Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 1614 A Piece of Metal

If you call it monotonous, it really is monotonous.

The world was completely silent. The Great Voyage Organization, which had been hopping and skipping for countless years, still had not found any signs of civilization.

Looking around, all you see are stars.

Although there are many types of stars, they are basically the same as those in the three-dimensional world, mostly stars, planets, black holes, etc. Of course, there are also neutron stars, brown dwarfs, and quark stars, which are unique to the two-dimensional world and are almost never seen in the vast universe.

Of course, because the rules of gravity are different, their behavior is also very different from that of the three-dimensional universe.

But even with these natural phenomena, it still feels somewhat lifeless.

Looking at this scene and feeling this world, Yue Yuan couldn't help but think that perhaps the universe was also in this desolate state before life appeared.

Year after year.

Time flies, the years are like a shuttle.

After countless years, the Great Voyage Organization's fleet finally arrived at a location near the center of this two-dimensional world. If we were to compare it to crossing a river, then we would have reached the middle of the river by boat!

Perhaps because they had not found any trace of civilization along the way, the civilizations had given up hope and thought that this journey would just be an uneventful one through the two-dimensional world.

However, unexpectedly, at this moment, the Silver Heart Civilization was the first to discover a set of signals that were different from the others.

It is a wave signal of light belonging to the two-dimensional world. It is different from the light reflected by stars and other celestial bodies in nature, and there is a clear pattern in it.

Upon recognizing this signal, the Galactic Heart Civilization synchronizes it with all other civilizations and individual life forms in the same region.

Having traveled together for so long, the Galactic Heart Civilization had long since become less scheming towards its companions. They also understood that the dangers of the universe were not something a single civilization could safely navigate. That's why, when they were taken away by the Simplified Civilization, they tried to break away from the group and return to find humanity.

"There really is life here, and their level of civilization seems to be quite high!" As Yue Yuan said this, he and the relevant scientists entered the virtual meeting hall and gathered with the teams from several other civilizations, as usual.

The leader of the Silver Heart Civilization blinked his four eyes and waved his tiny hands, saying, "Yes, we have identified this light wave signal and confirmed that it follows a certain pattern. Our civilization's warships have already headed to the signal source, and we believe we will have results soon."

Indeed, the results came very quickly.

No sooner had he finished speaking than new information arrived.

The Galactic Heart Civilization immediately synchronized the latest intelligence with other civilizations, and this synchronized data was then converted by each civilization's own computers into images of what each individual civilization saw.

This process is necessary because every individual in a civilization has different eyes and brains, and therefore sees a different world. Thus, screens and videos need to be adapted and converted.

Without conversion, the people of the Daya civilization would see virtually nothing when looking at the holographic image of the Silver Heart civilization.

Yue Yuan also looked at the large screen where the information conversion had been completed.

Then he saw a line, a line made of some kind of metallic substance.

This was clearly incorrect, as it was obviously a two-dimensional perspective. So he waved his hand, shifting the perspective to three dimensions. Only then did he see the true nature of the metal line: it was a two-dimensional aircraft, with all its components clearly visible. Circular gears meshed together, and they were still in operation. Yue Yuan even zoomed in on some images, discovering that the internal structure was extremely intricate, like a high-precision mechanical watch, with each gear nested within the next. He also saw many unfamiliar components.

Despite never having seen them before, Yue Yuan was able to tell from his profound scientific knowledge that some of the components were electronic components and others were photosensitive elements.

The entire spacecraft is made up of many small parts, and it is these parts that work together to send regular optical signals to the outside world at regular intervals.

There are two types of signals emitted from the spacecraft: light waves and radio waves. The interweaving of these two signals is what the Galactic Center civilization detected as a clear indication of civilization.

A set of clearly regular signals is far from enough to read the information. According to normal hacking practices, it is necessary to combine it with some information that the aircraft itself carries.

In fact, it does contain such information.

The Silver Heart civilization could see the information without capturing it; it was a square, two-dimensional metal sheet embedded inside the spacecraft.

If the normal contact procedure is followed, the aircraft must be captured first, then its outer shell must be broken open, and only then can the square metal piece be obtained.

But the Galactic Heart civilization doesn't need to do that. They can see through things that cannot be seen from a two-dimensional perspective by looking directly from a three-dimensional perspective.

Each civilization followed their perspective, carefully observing the metal piece.

It was discovered that the metal sheet was not flat, but had pits of varying sizes on each edge. The spacing between the pits of different sizes was also different, and the shape and depth of the pits were also different.

Judging from its appearance alone, it looks like the edge of a cardboard piece that has been chewed by a cat, all pitted and uneven.

However, upon closer inspection, one will find that the size, distance, depth, shape, and so on of these pits are all regular. They are either single pits or combinations of multiple pits. Some pits have round bottoms, while others have pointed bottoms. The different pits are arranged and combined together at different intervals, which is quite unique.

Upon seeing this, scientists from various civilizations immediately understood that these craters were definitely a way of recording information. The civilization behind this two-dimensional spacecraft seemed to be transmitting some kind of information to the universe. They seemed to be shouting to the universe, but no one knew what they were saying yet.

Human scientists were deeply moved by this sight, because they thought of the Voyager spacecraft in the history of human civilization. The golden record carried by Voyager and the metal plate they saw now did indeed have many similarities.

The difference is that the former is three-dimensional, with the information engraved on two sides of the gold record, while the latter is two-dimensional, with the information engraved on the four edges of the metal sheet.

Thinking about this, scientists naturally thought of the craftsmanship and technology used by humans to create the gold record, as well as the methods used to decipher the information it carried.

Perhaps the civilization behind this two-dimensional spacecraft uses the same approach?
Sure enough, after careful exploration, scientists from human civilization discovered that the dents in the metal sheet seemed to be related to hydrogen atoms in the two-dimensional world.

Hydrogen is the simplest element in the universe, and it seems that the civilization behind this spacecraft has also thought of this. They seem to firmly believe that aliens will also be able to think of this.

After this discovery, human scientists quickly realized that the uneven, curved areas along one edge of the metal sheet did not seem to be information, but rather a form of life, or the shape of an individual life form of the civilization behind it.

Because they are two-dimensional organisms, they can only represent their overall shape by drawing curves.

It seems they rotate and flip the object to reveal its biological characteristics, much like using a light-blocking method to illuminate an object and observe its shadow. By rotating the object while illuminating it and flipping all its surfaces, one can roughly determine the object's original three-dimensional shape from the two-dimensional shadow.

In other words, by combining these curves according to certain rules, we can obtain the shape of that life form.

(End of this chapter)