, the headquarters decided it was necessary to adjust the current production tasks. They could no longer focus solely on warships, but also had to consider the civilian sector.

This led to the new ship beneath the feet of Yino, Huang Weida, and the others—the Malacca.

The Malacca was the first ship of the Malacca-class, a 100,000-deadweight-ton container transport ship. It was roughly the same size as a Pacific-class Battleship and equipped with three small thorium-based molten salt nuclear reactors.

That’s right, the Malacca-class Transport Ship was nuclear-powered.

There were two main reasons for creating nuclear-powered transport ships.

The first was to reduce the consumption of oil and natural gas, thereby lowering transportation costs.

The second was to build up a reserve of backup warship hulls. Although the Malacca-class ships lacked armor, their hulls were built with a large quantity of new materials, making them 20-30% stronger than an aircraft carrier’s hull in terms of overall structural integrity.

In other words, when necessary, the Homo Sapiens Company could easily convert Malacca-class Transport Ships into Malacca-class amphibious assault ships, armed escort carriers, or special-purpose warships.

The purpose of this strategy was to avoid maintaining an excessively large fleet of warships during peacetime.

Currently, the first batch of Malacca-class Transport Ships consisted of four vessels. Two were being launched today, and the other two would be launched in the middle of next month.

Once Huang Weida saw the hull stabilize, he picked up his walkie-talkie and ordered, ”Test teams, begin boarding.”

”Roger that.”

A crane lowered a special personnel capsule onto the deck. Fifteen members of a test team stepped out of the capsule and entered the transport ship’s bridge.

Five other test teams also boarded the Malacca in succession.

Soon, the dry dock gates opened.

Two of the three nuclear reactors started up, with the third held in reserve as a backup.

As the reactors generated immense power, the Malacca slowly departed the enclosed dry dock, proceeding down the channel and out to the open sea.

Inside the Malacca, the various test teams were busy verifying that the ship met its design specifications.

Tests for handling, energy efficiency, and the like were not significantly different from the norm.

However, with the Malacca-class, the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company had recently proposed a new design philosophy: tools should be user-friendly, not anti-human.

So, what were these ”anti-human” designs on traditional transport ships?

In the Homo Sapiens Company’s view, the most anti-human aspect of traditional transport ships was their long voyages. This was especially true for ocean-going cargo vessels, where crews would spend months at a time at sea.

The sheer monotony and hardship were difficult for ordinary people to imagine, and long-term separation could easily lead to marital problems, which in turn could trigger psychological issues for the employees.

Although the Homo Sapiens Company had bio-chips to prevent infidelity, the management believed that this was only a superficial solution, not a root cure. Such suppression would still cause employees to develop mental health problems.

Therefore, company headquarters instructed the New Luzon Shipyard to solve this problem in the new generation of transport ships.

After numerous revisions, Designer Yino and a dozen other ship designers decided to take 3,000 of the nearly 6,000 tons of deadweight saved by the new hull materials and allocate them to improving the crew’s living facilities.

At the same time, the New Luzon Shipping Group also announced that it would increase the proportion of female crew members on its transport ships, ensuring that married couples could serve on the same vessel.

One of the test teams was currently evaluating the ship’s living amenities.

This included the kitchen, dining hall, cold storage, vegetable greenhouse, satellite internet room, small cinema, infirmary, gym, sauna, game room, and armory.

Inside the gym.

The testers didn’t find any barbells or similar free weights. This was mainly because a ship at sea is very unstable, and equipment like dumbbells and barbells could easily cause injury.

The exercise facilities here consisted mainly of an indoor climbing wall, a squash court, stationary treadmills, and pull-up and parallel bars.

Several testers tried out these sports facilities while the Malacca was traveling at high speed.

Incidentally, because the Malacca was designed as a backup warship, it was very fast. Its top speed was 35 knots, and even when fully loaded, it could maintain a high speed of 25 knots.

After all, being nuclear-powered, its speed was naturally pushed higher; a low cruising speed is actually uneconomical for a nuclear vessel.

According to the design, the Malacca would be staffed by four departments: the Deck Department, the Engine Department, the Stewards Department, and the Security Department.

The Deck Department included the Captain, Chief Mate, Second Mate, Third Mate, Radio Officer, Boatswain, Carpenter, and sailors, for a total of 15 people;

The Engine Department included the Chief Engineer, First Assistant Engineer, Second Assistant Engineer, Third Assistant Engineer, Electrician, Foreman, Nuclear Power Maintenance Technician, Coppersmith, and mechanics, for a total of 20 people;

The Stewards Department included a psychological counselor, head chef, second chef, stewards, medical personnel, and a provisions manager, for a total of 15 people.

The Security Department included a security chief, security officers, and an emergency communications officer, for a total of 12 people.

In addition, there would be 10 to 15 interns.

The entire ship would have a crew of roughly 70 to 80 people, a staffing level three to four times that of large transport ships from other shipping companies.

But the Homo Sapiens Company could afford to employ so many people and had no concerns about wages or benefits.

In the future, as the Homo Sapiens Company aggressively expanded into other regions, the ocean transport industry would certainly require a large number of nuclear-powered transport ships.

The full-scale rollout of the Malacca-class Transport Ships was also a good thing for the crew members.

In fact, the savings in transportation costs from the Malacca-class almost completely offset the increase in expenses for labor and amenities.

After all, the Homo Sapiens Company’s thorium-based molten salt reactors used thorium rods with a 92% concentration, allowing them to run for decades after a single fueling.

Moreover, the Homo Sapiens Company’s nuclear fuel refining process was different from the traditional centrifugal separation method, making it extremely low-cost. All other components were also produced in-house.

The three thorium-based molten salt reactors on a Malacca-class Transport Ship cost a total of only 4.2 million Jin yuan, which was far cheaper than burning oil.