The stars, but they become the gray wind

The translucent octahedron suddenly spoke.

"Hmm...ah?" Kuznetsov didn't even react for a moment.

"I have no interest in raising wild animals. Besides, I imagine you two can't let go of your friends and family on Earth and Mars, right?"

"I think your families on Earth would be quite surprised to know that you two are still alive, right?"

"Get ready, you'll be seeing some of your old friends soon."

.........

On the Ranger, several people leaned over the portholes and used portable cameras and personal video equipment to record the moment when the Ranger and the giant alien ship intersected in the orbit of Mars. The relative distance between the two was less than 20 kilometers. The flying metal mountain of Fantasy Light almost occupied the entire view of the portholes. The astronauts on the Ranger were nervous and excited. They might be the closest group of humans to the alien ship so far. For this glimpse, even death is worth it.

In an open space outside the Mars base, Kelly, wearing a space suit, is using a telescope to observe the flying metal mountain above her head. As an expert in the field of alien microbial exploration and research, Kelly is of course very curious about what alien life looks like.

Just when she was completely unprepared, a micro wormhole interface like a vortex of water waves appeared behind her. A translucent octahedral prism flew out of the micro wormhole interface and directly hacked into the radio communication device in Kelly's space suit.

"Hello, Ms. Kelly." A soft female voice startled Kelly, who was still leaning on the telescope to observe the alien spaceship above her head. She lost her balance and fell to the ground along with the telescope.

"What...are you?" Holding the tripod of the telescope, Kelly widened her eyes and looked at the thing in front of her that was obviously a little beyond her understanding.

"You've been observing my spaceship through a telescope on the surface, haven't you? Then, you must be very interested in my existence, right?"

"Could it be you?" Kelly didn't care about the Martian dust on her body, and excitedly got up from the ground. In a very embarrassing way, she completed the first contact between humans and alien life.

"The owner of the spaceship above you, and I think you should have received my email, right?"

"Email? Wait! Did you send that email with the countdown?!"

"Ms. Kelly, sometimes the answers are where you least expect them, even right next to you."

"And, does this answer have any greater significance for humanity as a whole? It's still uncertain at this point."

.........

"Kelly? What's wrong?" In the control center of the Mars base, Ed suddenly received a call from his daughter.

"Uh... Dad, I think you need to bring the higher-ups from the base to the open space outside. He's communicating with me right now.

"Who?"

"The being in that alien spaceship has come down and came directly to me. I'm turning on my body camera now, and you can see what he looks like directly on the screen in the base." Kelly's voice sounded very excited. Ed hurriedly asked the technicians in the control center to transfer the picture on the big screen to Kelly's space suit body camera.

Immediately afterwards, everyone in the control center saw the true appearance of the alien life that was communicating with Kelly. It was an octahedron floating in the air. Some strange patterns appeared on its surface, and then quickly disappeared. The translucent octahedron looked very smooth, without any seams or flaws on the surface.

"Hello, humans." A soft female voice came from the radio of Happy Valley Base.

"Uh...Sir, the broadcasting system of Happy Valley Memory is out of my control." An operator in charge of the broadcasting system in the base said in front of the computer.

"I'll be waiting for you outside," said the soft female voice that had hijacked the base's radio.

Ed looked at Dave who was leaning against the entrance of the command room, nodded in understanding, called a few senior personnel of the Happy Valley base who were also in the command center, and hurried to the airlock, starting the first contact with alien life in human history.

.........

"Excuse me, how do you...understand our language?" Kelly tried to ask her first question to the alien being in front of her.

"I've been in the solar system for some time now. During this time, I've been secretly observing you. The radio waves leaking from your planet have given me a full understanding of you. Whether it's your species' language or your history and culture, I even understand humans better than you do yourselves."

"I came to the Red Planet to witness the birth of a multi-planetary species."

"That asteroid represents far more than just resources. It's the first and most crucial step in the birth of a multi-planet race."

"Asteroid? You mean Goldilocks?"

"If we can't even take this first step, the best-case scenario is that we'll be stuck in a prolonged period of internal friction within the Earth-Moon system for the next few hundred years. The worst-case scenario is that we'll die right here in the cradle of our home planet."

"Since there are individuals within your civilization striving to take the first step toward becoming a multi-planetary species, I naturally came here to meet them."

Kelly was in her space suit, with her mouth wide open enough to swallow an egg. The alien being before her inadvertently revealed a shocking truth.

"It's not uncommon for space exploration to die in its home cradle simply because it can't generate economic benefits."

"That asteroid has placed you at a crucial juncture in the development of civilization. If you choose right, perhaps Earth's humanity will become part of the solar system. If you choose wrong, there's a high probability that you'll be consumed to death on your home planet."

"That asteroid will push you to become a multi-planet species. Although this is only the first step, congratulations on making the right choice for a more long-term path for civilization." The translucent octahedral prismatic cube said in a soft, emotionless female voice.

.........

When Ed, Dave and their crew hurriedly put on their spacesuits and rushed to the open space outside the Mars base, their daughter Kelly was already chatting with the strange prismatic cube. Ed knew that at this historic moment in human history, he would probably be the second in command again. As expected, he could not escape the title of the eternal second in the field of space exploration.

"It looks like I'm second again this time." Ed shook his head. He was used to this. Since the Apollo era, he had always been the first to land on the moon or Mars. He had completely given up on competing for the first place.

"Welcome to Mars, er... ma'am? Can I call you that?"

"Our species does have some kind of gender identity, but our concept of gender is vastly different from the human concept. It could even be said to be completely unrelated. After all, our civilization doesn't have the same concept of two sexes as humans do. But you can call me that for now."

"Or you can call this shell of mine the name: The Corrector."

"Uh... Dear Ms. Corrector? Welcome to the Mars base. I am the temporary commander of the base, Baldwin."

"Ed Baldwin, I know you quite well. After all, the guy on my ship has been talking about you quite often over the past six months..."

"On your ship? I don't quite understand...")

"Let him talk himself and you'll understand." A vortex-shaped wormhole interface, only one person's height, suddenly appeared on one side of the shell. Two people emerged from it and fell to the ground in a dog-eating shit posture. After seeing the two people, Ed and the people in the Mars base were so scared as if they had seen a ghost that they dared not move.

"Kuz Parker?" Ed asked in an incredulous tone.

"Oh, Ed! Long time no see. You'd never imagine what I've been through in the past six months."

"Haven't you already?"

"When they died on the asteroid you call Kronos, I happened to be passing by nearby. Shortly after their bodies died, I performed quantum-level scans and digital copies of their brains, cloned a body based on their genetic sequence information, and then transferred the digitally uploaded consciousness into the brain of the cloned body to resurrect them." The Corrector explained to the people at the Mars base who were confused and thought they had seen a ghost.

"Then these two guys lived on my spaceship for half a year until the infrastructure I built in this galaxy was completed and activated."

At this moment, Ed suddenly realized that the two people in front of him were not wearing spacesuits, but they did not suffocate to death because of the atmosphere of Mars that was unbreathable for humans. On the contrary, Parker and Kurz looked alive and well.

"You two, why aren't you wearing space suits?" After hearing Ed's reminder, the two men realized that they were standing on the surface of Mars, without any protection on their bodies except for the casual clothes they were wearing.

"Don't worry, I'm not so careless as to let the two people I saved die of suffocation. You can take off your helmets now. I've created a temporary breathable atmosphere similar to Earth's within a radius of approximately 400 meters centered on me. Within this area, there's air suitable for human breathing, and it's completely sterile."

"But don't run too far. The breathable range of my temporary atmosphere generator is limited to the air within a 400-meter radius centered on me."

"Sorry, Ed, it looks like you're in second place again this time." Kuznetsov patted his old friend and colleague on the shoulder.

"It doesn't matter. I don't care anymore anyway."

"As long as my daughter can fulfill her dream, it will be worth it for me to be the second child." After confirming that the air composition here seemed to have really become the same as the environment on Earth, Ed removed the sealing ring of his helmet and slowly breathed in the air on Mars that was directly converted into the Earth environment by the corrector using unknown technology.

Above everyone's heads, the Goldilocks asteroid and a 22-kilometer-long metal mountain range streaked across the Martian sky, foreshadowing a change in humanity's future path.

Chapter 192: Die in the cradle or reach for the stars?

Although Ed and others were unable to personally record the first-hand footage of Kelly's contact with the being who called himself the Corrector, a camera outside the Mars base happened to be facing here at the time of the incident and faithfully recorded the first-hand footage of the first contact, which is extremely precious to people.

Later generations of humans often describe historical events with a key part. Exobiologist Kelly Baldwin's first contact with extraterrestrial life began with a dog-eating-shit-like fall to the ground while holding a telescope. Yes, the first action of humans' first contact with extraterrestrial life was neither a friendly handshake or greeting, nor a sword-fighting. Instead, it was a funny dog-eating-shit-like fall to the ground that was beyond everyone's expectations and will be recorded in history as the first reaction of humans after contact with extraterrestrial life.

At this moment, Kelly would never have thought that the camera pointed at her outside the Happy Valley base had just made her be recorded in the history of mankind in an extremely funny way. In addition to remembering that she was the first human to contact and communicate with extraterrestrial life, future humans will also take out the precious historical footage captured by the camera outside the Happy Valley base on Mars and repeatedly whip her corpse to commemorate her as the first human in human history to perform a dog-eating shit-like fall on the ground in front of aliens. All historians in later generations will take out the footage of Kelly falling on the ground in front of aliens and watch it over and over again, and analyze it repeatedly when studying this history.

On the other hand, the diary that Kuznetsov wrote during the half year he lived on the alien spacecraft also became an important reference for human beings to study alien life and civilizations in the future. This diary was later named "Kuznetsov's Diary" and played a considerable reference role in human beings' understanding of the knowledge and science of alien civilizations that are more advanced than themselves.

Of course, this is all in the past. Neither Kelly nor Kuznetsov knew that they would be recorded in human history in a completely unexpected way.

…………

"I told you, it's better to leave it to me, right?" In an uninhabited countryside field on Earth, Yuki was strolling along a field path covered with fragrant wild flowers and grasses, while multitasking, controlling the Corrector Shell on Mars.

"I have to admit that you do make a much better first impression than I do." The purple-haired girl's voice rang out in III厁児废思紦結城's mind.

The one who is now operating the Corrector Shell on Mars is not Kalisi, but Yuuki. As for the first impression formed on them when they first met, Yuuki thinks that he is more stable and relatively gentle on some issues, which is more suitable than Renlong, the irritable older sister, and Kalisi. Facts have proved that perhaps, if everyone wants to leave a gentle first impression, then Yuuki is the most suitable candidate.

…………

"This is the fuel plant at the Mars base. We use this equipment to produce liquid argon, which is the main fuel and propulsion medium for our spacecraft." Ed explained the important infrastructure of the Mars Happy Valley base to the prismatic octahedron in front of him. "...factory... Argon? Although it's a bit lower than using it as a propellant than a rocket, it's cheap and plentiful. Nearly 2% of the Martian atmosphere is argon. From a cost-effective point of view, it's a very suitable material for making a propellant that's cheap, easy to use, convenient, and plentiful."

"It's just that using liquid argon on Mars is fine, but sooner or later you'll have to go back to methane and liquid hydrogen. After all, night argon isn't readily available everywhere in the outer solar system or the asteroid belt."

"Also, the propulsion efficiency of your deuterium-helium-triple variable specific impulse magnetoplasma fusion engine needs to be improved. Its current propulsion efficiency and specific impulse are sufficient for flying to Mars, but it won't be enough for traveling to the asteroid belt or the outer solar system."

"The planets also lack sufficient infrastructure, such as cheaper mass accelerators and space skyhook facilities for orbit insertion and planetary orbit transfer."

"Let me give you a suggestion. Now that you have that asteroid, in addition to mining, you can consider building a Martian skyhook facility on it. If you want to achieve cheaper interplanetary orbit transfer, building a skyhook between Earth and Mars is the most cost-effective and long-term solution at this stage."

"Thank you for your advice. We will keep it in mind." Ed listened to the alien cube in front of him offering suggestions and advice to humans at this stage in standard English, and silently wrote down the advice in his notebook.

"With your current technology, building a 7000-kilometer-long skyhook in Earth orbit might be quite challenging. However, the Lunar Mass Accelerator, one of the supporting facilities, is a breeze from an engineering perspective. It's just that your current investment is too small, and you're unwilling to devote more resources and energy to the space sector."

"Becoming an interstellar civilization is not so easy. Developing on a single planet will eventually reach its limits."

"If you only stay in the Earth-Moon system for the next few hundred years, then humanity will develop into a Type 1.2 civilization.

"If we can't quickly utilize and develop the resources of the entire solar system at this stage, humanity will exhaust most of the high-abundance resources within the Earth-Moon system within a few hundred years. Existing civilizations' production and economic models will be unable to maintain their current industrial systems, leading to a significant collapse of human civilization within a short period of time. You will soon realize how terrifying the process of social unrest and chronic collapse will be, as human civilization's social and biological flaws, lack strong internal governance and overall planning capabilities, and how terrifying it will be."

"Is it so terrible?" A scientist at the Mars base did not expect to hear such a statement from the alien life.

"In fact, if human civilization fails to make the right long-term choice now, there may not be enough time to choose the right option in a few hundred years."

"Rather than painfully choosing a long-term path hundreds of years from now, when society may already be on the verge of collapse, it is better to change yourself now and avoid the development model of the past hundreds of years since the Industrial Revolution, so that the future of your civilization will not be doomed to a dead end."

"Believe me, if you give up some immediate benefits for this asteroid and choose a long-term development path, it will be much better than choosing another path one day in the future when your social situation deteriorates to the extreme."

"We have much more experience than you in this area."

"It's not too late to correct your mistakes now. If, according to your planet's timeline, you fail to change your development model within the next 30 years and move towards a more equitable and sustainable internal structure for all, then you will truly experience the horrific consequences of social unrest caused by a lack of long-term internal governance and overall planning."

“Like the first two world wars on Earth?”

"No, in a sense, it's far more terrifying than a planetary world war. The two world wars in your history were merely brief, rapid bouts of pain. The social unrest caused by a lack of internal governance and overall planning will cause your entire civilization to rot and eventually decline in an irreparable way. It's an extremely severe, long-term chronic disease, enough to inevitably lead to the slow extinction of an entire civilization over hundreds of years."

"This...but the Earth we're on now isn't..."

"You mean to say that the Earth seems to be prosperous now?"

"Ah."

"That's just an appearance. It can only last a decade or so at most. Your current internal model of civilization simply can't support long-term development. You don't have much time left to change yourself."

"Besides, do you really think we're the only ones around here?"

"I'm giving you a friendly reminder. Within approximately 50 light-years of Earth, there exists another alien civilization, more advanced than you, and they've already begun planning and constructing stellar projects."

"If human society doesn't strive for progress, then when this or that civilization completes its Dyson cloud and arrives in the solar system a few hundred years from now, they'll be left with nothing more than collecting our corpses and building tombstones."

"For both the present and the future, human civilization needs to change its development model and status."

"At this stage, you still lack many key things: a unified planetary government, a highly sophisticated and mature system of interplanetary orbital transfer and industrial facilities, a highly automated social production and industrial system that minimizes human involvement, and an efficient and fair social resource allocation system based on this system, managed by a highly digital strong artificial intelligence. I'm here because you've successfully taken the first step, but don't think that everything will be easy after taking the first step. You still have a lot of homework to do."

"We are here not only to give you a warning, but also because we do not want to see a civilization that has advanced to a relatively good level heading down the path of slow death."

When the audio and video records of the Mars base's communication with extraterrestrial intelligence were transmitted back to Earth across a distance of 20 light minutes, the first to explode were not the general public at the grassroots level, but the circles of economists and sociologists. The warnings from extraterrestrial intelligence that the current development of human civilization was about to encounter bottlenecks and crises dealt a heavy blow to many optimists among economists and sociologists.

The current model of global development is unsustainable. This topic dominated the headlines of newspapers and other media outlets the next morning. Although a small number of economists and sociologists had already expressed pessimism about humanity's current development model, people living in an era of positive economic and technological progress tended to be optimistic and believe that this situation would continue forever. However, the appearance of the alien intelligent being who called itself the Corrector poured cold water on humanity's situation.

At the same time, Zao Chiqi's Rover is still hanging high in the sky. This huge metal mountain is like a sword of Damocles hanging over the head of human civilization, making human society feel the pressure from the starry sky at all times.

In addition, the corner of the true picture of the universe revealed by the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence has also had a considerable impact on human society. The fact that there is a quasi-Type II civilization that may be building a stellar-level astronomical project such as the Dyson Cloud within only 50 light-years of the Earth makes human society seem as if it has been injected with some kind of stimulant that may have side effects overnight. Whether it is the United States or the Soviet Union, countries around the world are discussing further increasing investment in the aerospace field.

Of course, these things have little to do with personally whipping certain people who tend to stagnate in human civilization. They intend to once again give human civilization a warning on another front, that is, not to interfere with and persecute science and technology and related personnel for any stupid so-called political reasons.

…………

"Ah? Go to Earth to find a human?" Zao Chiqi felt a little confused.

"This is the person's identity. Just find her and bring her aboard... Remember to make a big noise. After all, this is a small reminder and warning to humanity, letting them realize how precious a scientist and technician they've lost."

"Okay, but what do we do with it once we get it on board?"

"Just like the two humans I had with Uekiba Mioki and Liuyi before, let her stay with you for a while. At the same time, let her stay in touch with her family and friends on Earth at any time. When the time comes, ask her if she is willing to go to Mars and continue to contribute to the future of human society as a member of interstellar civilization."

"Got it? First, give her an environment that's completely free from any influence from human society?"

"Anyway, please help protect this important technician on Earth."

"He's just an indigenous scientist, not that much of a problem. If we want to protect an important scientific and technical personnel, these indigenous people who are still fighting for short-term interests and so-called political reasons dare not say a word."

"The current situation of these humans is indeed at a critical juncture. The example of the old glass eels heading for destruction is still fresh in our minds. Whether they can ascend to the stars or die in their cradle depends on their own choice."

"With a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, I think they will make a clear choice."

"Uh… Professor, Director!"

"what happened?"

"That alien spaceship above us, something's flying down from it!"

"what?!"