From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 745: Is this how we achieve fast and safe intergalactic travel?

Faced with the empty base, Cortana immediately began to consider various possibilities:
"Based on the analysis of the dissipation pattern of the residual energy in the base, the possibility that the divine seal entity was removed includes: being moved to a safer location by the Tavorantis themselves for some reason."

They were devoured and fused by the rioting zombies or the blood moon that was not yet fully formed in the early stages of the disaster.
or."

“Guessing is just guessing, child,” Halsey interrupted Cortana’s list, preferring empirical evidence. “There are dozens of possibilities, but there is only one truth.”

Instead of just daydreaming here, let's see what clues this civilization left us at its most glorious moment.

Her gaze swept across the entire square, and her archaeologist's instincts compelled her to try to listen to the echoes of a long-vanished civilization through these static buildings and symbols.

Halsey walked slowly, his fingers tracing the intricately carved railings and magnificent arches along the edge of the square.

"Look at the scale of this building, the details of the carvings, everything reveals an extreme confidence, pride and an arrogant disdain for everything."

Halsey offered his assessment, his tone carrying a sense of reverence for ancient glory: "When this plaza was built, it was undoubtedly the pinnacle of the Tavolantis civilization; they believed they held the key to eternal prosperity."

Her gaze then fell on some incomplete engravings on the square's ground, and on several towering stone pillars in the distance that appeared to be monuments.

Cortana quickly projected the high-resolution scan image and began trying to decipher the text on it.

"Doctor, these inscriptions record that they not only studied the original divine seal, but also successfully replicated a large number of devices known as 'secondary resonators'—which are what we call the red divine seal."

They appear to have predated humanity in this universe, and in a more systematic and sophisticated manner, constructed a network for converting energy using these divine seals.

Halsey leaned closer to examine the energy flow diagram depicted in the image, as well as the schematic diagram of the massive array of divine seals, a hint of understanding and regret flashing in his eyes:

"As expected, they have built a global 'free' energy network that is inexhaustible."

This completely solved the fundamental bottleneck to their survival and development as interstellar immigrants. The abundance of energy spurred an explosive development in technology, art, and social structure, propelling them into a golden age of civilization.

This is a classic 'divine seal trap'.

Her assessment carried a chilling insight: "First, give you irresistible sweetness, make you absolutely dependent on it, bind the foundation of the entire civilization to it, and then suddenly tighten the net at the most glorious moment."

Just then, a member of the Trapped Guard noticed a particularly solemn and imposing giant building on the outskirts of the plaza through the sensors in his power armor.

It has a magnificent stepped base and a towering dome, with huge, but now faded, reliefs at the entrance.

The guard used internal communication to display the building's exterior and preliminary scan data directly on Sui Meng's helmet screen, and marked its unique structural features.

Sui Meng examined the data and turned to Halsey, who was still studying the monument:
"Doctor, the structural analysis of the building to the right shows that its interior space is vast and its layout has obvious display and exhibition characteristics, unlike residential or industrial facilities. It is speculated that it may be a memorial hall or a museum."

Upon hearing this, Halsey immediately looked up, casting his gaze upon the building with keen interest.
"A museum? A place that preserves the essence and memory of a civilization? Let's go, we must go and see. It may hold key information about how they viewed themselves and how they viewed the divine seal."

The group immediately changed direction and, under the protection of the vanguard, headed towards the giant building.

The towering stone gate was long broken, and the interior was pitch black, with only the light from their power armor and lighting equipment dispelling the ancient darkness.

Stepping inside the building, one is greeted by a scene of utter devastation and deathly silence.

Scattered on the ground were numerous skeletons that had completely calcified and crumbled at the slightest touch.

These skeletal structures differ significantly from humans, with more elongated limbs, unusual skull shapes, and a different number of finger bones.

They belong to the Tavolantis and are the last physical remnants of this lost civilization.

However, what is even more chilling is that the bones are twisted into impossible angles and the limbs are bent in the opposite direction, as if they were frozen in an instant after dancing wildly in extreme pain.
Others exhibited distinct, mutated skeletal structures used for attack or climbing, vaguely matching the characteristics of the previously encountered necromancy variants.

These are clearly the Tavorantis who were unable to escape or be transformed when the disaster struck, and the necromancy they transformed into, belonging to their own civilization.

This hall, which should have been a testament to glory, ultimately became a tomb of madness and death, cruelly freezing the final scene of civilization's demise to this day.

Gazing at the scene in the museum that had frozen the moment of apocalypse, Halsey remained silent for a moment before slowly speaking, his voice carrying a hint of awe at the wonder of creation and regret for the tragedy of civilization:

"The divine seal, this creation, its operating mechanism is simply the ultimate interpretation of the malice of the universe."

It precisely exploited intelligent life's thirst for energy, its pursuit of development, and even its spiritual needs such as art and inspiration, using these as bait to gradually lure the entire civilization into the abyss of self-destruction.

A slight ripple seemed to pass through Cortana's face, and her words carried a rational critique:

"The underlying logic of its creation is based on absolute self-interest and complete disregard for other forms of intelligence. It does not seek symbiosis or engage in communication. Its sole purpose seems to be to complete a process of 'harvesting' or 'aggregating' that we have not yet fully understood by inducing civilizations to sacrifice themselves."

From an ethical and social order perspective, its essence is undoubtedly extreme evil.

"Indeed."

Sui Meng responded in a deep voice, his gaze sweeping over the twisted skeletons of the Tavorantis mutated corpses, his tone resolute, "No matter who created it or what their purpose was, such behavior is no different from that of the Chaos Demons, and the Empire's only option is to fight them to the death."

He agreed with Cortana's assessment that the very existence of such a systemic tool for the destruction of civilization was the greatest threat to order.

Halsey composed himself and refocused his attention on the museum walls, on the relatively well-preserved murals and inscriptions.

With Cortana's help in translation, she began to decipher more details left by the Tavorantis during the height of their civilization.

“Look here.” She pointed to a group of murals depicting social prosperity. “They are celebrating the infinite possibilities brought by energy, technological leaps, and the golden age of art. But pay attention to the records in these corners.”

Her finger moved to some inconspicuous small inscriptions and accompanying notes: "Scholars have warned that over-reliance on this unknown energy source may pose unknown risks, which they call 'deep disturbances'."

Other accounts mention that some workers who worked long-term at the Shenyin Energy nodes, while reporting explosive artistic inspiration, also experienced severe insomnia, auditory hallucinations, and extreme mood swings, with concerning mental health assessments. However, overall, these warnings seemed insignificant against the backdrop of a flourishing economy at the time.

Halsey continued his analysis and discovered a crucial piece of information: "Moreover, they weren't entirely without contingency plans."

This section explicitly mentions that they designed an "extreme environment stabilization protocol," the core measure of which is to activate a global rapid freezing system in the event of energy node failure, aiming to "isolate" and "hibernate" the Divine Seal to avoid catastrophic consequences.

Halsey paused at this point in her analysis. All the clues in her mind quickly combined and connected like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, eventually forming a complete and clear chain of tragedy.

"I understand, everything makes sense."

Her voice carried the weight of someone who had seen through the truth: "The Tavorantis were not unaware of the danger, but they underestimated the penetrating power and speed of the divine seal."

The network that abused the Divine Seal Energy eventually crossed a critical point at a certain time, triggering an uncontrollable large-scale transformation of corpses into mutants.

The surviving, still rational Tavolantis, in the final moments of their civilization's demise, activated the 'Extreme Environment Stabilization Protocol,' originally intended to address localized loss of control.

However, they applied it globally, choosing self-sacrifice to completely freeze their home planet, sealing away the still-developing Blood Moon along with all the undead variants, thus preventing the catastrophe from spreading to other parts of the universe.

Only then did Sui Meng develop a genuine, understanding-based respect for Tavolantis, a civilization that had long since vanished.

They were not ignorant; rather, after weighing their own survival against the broader threats, they made an incredibly difficult choice, one that shines with moral brilliance.

"They deserve the honor of warriors," Sui Meng said in a deep voice. "They sacrificed civilization to prevent the calamity of extinction; their actions are admirable."

Just then, Halsey's gaze was drawn to a huge star map mural deep inside the museum.

The star chart is surrounded by complex calculation formulas and observation records.

“Wait, here,” she said, quickening her pace, “the Tavolantis did not merely passively accept and use the divine seal; they also actively sought it out. These records show that they used enormous resources to try to trace the fundamental source of the divine seal signal and find its creator.”

The murals and written records suggest that they conducted long-term deep-space listening and signal analysis, and eventually seemed to have locked onto a vague direction.

“There’s a remnant of coordinate data here that has been verified multiple times,” Halsey said, pointing to a particularly complex sequence of symbols below the star map.

"I will conduct the precise calculations."

Cortana immediately took over, her prosthetic body directly connected to the scanning device, and began to analyze the ancient coordinates with all her might.

She mobilized all star map databases for cross-location, ruling out possible observational errors by the Tavorantis and coordinate system transformation issues.

A moment later, Cortana raised her head and reported, "Coordinate analysis complete. According to the existing cosmological model, the star field pointed to by these coordinates is not within this Milky Way galaxy."

She paused for a moment, then projected a completely new and more macroscopic map of galaxies, highlighting massive spiral galaxies.

"The target location is inside the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), about 2.54 million light-years away from the Milky Way, or rather, from where Earth is located."

This discovery instantly elevated the threat of the divine seal from a galactic catastrophe to a grand, intergalactic scale.

The shadow of the mastermind behind the scenes has been cast into the farthest and deepest abyss of the universe.

Halsey stared at the ancient coordinates pointing to the Andromeda Galaxy, continuing to decipher the inscriptions beside it, attempting to reconstruct the mindset of the Tavorantis at that time.

"Based on the tone of these records and the direction of subsequent research," she continued, "the Tavorantis were excited and full of anticipation after successfully locking onto this extragalactic target."

They likely viewed the creators of the divine seal as some kind of generous, advanced, and worthy-of-pilgrimage civilization to establish contact with, and they dreamed of a historic meeting.

However."

She changed the subject, her tone tinged with regret, "Reality is cruel."

Records show that they quickly realized that their interstellar travel technology had insurmountable bottlenecks.

Given their faster-than-light capabilities at the time, it was simply impossible for them to cross the 2.5 million light-year gap within an acceptable timeframe.

Therefore, their strategy shifted to concentrating resources on developing more advanced propulsion technologies, hoping that one day they could truly embark on a journey to that galaxy and meet their imagined 'creator'.

"Unfortunately, they didn't live to see the day of the technological breakthrough," Cortana added calmly. "The disaster struck much faster and more violently than they had anticipated."

Halsey nodded in agreement, and from this he went on to say:
"This is not an isolated case. Even in other universes, some civilizations with technologies far beyond our imagination are often limited by various factors."

For example, the pioneers of Universe Zero 8 (Halo) had the technological level to shape galaxies and build the Halo, Ark, and Shield worlds, but they also failed to extend their influence beyond the Milky Way on a large scale, and ultimately perished under the combined attack of internal strife and the Flood.

Intergalactic travel has never been an easy task.

Sui Meng listened to their analysis with sharp eyes.

Knowing the limitations of interstellar travel, he turned to Halsey and raised a crucial question:
"Doctor, conventional warp engines and portal technology are clearly inadequate for such a long journey. Portals are essentially an enlarged version of short-distance teleportation technology, requiring extremely precise coordinates; otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable—"

Just like our Terminator armor, even a powerful Astartes warrior could be permanently 'stuck' into the wall if the coordinates are slightly disturbed.

On an interstellar scale, even the slightest deviation could throw the entire fleet into turbulence or worse. The Andromeda Galaxy presents us with far too many unknown spatial parameters and gravitational disturbances.

He paused briefly, then proposed a bold idea based on the most advanced technology currently available:
"Could we use the large device 01? When it is activated, its power is enough to shake the structure of spacetime, to forcefully open a relatively stable 'passage' or 'bridge' to the Andromeda Galaxy for the Human Power Forever, or for a fleet?"
Is this how we can achieve rapid and safe intergalactic travel?

(End of this chapter)