(Oh my, I didn’t realize it’s almost the end of the month already, I’m strongly begging for monthly tickets, it feels like the monthly ticket situation is quite bleak this month... Comrades who still have tickets, don’t hold them back, only six or seven days left before expiration.)
You really couldn’t tell, the white-bearded old master floating in outer space is actually an old master filled with romantic science fiction cells. After a chaotic conversation and his self-satisfied "representative human diplomatic language," we’ve co to know this remarkable old man actually wrote a guidebook suitable for the first face-to-face communication with aliens. It includes how to quickly convey mutual goodwill, how to identify if aliens have malice in the shortest possible ti, how to avoid a planetary war due to misunderstandings, how to confirm if aliens and humans (of course, in the old man’s view, himself) have the sa thought processes and understanding of the world, and he also...
"!@#￥@%￥#%￥#%...￥￥%##" The old master said to us with modulation.
: "..."
He even studied an alien language based on a revelation from who knows where...
And all of this was done without ever seeing aliens in his lifeti, and judging by the looks of things, unless our traffic accident brought him into this, he wouldn’t see aliens in his next life either (the scanner shows the nearest star system with any life form is six light years away from this planet).
"Is there really nothing wrong with this old man?" I couldn’t help but glance at Sandora, "Didn’t I just talk to him? Why is he still here researching how to communicate with us?"
To my surprise, I hadn’t turned off the communicator in front of , so this sentence was directly encoded and sent to the communication channel of that group of explorers. I could clearly see the awkward expressions on everyone’s face on the other side—except for the white-bearded old master. Hearing my comnt, the old master puffed up his beard, looking every bit like an expert scholar: "The rigor of academia! Researchers should have the spirit of questioning everything, so I believe there must be so form of ’comprehension barrier’ between us, and thus the sentences I say might turn into sothing else in your ears. Similarly, the sa language from your side might carry a different intention. For example, just now I welcod you to the Azure Star, but in your ears, it might very well an ’Have you eaten?’ and your response, ’eaten,’ could very well be interpreted in our human language as ’We are very satisfied with the scenery of this planet.’ My long-term studies on ’the various differences in ideology between alien civilizations and humans’ show that two intelligent species that evolved on completely different trees will definitely develop vastly different worldviews. Considering the universe is imnsely vast, such de..."
A mber of the exploration team finally couldn’t bear it and interrupted their leader: "Master! Please maintain seriousness in formal occasions!"
In full expression and state, the old master puffed his beard and glared at a team mber a hundred ters away: "I am being very serious right now! This is academic, not a joke—I’m sure aliens with advanced aerospace technology would agree with my view..."
"Um... sorry, but although your research does make so sense, right now... it’s not very useful," I exchanged a glance with Sandora, hardly knowing how to cope with this unexpected situation and the unexpectedly amusing old master, "I’m sure there’s no ’comprehension error’ in the communication between us."
"Ah Jun, to be honest, I’ve never seen such... adorable natives after all these years," Sandora looked at helplessly amused, rembering to temporarily close the communicator to prevent embarrassnt, "Their curiosity and optimism are truly astounding..."
"I agree, in an Arican blockbuster, by now, the other side should have sent a warship and a bunch of grunts up here, or crouched in a surface bunker yelling at us over a broadcast tower for three days and nights, how did it end up being a..."
Out of respect for the elderly and the young, I couldn’t say the latter half: how did it end up being a goofy old master who ca up...
"What do you think their surface governnt is reacting like now? Could they be organizing the military or sothing?"
Feeling unable to communicate with the old master outside, I chose to chat with Sandora, who thought seriously and then decisively shook her head: "Given the usual circumstances, the native civilization beneath us has so space knowledge, they can confirm the current state of the Fifth Fleet, and sowhat understand crucial technologies like antigravity, so they can clearly judge the enormous disparity between the Fifth Fleet and their native strength. Thus, I think the natives wouldn’t dare to show us hostility actively, but they will undoubtedly remain highly vigilant, and if I guessed right, the surface has already started evacuating the populace... sigh, had I known earlier, I should’ve brought Lin Xue with us, she would’ve reminded us to activate the fleet’s cloaking device before jumping. It would save us a lot of trouble and prevent us from being stuck here under watch..."
"Actually, I feel like it’s us watching others," I looked at the azure planet below, imagining the local residents in chaos due to the ’outer space visitor’ event, "Don’t forget, the Fifth Fleet’s scale is vast, bigger than their constant star system when fully expanded."
"It was supposed to be even larger actually," Cocogina’s voice suddenly chid in. "We originally had more immigration giant ships, of Haydon III’s scale, and several Planet Fortresses, but the giant ships suffered heavy losses in an ambush, and the Planet Fortresses had to be completely abandoned during exile due to prolonged overload operation of their power reactors... As a result, the current Fifth Fleet is extrely tight on resource allocation."
This was sothing we could tell even without Cocogina saying it. After all, when Sandora and I first saw the Fourth Fleet in the Void, we marveled at its scale. The Fourth Fleet was vast, and most of its starships were kept intact—even though old, Tobelu Fleet maintained a significant organization, and the Fourth Fleet had massive immigrating ships of the scale of Planet Fortresses. When we originally split for exile, the five separated fleets had the sa scale, and the Fifth Fleet we’ve seen...
You know what it looks like.
While we were chatting, the exploration team patrolling near the fleet was not idle either. Not knowing why the "alien visitors" suddenly fell silent, nor daring to approach the fleet rashly, they gathered hurriedly for discussion. After a while, seemingly intending to break the silent state between us, they took the initiative to contact us again. The one who spoke was still that strangely charming white-bearded old master: "Ahem, I was in a bit of a rush earlier—please excuse , this is the most shocking mont of my life, so loss of composure is inevitable. Allow to introduce myself. I am the chief expert and president of the ’Deep Space Life Form Research Committee’ of the Azure Star. You may call by my na: Qiao. Our committee is a..."
He was interrupted halfway through by a mber of the exploration team imdiately: "Master is a Senior Advisor to the Space Detection General Bureau of the Azure Star, just rember this identity."
"’Deep Space Life Form Research Committee’ is my most important job position!" The old master puffed and glared at his team mber, then continued trying to communicate with "aliens", "I will reiterate our expectation for peaceful, friendly exchange once again. The Azure Star is a serene and harmonious world, blessed under God, and we are delighted to share these blessings with any stranger harboring the sa goodwill. Um, earlier you ntioned that you were forced to stop by our planet due to a traffic accident..."
"Yes, that’s right, so there’s no need for you to worry at all, we co with goodwill—actually, you’ve already realized it, if we were malicious, such a large-scale fleet wouldn’t even need to open fire, just a few dandruff flakes from each of us would be enough to turn you into an underground civilization... er, I’m just making an analogy, don’t take it seriously, my words tend to be off-track."
Sandora continued to chuckle at the control panel, unable to continue reading because of her boyfriend’s mouth.
The old man with the white beard then did sothing that amazed whenever I thought of it later: he took out a small notebook and very earnestly confird, "Do you aliens really shed dandruff?" He then turned around and shouted at his team, "Now you bunch of brats know, don’t you! My research on whether ’aliens shed dandruff’ is correct and has academic value! The Society’s frugality in withholding my research funding will incur the punishnt of the War God!"
Thus, in an instant, I received two pieces of information: First, this peculiar old man really is a scientist, the most eccentric kind of scientist. Second, this native civilization possessing space technology still maintains an absolute theocracy, and among the gods they worship, there’s at least a War God, and even... this old man who can travel to outer space on a flying device believes in gods!
What kind of odd world have we ended up in!?
Alright, believing in gods and possessing astronautics are not contradictory, let’s skip this issue.
Since the fleet is temporarily trapped in this world, I have nothing to do, so I had so free ti to chat with this seemingly interesting old man. Through our conversation, I learned that this planet has been developing mysterious-leaning technology since the dawn of its civilization—this world has a highly active arcane energy environnt that Earth lacks, so from the primitive era, they relied on totems and spiritual zeal to transform or adapt to the environnt, thus embarking on a completely different path of civilization from Earth. But Sandora also told that sotis mystical technology and technological systems aren’t so rigidly separated in different worlds. Often, the sa thing is just interpreted differently by two civilizations due to their varying ideologies, and so it’s categorized into different technological systems. Just like when the old man offhandedly ntioned sothing on Azure Star called the "Natural Conductive chanism," it took a while to figure out that he was talking about a wind/water hybrid power chanism, but in this world, due to the non-mainstream formation of conventional technology, this kind of non-magic chanical device is considered a special "Construction Technique."
The old man also noticed our interest in their planet’s indigenous technology and enthusiastically introduced so related things, apparently eager to promote Azure Star to the entire universe. But he still intentionally or unintentionally avoided many topics that shouldn’t be divulged, such as their military and the forces on the planet. It seems this eccentric alien enthusiast isn’t one to make a mistake in this area—regardless of how benevolent we seem, he remains cautious, which is an essential responsibility unrelated to whether the Fifth Fleet can be resisted or not.
And just as I had a basic understanding of this planet’s civilization, the alert system finally issued a warning, detecting a large number of fast-moving targets from the planet below.
It appears that the authorities on "Azure Star" have finally completed their ergency investigation and sent in the official personnel. It’s apparent that Elder Qiao’s exploration team set out in a rush, possibly not being the official representatives dispatched by the authorities for communication with "aliens." They looked more like an accident investigation team with a research purpose, which explains why they included such a diplomatically inappropriate character as the old man.
The second batch of flying devices departing from Azure Star is not the small single-person "flying saucers" of the exploration team, but a kind of elongated, rugby-shaped spaceship with a long axis asuring 230 ters—suitable for limited-ti cruising work around the Mother Star, but evidently not equipped for long-duration deep space travel endurance. I couldn’t discern the principle behind the propulsion of this silver-white tal "rugby"; it appeared sleek, with only two golden rings embedded at both ends, which I guessed were not energy-gathering rings...
There were a total of three rugby-shaped spaceships, which might represent the most advanced space equipnt of Azure Star. We continued to unscrupulously eavesdrop on their communications, hearing the exploration team reporting their situation and the intelligence of the "unexpected visitors from outer space" to the people inside the "large" spaceship. Elder Qiao appeared very excited; his excitent stemd from two aspects. On one hand, he believed that his life was finally complete—having withstood pressure from various sources to research aliens for half his life, he finally saw living ones in his lifeti, although not face-to-face, yet he seed to have no regrets in this life. On the other hand, he knew he’d just received funding from his superiors, allowing him to continue with his next research topic: whether aliens pick their feet when they’re bored...
From a botanist’s perspective, I simply couldn’t understand what mindset the "Space Detection General Bureau" of this planet had in allowing this old man to remain on the team.
Soon after, the shuttle detected that one of the three silver-white spaceships was attempting to send various contact signals, seemingly hoping to communicate with us. Sandora decisively tapped into their internal channel: "Speak."
Then she regretted it: because as soon as the other side heard her say "speak," they imdiately, without any courtesy, launched into declaiming an entire 20 minutes of diplomatic rhetoric, leaving us dizzy and overwheld. When they finally fell silent, I pressed the communicator and confird through gritted teeth, "Your core issues boil down to four: where we co from, where we’re going, what we’re doing here, and whether we’re preparing for war, correct?"
There was a mont of silence on the other side: "...In summary, that’s it."
Why did you have to elevate those four questions to the height of universal peace!?
The other side already knew the reason for the Fifth Fleet’s arrival and that we weren’t here to disrupt world peace. But anyone thinking with their back teeth could know that having such a massive starship fleet suspended overhead, capable of crashing even the Sun, is a trendously pressure-inducing situation for them—hence, they hoped we could relocate the fleet to sowhere else. Of course, that wasn’t a problem, since the Fifth Fleet had already violated their airspace, albeit for obvious reasons, and Azure Star’s envoys hadn’t sternly condemned us for it. Still, I believe it’s best to be kind. So, I ordered the Fifth Fleet to move to the gravity boundary of this Constant Star System. Yet, due to the entanglent of the Fifth Fleet, quite a few ships had undergone partial fusion during the jump, so completing this maneuver would take so ti.
Even so, as the outermost ships of the fleet began to drift further into outer space, we managed to establish initial trust with the locals of Azure Star. At this point, Sandora suggested, as a representative, to visit their world personally.
As we expected, they gladly agreed—in fact, part of their mission included one directive: if possible, to invite "visitors from outer space" to the planet surface for face-to-face friendly exchanges. When we offered to tour their planet, they naturally welcod it with open arms.
However, just as Sandora and I transported into their spaceship, it still caused quite a... commotion.
Evidently, they hadn’t anticipated our capability to directly enter their spaceship without being located, causing considerable panic. The second thing that left them at a loss was how Sandora and I, in terms of appearance, were indistinguishable from the local natives.
We appeared in their control room, the most populated area of the entire spaceship, so Sandora and I naturally received a ton of curious stares. The commotion subsided only when a man who seed to be in charge forcefully took control a minute later. That peculiar old man had also transferred to the large spaceship dispatched from Azure Star’s surface, and he finally saw what the so-called "aliens" looked like, looking astounded as he pointed at us, saying, "Where are your... tentacles?"
: "..."
So I will forever maintain this is one peculiar old man.
"Do you think aliens must look grotesque?" I retorted, baring my teeth at him, then curiously examined the surroundings. This was the interior of one of those "rugby spaceships," and compared to an Imperial Starship, it appeared a bit cramped and constrained. All around were strange... devices, though I wasn’t sure if they could be called devices. They looked totemic, with cylindrical shapes of varying sizes, and their surfaces fluttering with constantly refreshing Runes, while the crew dressed in short robes used the Arcane Energy Balls in their hands to rearrange the Runes, controlling the spaceship’s operation. Scans revealed complex energy environnts within those totem poles, but no conventional electronic components were found—a spaceship powered by magic power, and controlled so uniquely.
While Sandora and I, without reservation, studied the control equipnt here, the circle of curious locals remained dumbfounded—it seed they hadn’t expected aliens to speak in such a manner...(to be continued. If you like this work, you’re welco to vote for recomndations and monthly tickets at Qidian (qidian). Your support is my greatest motivation.)
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