In the base on Mercury, Stark was looking at a three-dimensional map, marking different spaceships in different colors. He pointed to the few closest spaceships, saying, "These look like they use chemical fuel. This coincides nicely with the current level of human technology..."
"SWORD wants to select five vessels after preliminary exploration. Russia also requires five, and Europe, surprisingly, requests seven in total? No, I can grant them five at most, Africa, Australia, the Middle East..."
"Add two more for joint research... Nick! Nick! Remember to arrange the security personnel so that they don't start fighting..."
Seeing that many spaceships had already been assigned colors, Stark took two steps backwards. What appeared before his eyes were even more unassigned spaceships.
He placed his hands on the experimental table, staring at the unallocated spaceships with a kind of blissful dilemma.
In the past, there had been a scarcity of spaceships despite the surplus of people. Or more accurately, there had been no spaceships at all. The few Kree guard vessels were beyond the scope of current human civilization's research capabilities. Even if scientists could explore them, it would remain purely as an inspection; they couldn't even think of dismantling a single component.
Later, with the availability of Zitari and Dark Elf spaceships, the situation greatly improved but was still deemed insufficient.
In recent days, intense debates had taken place within the United Nations meeting room. They had started by trying to convince each other logically, but later discovered that physical persuasion was more realistic. Presently, individuals being sent to the United Nations from Congress are required to have undergone combat training, otherwise, they would find it hard to gain the upper hand.
Ever since Loki expanded his deception throughout the cosmos, humans had harvested numerous low- and mid-grade spaceships. Some were relatively complete, others fragmented into parts. Some were piled near Mercury, others near Pluto. Where they were piled depended mainly on where they were closer to when being dismembered.
The door creaked open, and Shiller, dressed in a white lab coat, entered. He was holding a medical record. Stark looked up at him and asked, "You're done with your work? Suddenly decided to conduct a psychological examination for the staff of The Sanctum?"
"Since the United Nations is covering the costs, why not do it," said Shiller, setting aside the medical record. "More importantly, our newly arrived colleague, the alien called Black Dwarf, has serious psychological issues. If we can solve his problems, Thanos might even thank me."
Stark snorted, "If his psychological issues really get resolved, Thanos wouldn't have to pay him. No doubt, he would thank you."
"Never mind me, how are you doing?" Shiller asked.
Stark looked at the three-dimensional map and said, "The United Nations asked me for distribution suggestions. I've finished allocating the spaceships, everyone gets a share, and there's still plenty left over."
"Why not just distribute all? Several spaceships per person."
Stark rolled his eyes, saying, "I've said before, those who only know how to screw in light bulbs shouldn't enter my lab."
Stark began to explain, "Scientific research isn't all about having more resources. Many projects need to progress step by step. If the initial project isn't completed, later stages can't be carried out. Though abundant resources can accelerate research, the acceleration also has its limits. It's not like each person can study and complete the research of ten spaceships by tomorrow. If it were that easy, what am I worrying about?"
Eventually, Stark relayed his proposal to the United Nations.
After several more rounds of quarrel in the conference room, the final decision was made. Each of the three leading permanent member countries received five spaceships. Europe obtained three in total but with priority in selection. Other major continents generally received one or two, except Africa which received an additional one due to Wakanda's strong technological edge.
Upon learning the results were finalized, Stark slapped the table and said, "Summon all the researchers. Meeting!"
After JARVIS sent out Stark's meeting invitation, there was no response for a long time.
Connors called, saying he was busy dismantling the first spaceship. Banner had already embarked on the Zitari spaceship for exploration. Reed had put his local research project on hold to study the spaceship and was currently transferring data.
Worse news from JARVIS followed. "SWORD has reported that all five of their research groups are ready for boarding the spaceship under their organization's escort."
Stark looked at the clock. It had been just three hours since the distribution results were released. Their teams were already on board, while his side scatteringly went about their own tasks. Even if he composed five groups assigning one person to lead each, team members were not assigned and neither were their schedules or research plans.
Stark sighed deeply. He opened The Avengers' communicator and said, "Avengers, Assemble!"
"What? Why assemble? What's wrong?" Steve was the first to respond.
"Right now, everyone needs to bring every scientist they can find here. No matter what they're doing or what reasons they have — try to reason with them, but physical methods can be used when necessary."
Stark stood upright, dropped his gaze to the map, and said, "Clearly, a competition has begun, and I don't want to lose."
As Stark said, a competition had indeed started.
This was not just a contest of each country's scientific research capabilities, but more importantly, a contest of organizational skills and speed.
The concept of a "Technology tree" is quite illustrative to some extent. Technology must advance step by step. Having mastered previous skills is a prerequisite to learning new ones. This way, technological discontinuity can be avoided and embarrassing situations where one can't even repair one's own spaceship are prevented.
Hence, whoever masters the first skill first can master the second skill faster, and then they can master the third skill even faster. To put it simply, whoever takes the first step ends up always staying ahead.
Though the quality of research is undeniably crucial, if everyone is scattered and pursuing individual interests, the technology tree becomes disorderly. One person moves to the left, another to the right, while others pursue something that has already been achieved by someone else. Without communication and coordination lies disorder. In this tumult, it is only a matter of time before they fall behind.
Most research institutions and researchers funded by private investment approach their projects this way. Even if they are officially recognized research institutes, they represent different interests. The investors are not eyeing a larger piece of the pie once we step out into space. They only care about whoever grabs the crumb first is the winner.
Therefore, the focus of their technology research is to profit themselves; they are more inclined to develop what they perceive as more profitable technology, hoping to obtain larger returns with smaller investments.
But, if everyone thinks the same way, conflicts are bound to arise in cooperation. Hence, initially, the research endeavors of most countries in this world are in complete chaos.
Many private research institutions believe that the repayment period for this endeavor is too lengthy, and the returns are uncertain. It is not a quality investment. Many institutions also feel that stopping their current projects on Earth to develop space travel would cause significant losses.
In short, the initial chaos has filtered out many research organizations without long-term goals, sufficient funds, or simply lacking intellect. Most of the remaining ones were research institutes backed by countries.
The one exception was the research organization made up of superheroes. Now, the Avengers and the related heroes are relatively independent, free of S.H.I.E.L.D. and government meddling, so their research is also independent.
The Avengers Research Institute, comprised of the super-geniuses Stark, Connors, and Banner, has three ships exclusively for research.
Among them, Stark doesn't need to split these three ships. He has more materials for research and has even begun to unravel the secrets of the Kree Guard.
If Connors and Banner each lead a research team, then, there is still one ship left unattended. Stark wants to find another genius scientist to take over this ship.
Hearing this news, Nick couldn't wait to recommend someone to Stark.
After arriving at Stark's office, Nick clapped his hands to attract Stark's attention, who was engrossed in reading some materials.
"You're here." Stark said while capping his pen, not looking up.
Stark looked up, noticing no one behind Nick. He glanced around and, finding nobody, asked with some confusion, "Where is he, the scientist I asked for?"
"He's right here. Can you find him?" Nick said with a grin.
"Don't play games with me, Jarvis, scan."
"Scanning... A special lifeform detected... Now projecting."
With a swoosh, the projected screen opened, and a figure in a peculiar uniform appeared on it, with a background matching the texture of Nick's clothes.
Stark twitched his eyebrows, squinted, and looked carefully at Nick. Suddenly, a very tiny figure popped out from the pocket of Nick's attire.
After the figure jumped onto the table, he waved at Stark and said, "Hello, I am Hank Pym. You can also call me Ant-Man."
Stark frowned and squinted, bending over to get a closer look at the tiny figure. It was not an ant, but a person as small as an ant.
As Stark's face leaned closer, Pym folded his arms and said, "So you're little Tony? I left S.H.I.E.L.D. when you were a kid, so you mightn't remember me—I was your father Howard's colleague..."
Nick hurried over, but it was unclear how he could cover Pym's mouth. He could only knock the table to remind Pym to close his mouth, but Stark had already lifted his head and shouted, "JARVIS, bring me a flyswatter!"
With a whoosh, a mechanical arm tossed a flyswatter over. Stark caught it and swooshed it in the air, forcing Pym to take off and dodge, shouting, "What are you doing? I'm not a fly!"
Stark dug at his ear and said, "Really? Because I just heard some buzzing..."
Pym glanced at Stark's facial expression and quickly flew over to Nick's ear, asking, "What's going on? Aren't they getting along well?"
"Of course not—They're too similar in character. How do you think their relationship would be?"
"Alright, I get it."
Pym flew back to Stark's face and immediately said:
"I admit, Howard was also a genius. Those flying cars he invented are quite fascinating, but compared to me, he's far behind, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. I'm currently researching it..."
"What are you researching?" Another voice rose by the door—Shiller entered, staring at Ant-Man in mid-air, he repeated his question, "What are you currently researching?"
"Artificial intelligence, why?" Hank Pym asked, puzzled.
"Any findings?"
"Oh, not yet, but…"
"Is that so?" Shiller narrowed his eyes, walking over and looking directly into Pym's eyes, he asked, "You haven't found anything, or you've forgotten?"
"Or...did someone make you forget?"