Chapter 913: Chapter 549: A Dilemma for Everyone_1
The universe has never been a playground.
Harrison Clark himself had never seen what had befallen the First Fleet.
The information depth of this quantum virus was on par with the ZS Bacteria.
Harrison Clark had never underestimated the universe.
The three optimal routes he had personally planned were only theoretical. They were based on his past empirical knowledge, but not without flaws.
Life is precious to the individual.
...
Life to a civilization…
Even though everyone says that each life is important, in reality, civilizations themselves have no emotions. Only other individuals can feel sadness for the plight of individuals.
The millions of people in the First Advance Fleet had silently reached the end of their lives.
The only thing left behind was the situation report sent by the commander monts before his death.
But the report was abridged and lacking in reference value. It only briefly described the situation when the quantum virus took effect, when the ship’s intelligence went out of control and the ship’s structure disintegrated itself. Everything else was unknown.
At that ti, all intelligent auxiliary equipnt was damaged, the response ti was extrely short, and the captain and researchers on board could only do so much.
The bad news from the front caused the originally lively atmosphere of the Third Advance Fleet to suddenly dim. Even the bar that the captain of the Heart Fire had arranged according to Glen’s request had returned to a solemn and dignified chanical style.
People’s conversations after dinner were no longer about how many friends would be left or how many relatives they would see when they returned ho 150 years later. Instead, they talked about whether the Third Fleet would suddenly disappear into the universe like the First Fleet.
What about the Second Fleet? Would it et the sa fate?
What should be done if everyone perishes?
Death is not scary enough.
What’s terrifying is when a group of people, with a great mission, march out with infinite hope, but ultimately none return.
In the entire fleet, there was only one person who, as always, remained calm and composed. That was Glen.
After not seeing him for decades, Bonnie Westford finally ca to see him again.
However, it wasn’t Glen’s unique characteristics that once again attracted Bonnie’s attention.
She had no intention of nding old relationships.
Only that Jammie Westford, who had inherited Glen’s navigator talent, was about to take the C-class Navigator Assessnt.
Bonnie thought it was necessary for Glen, as a father, to play a role in this.
Little Jammie had now grown up to be a tall and handso young man.
“Father, I want to know how you beca an S-class navigator from an ordinary person in just three years,” Jammie said as their first topic of conversation.
This was Glen’s biggest secret, sothing he couldn’t share with anyone.
His expression changed subtly for an instant.
“It’s simple. I suddenly felt that maybe I should put in a bit more effort. So, I started to look at so materials and learn by myself. When I felt I know enough, I went for systematic learning. Yes.”
Bonnie knew he was lying.
She had asked him many tis before, but each ti Glen would use similar excuses to perfunctorily dodge the question.
No 21st-century three-year-old child would believe such a clumsy lie.
“Glen, be honest, Jammie is your son,” Bonnie said indignantly.
Glen shook his head, “I’m sorry, this is all I can tell you. Whether you believe it or not, I believe in myself.”
“Fine. Goodbye!”
Unable to hold back her anger, Bonnie took Jammie and left.
As Glen watched the mother and son walk away, he felt a slight sense of loss in his heart.
For a split second, he thought about confessing everything.
But when he thought about his incredible experience, he felt there was no way he could tell anyone.
That experience was too unbelievable, like a story from a novel.
He thought that even if he told it, no one would believe him.
Another ten years passed in a blink of an eye.
The Second Advance Fleet, en route, encountered a rare curvature space instability disturbance, and was annihilated.
This was a phenonon Harrison Clark had seen before.
The operation of curvature space had its rules different from the original three-dinsional space.
When human ships break the barrier by using artificial curvature bubbles to enter curvature space, it’s like dropping a droplet of oil into water.
On very rare occasions, curvature space will vibrate violently and forcefully eject the intruding foreign material.
During this process, foreign objects will be subjected to the pressure of triple space.
The probability of this happening is one in ten million.
By the 35th century of the previous tiline, as humans understood the Grand Unified Theory and applied the binding force field at the microscopic level of materials, ship materials could withstand the impact of unstable oscillations.
But now, with an unbalanced developnt route, human ships were simply unable to resist and were instantly torn apart.
At this point, the Third Fleet was only three years away from reaching K Star.
Out of the grandiose three fleets that set off together, only one fleet remained, bearing the last hope.
The sacrifice of their comrades brought great pain and anguish, as well as anxiety and fear.
The strong sense of mission to complete the task made people in the fleet restless day and night.The third fleet found itself in another predicant, with people’s minds unsettled.
Everyone was on the verge of a breakdown, caught between the fear of dying at any mont and the knowledge that they could not afford to die.
As people’s work efficiency declined, more and more positions had to be switched from a combination of manual and semi-manual modes to full automation.
But recently, Summit Science Academy had issued new guidelines regarding the previous quantum virus.
Humans must maintain constant supervision, and if anything went wrong, they should switch from automated control to manual operation imdiately. This would give them about a 30% chance to regain control of the situation before the ships were destroyed. If not, they would undoubtedly die.
This made the situation a dilemma.
The wanderers who had already drifted hundreds of light-years away from ho had lost all their spiritual sustenance, aside from the unwavering belief in completing their mission.
What’s worse, during their long and confined journey, the humans of the third fleet had ford a new social structure, morphing into a new kind of people distinct from any other human settled in the galaxy.
Their hearts had even begun to waver.
Should they continue taking risks and move forward?
Or just stop right where they were, find a safe galaxy to settle down in, and make proper arrangents for their children and grandchildren?
How did the happenings in the Solar System concern them?
They had already tried their best.
After all, the war was still hundreds of years away, and they would have been long dead by then.
They owed no one an explanation.
…
It couldn’t be said that those whose resolve had wavered were ntally unsound.
They had never experienced the brutality of facing the Compound-Eyed Observers, nor had they even seen the Do. Everything was built on imagination.
The imagined future always seed sowhat elusive and hard to grasp.
The present-day Morrowind Empire was not yet in possession of a vast territory spanning thousands of light-years.
The supercurved motion at twenty tis the speed of light had just been developed and applied.
Hundreds and thousands of light-years were still an overwhelmingly distant concept for people.
The long passage of ti and the insurmountable distance in their perception could silently change the once unshakable beliefs in people’s hearts.
Psychological intervention experts had tried everything, but they still couldn’t calm people down.
The legendary superpower bacteria that could instantly dissipate this situation was still under developnt.
The fleet commander of the third fleet inquired to the Empire’s headquarters whether they should use force to continue leading the fleet forward.
The enforcent thod would be to implent compulsory asures, ordering everyone to shut their mouths and return to their posts.
More than half of the military system voted in favor, while the administrative system held opposing views, believing that this could lead to more turmoil, or even trigger a coup within the fleet.
The third fleet was now too far away from the main base, and if a mutiny were to break out, there would be no buffer and not enough resilience to withstand the turmoil.
The command series was fretting over the third fleet’s situation, caught between a rock and a hard place, unable to make a definitive decision.
In the quantum network space unknown to everyone, Harrison Clark, who had been successful in whatever he did for hundreds of years, also faced the sa dilemma.
Should he forcibly use “Song of the Wilderness” extensively in the third fleet?
He was no longer able to make a rash conclusion.
The chanical life on the all-tal structure K Star, as a special trait planet, was not yet considered a Type I Civilization.
Although the chanical life couldn’t pose a threat to the human fleet, humans had to analyze and master the chanical life’s language and culture, communicate with them, and persuade them to release the Egyptian tribe core from their unique storage compression space.
Humans couldn’t intimidate them into submission through force alone.
The chanical life’s perception didn’t contain fear, only the options of “possible” or “impossible.”
It was also challenging to have Star invade directly.
Unlucky as these chanical life forms were, they had obtained so of the Egyptian tribe’s mory and developed new behavioral logic, being extrely resistant to control and enslavent.
Once they discovered the outsiders had the ability to control them, they would choose to “reset” themselves, opting for self-destruction and waiting for their next evolutionary revival to escape enslavent.
Therefore, communication was the only option, but the language system of the new chanical life born using the Egyptian tribe core was incredibly complex and vast, requiring a programming language.
Harrison Clark had already quietly written it into the database.
However, understanding the language didn’t guarantee a successful communication.
Just like individuals from different countries learning each other’s language but not necessarily understanding each other’s culture.
When communicating with interstellar species, humans must maintain their humanity.
But using “Song of the Wilderness” only on certain people was not feasible either.
When so people were “chanized,” the remaining individuals who were initially holding on would likely collapse even faster.
Unable to make a decision for the ti being, Harrison Clark could only ask Star to start simulating the calculations.
But Star said the situation was complicated, and it would take at least two years to get a result.
But in two years’ ti, the situation might have spiraled out of control.
On the Heart Fire, Granini sat alone in the empty bar by the door.
His beloved simulated DJ and gaudy decorations had already been removed.
Outside, people were tense and gloomy.
Granini sneered contemptuously.
What a damn mission; if they failed, they failed. Why be so tense? Why not just enjoy life?
Reviews
All reviews (0)