The stars, but they become the gray wind

"Of course, according to Kuznetsov himself, the ship was at least 20 kilometers long. Because the internal structure was too large or too complex, it is normal that he did not encounter or see other aliens that might be on that ship."

"Very good. This is indeed very useful information. At least before the other party is willing to reveal more information about themselves to us, this is the most scientific and reasonable explanation we can give to the public." Eli, who was sitting on the side of the conference table, nodded.

"Um... Director, there's something else. Recently, relevant agencies around the world have been using all the equipment at their disposal to send friendly greetings to that alien spacecraft. But as you know, all the messages we've sent have fallen on deaf ears. The other side hasn't responded to any of our greetings."

"Then, they suddenly appeared a while ago and took Margo Madison away in public. Now, almost all the news media and scientific research institutions around the world are scratching their heads over this incident."

"That's a good question, Tim. I don't know why they took Margo Madison away in public. Now, the people above, the Soviets, and both sides are starting to wonder if we've lost a technician who's extremely valuable to both of us."

"A former director with a history of absconding?"

"No, he's a highly valuable technician who is favored and protected by aliens whose technological level far exceeds that of humans.")

…………

As the commander of the Happy Valley base on Mars, Danielle now feels a little overwhelmed. She was unconscious for nearly a day due to a gunshot wound. Then, during this day, a series of events that were enough to change human history occurred on Mars and Earth. When she just woke up from the coma after the operation, she heard that during the period when she was shot and unconscious, the Goldilocks asteroid entered the orbit of Mars. Then, an asteroid with a diameter of more than 300 kilometers in the Trojan asteroid group of Jupiter suddenly accelerated to sub-light speed in a way beyond human common sense, and entered Jupiter's L2 Lagrange point, and disintegrated into a huge alien building. Then, two alien spaceships emerged from the shadow of Jupiter and the alien building one after another, one came to Mars and the other went to Earth. Then, when everyone in the base was unprepared, Kai, who was observing the spaceship in orbit with a telescope outside the base, inexplicably became the human being who made the first contact between all mankind and alien intelligent life, and in an extremely funny posture.

Then, everyone at the Mars base was caught off guard and encountered a real ghost. Kuznetsov and Tom Parker, who had died accidentally more than half a year ago, were resurrected by the other party. After seeing these two, the colleagues who had a good relationship with them in the base were scared and thought they had seen a ghost. Even Danielle herself, when she just woke up in the ward and saw Kuznetsov who came to visit her, her first reaction was to wonder if she had gone to heaven because of that shot.

After listening to Kuznetsov and Ed who came to visit her and their detailed explanation of the whole process of what happened after she fell into a coma, Danielle showed a black question mark expression on her face.

"It's hard to believe you've actually died once."

"The feeling of suffocating to death is very uncomfortable. They said that they deliberately helped Parker and I to dilute the memory of the pain when we died during the process of uploading our memories into the new bodies. Otherwise, it would easily cause us to have some bad sequelae."

"Speaking of this, it reminds me of a question I've read in various science fiction novels on this subject."

"Is it the question of whether you are the real you after your consciousness is uploaded?" Kuznetsov has obviously heard of this philosophical question that has appeared in many science fiction novels.

"They did give me an answer to this question. Humans, as purely carbon-based creatures, don't have anything like a soul. The human brain and physical memory are just a collection of neural electrical and chemical signals that can be digitized and uploaded. Of course, they also said that some life forms in the universe are quite special, and that these special creatures do have something similar to the soul in human cognition. Humans, as purely carbon-based creatures, are obviously not special."

"At least in my opinion, I am still myself."

"Perhaps, this answer from the aliens will have some unexpected impact on those religions on Earth. After all, they know that humans are not special in the universe, and there is no such thing as a soul. Humans are simply the product of Earth's evolution due to a series of coincidences."

"Kelly would probably be happy, at least it proves that the diversity of life might be higher than we thought."

"Yes, especially when they told me that there is a Kardashev Type II civilization within 50 light-years of Earth that is currently building a Dyson Cloud."

"Anyway, I'm glad to see you alive again, Kuz."

"I am also one of them."

…………

As the complete contents of Kuznetsov's diary were transmitted back to Earth, the contents of the diary caused an uproar around the world. All mankind knew that within a region only 50 light-years from Earth, there was a quasi-Type II civilization that was constructing a stellar astronomical project. For humans at this stage, whether it was the alien civilization that parked a city-sized spacecraft above their heads, or the Kardashev quasi-Type II civilization in other galaxies within 50 light-years, their technological level far surpassed their own. This gave all mankind something unprecedented, a pressure from outside the human species, a pressure called the fear of falling behind, the pressure that we must catch up with others as soon as possible.

All of a sudden, all the doubts about the long-term investment in the aerospace field having no returns disappeared, and various countries are trying to find ways to increase their investment in space exploration.

The plan to mine Goldilocks has also ushered in an unprecedented influx of funds and resources. At the suggestion of an alien being, technical teams from various countries involved in the mining effort have begun to explore the possibility of building skyhooks and other infrastructure on the asteroid to facilitate rapid orbital transfers between Earth and Mars. A scientific research group from the Soviet Union even submitted a project proposal for a large mass accelerator on the Moon.

The plan proposed by several Soviet space experts stated that due to the limitations of the existing facilities and the insufficient construction level of the Mars base, if the original plan to mine the Goldilocks asteroid was to be followed, more equipment and materials for infrastructure construction would have to be sent to Mars. Launching from Earth to Mars would obviously be more expensive. It would be easier to transport large quantities of personnel and equipment to Mars from the moon, whose atmosphere and gravity are only one-sixth of Earth's. At the same time, this would also place higher demands on the moon's space launch capabilities. Therefore, a team of Soviet space experts proposed this proposal to build a large mass accelerator on the moon to send personnel and equipment to Mars. Due to the vacuum environment of the moon, this mass accelerator would not need to consider the large amount of heat generated by friction between the spacecraft itself and the air when launching spacecraft into orbit. Therefore, this mass accelerator would not need to evacuate the entire acceleration pipe of the mass accelerator to prevent the spacecraft from burning up due to excessive heat and temperature during the acceleration process, as is required on Earth. Due to the low gravity environment of the moon, the reduced orbital entry and escape velocity made the technical indicators and construction difficulty of the mass accelerator far lower than on Earth.

"Based on the current level of infrastructure and production capacity on the moon, we can build this mass accelerator using only lunar resources, without the need to mobilize additional transportation capacity and resources from Earth."

The Soviet space expert who led the team made this suggestion at a meeting.

"Given that the current capacity for lunar infrastructure construction is still generally limited, if we can deploy some additional transportation capacity from Earth, we can complete the construction of the first mass accelerator on the moon more quickly."

"Of course, this will inevitably take up a large portion of the production capacity of the lunar surface infrastructure. Just like the mining of the Goldilocks asteroid that has already entered the orbit of Mars, this is a long-term project. In addition to helping to mine asteroids in the orbit of Mars, it can also enhance the overall level and capabilities of human space infrastructure construction and the overall scale of space industrialization."

Chapter 194 Lunar Mass Accelerator Construction Plan

"It would be best if we could frequently launch spacecraft on the moon and make full use of the abundant energy on the moon, namely solar energy."

"The lunar daytime lasts 14 Earth days, and temperatures can reach as high as 150°C under direct sunlight. With such abundant solar resources, generating electricity through either photovoltaic or solar thermal power generation is a breeze. With current technology, this solar-generated electricity can be stored using flywheels. Flywheel energy storage devices are also best suited for vacuum environments. The lunar escape velocity is only 2.4 kilometers per second. This speed is fully achievable using electromagnetic accelerators built with current technology, as Dr. O'Neill demonstrated last century."

"As a large natural satellite without a dense atmosphere, the Moon is a truly suitable place to build a mass accelerator. In a vacuum environment, we don't need to worry about the problems caused by aerodynamic heating."

"This type of mass accelerator is based on the principle of a linear motor and is essentially a scaled-up version of the electromagnetic catapult design used on several aircraft carriers still under development today."

"Moreover, building and operating such facilities in the lunar gravity environment is much simpler than on Earth. With a mass accelerator, we can send tens of thousands of tons of payloads annually to Mars or the Earth-Moon Lagrange. Humanity can more economically and quickly build future giant space solar power stations and large space cities, achieving larger-scale space industrialization and colonization. Moreover, throughout the entire process, we only need to utilize in-situ lunar resources."

"Doctor, then may I ask how much investment and cost this plan requires?"

"According to our current estimates, the cost of the lunar mass accelerator itself, the associated energy and cooling facilities, and maintenance is estimated to be around $1000 billion."

At the meeting, when the expert from the Soviet Union reported the cost of building a mass accelerator, many people still frowned.

"This is only 5% of what we currently want to invest in Goldilocks. With only 5% of the investment in Goldilocks asteroids, we can start the pace of human space industrialization on a larger scale. This is very cost-effective."

"And the entire process almost only consumes and utilizes lunar in-situ resources..."

People present were talking about it. The expert from the Soviet Union knew very well that $1000 billion was not a small number for most of the countries present, as well as space agencies and related companies. However, he was still quite confident that he could take the first step in the construction of the lunar mass accelerator.

"I know that this cost is still a bit high for everyone here, but if we don't take the first step for humanity's future simply because of the cost, then we may never catch up with them, or even that alien civilization within 50 light years. Humanity may always lag behind. We need to invest more resources in aerospace and more basic science fields."

"We still don't quite understand the specific attitudes of these alien civilizations toward us humans. While the one above us might harbor no ill will or simply be indifferent, what about others? For example, one within 50 light-years of Earth? What would be the consequences if we didn't develop, didn't take the first step, and fell behind? You've all seen this answer many times throughout history, right?"

"Although stimulants are powerful, they are also prone to side effects." Through the drone, Carlisle watched the live broadcast of the entire meeting.

"Although the person leading this project is somewhat alarmist, using this reason to request funding, it does make some sense. 44 light-years. Assuming the Theia civilization's Dyson Cloud is built, then, theoretically, only about 1% of the energy output of a star would be enough to burn the entire Earth into glass across hundreds of light-years. Moreover, an interstellar laser generated by the Dyson Cloud energy would only take 44 years to reach Earth. In other words, if the Theia civilization wanted to do something to Earth civilization, such as using Dyson Cloud lasers or stellar energy collection coils to launch relativistic kinetic missiles that rely on laser sails and working fluid propulsion for continuous acceleration, it would only take 44 years to produce results. This is quite efficient on an interstellar scale."

"Can you explain it to me?" Yuki seemed interested.

"And this is precisely the most critical issue for humanity right now. We've only told them that there's a civilization within 50 light-years that's building a stellar-scale astronomical project like a Dyson Cloud. They don't know the specifics of this civilization or the progress of the Dyson Cloud. So, given human thinking, they have to prepare for the worst-case scenario. That's assuming the other civilization is already a quasi-Type II civilization with a Dyson Cloud, and possesses the ability to observe Earth. If they truly harbor any hostility toward Earth, the worst-case scenario is that their interstellar long-range strike could reach the solar system within 50 years. If humanity doesn't act now, we risk extinction in this area within half a century."

"Is that what happened?"

"So from the scientists' perspective, the safest and most rational option is to quickly establish humanity as a civilization distributed across different regions of the solar system, thereby sharing the risks.

"However, they're definitely mistaken about one thing. Using human inertia to speculate about other civilizations, subconsciously being on guard against others, is perhaps one of the bad habits that human society has accumulated over thousands of years in a vicious cycle of mutual distrust."

"If all civilizations in the universe were thinking like humans, coupled with the speed of light, the entire Milky Way would have been in chaos long ago."

"So, as long as no one fires the first shot, the Dark Forest theory is nothing more than a fallacy. Humanity is fortunate that civilizations within the Milky Way capable of firing the first shot tend to be rational and peaceful, and won't set such a bad precedent. However, humans, with their numerous problems and flaws, have a tendency to fire the first shot, but lack the ability and technology. Once humanity develops to the technological level, it's unclear whether they'll still have the same tendency and desire to fire the first shot."

"Don't let us down, otherwise we wouldn't mind teaching that bad guy a lesson, or even cleaning up the mess."

It took Margo more than two weeks to barely figure out a small part of the ship's internal structure. The area where she lived was obviously modified specifically for her, because she could generally see spherical cabins of various sizes in other areas of the spacecraft. She also passed through a cabin and corridor in the spacecraft that looked like a fully transparent glass tunnel in an oceanarium. Outside the tunnel, which was separated by unknown transparent materials, it was filled with liquid like seawater on Earth, and there were a large number of creatures that Margo did not recognize swimming in it. Based on her common sense, Margo judged that these creatures were most likely not creatures from Earth, but might be aquatic creatures from the other party's home planet or other planets.

Once, when he wanted to take a closer look at these alien creatures outside the fully transparent underwater tunnel, a glass eel happened to swim in the water outside. It directly pressed its face against the transparent partition outside the underwater tunnel and became interested in Magao, a strange carbon-based native.

Margo was observing the alien creatures carefully when suddenly a face and several tentacles slapped the glass in front of her, almost giving her a heart attack.

"Is it really that scary?" The glass eel looked at Mago who took a few steps back in the dry interior of the underwater tunnel and turned on the translator to connect to the local broadcast and communication system on the ship.

"Oh... you scared me to death. For an old and frail human like me, being overly frightened could easily cause a heart attack."

"Oh, is that so? Aren't you humans too fragile?"

"Rather, isn't your natural lifespan a bit too short? Can you be considered old at just 70?"

"In our country, even in the old days, 70 years old was not even considered youth, at most it was considered just adulthood."

"The natural lifespan of your species is somewhat unsatisfactory to Trio. It's not even long enough for an individual to fully learn the knowledge currently held by your civilization."

"This... is indeed a problem facing human society right now." Margo and the unfamiliar glass eel started talking through the glass of the underwater tunnel.

"Honestly, it seems to me that your species has too many problems right now. Your current social system is like a giant mountain of shit. It was just a makeshift system at first, and with each successive generation, the social structure and operation became more and more makeshift, until, after decades or centuries, the mountain of shit collapses."

"Also, I've been reading about the history of civilization on your planet lately, and I've noticed that humans often have no moral composure. How could we commit massacres, persecution, and discrimination against our own kind without any psychological pressure? Is it just because someone's skin color or their ideology differs from ours? This kind of thing is simply appalling to us."

"Even before we left our home planet and were still a backward primitive civilization, we weren't so shameless and couldn't do anything so shameless."

"Isn't the history and development model of your entire civilization a bit too extreme?"

Margo felt a little ashamed. She, her mentor, and the mentor's opponent on the other side of the ocean were all victims of political persecution caused by the defects of human genes and social structure. At present, there were indeed countless problems in human society, but the moral level of mankind seemed to be so low that even alien civilizations could not stand it and criticized it. This was the first time for Margo.

"Looking at your expression, do you think this is normal?"

"That's strange. Why do you humans take such unscrupulous things as normal?"

"This kind of thing and phenomenon would have been horrifying even back when we were a primitive civilization just learning to use tools in the oceans of our home planet. Yet, you actually treat it as normal?"

"Isn't your model of civilization development a bit too bad?"

"I've counted the times in your civilization's history where, out of sheer arrogance, you've waged war and massacred your fellow humans on the same planet. This has resulted in the most catastrophic and unacceptable consequences. From this point of view, what you need to improve next isn't just your social system, but also the tendency towards violence and hostility towards your own kind that's ingrained in your genes."

"Well... I'm curious, what is your society like?"

"We? Hmm... let me think about it. I'm probably more grateful for your concept of a communist society. Everything an individual needs, whether material or spiritual, will be unconditionally provided to us by the super artificial intelligence responsible for managing the production and operation of the entire society. Our bodies are essentially a highly mechanized synthetic body completely fused with the original flesh of nanomachines. Our thoughts and consciousness are also interconnected because of the existence of this body, truly achieving joint decision-making for the entire civilization, unity of mind, and complete trust in each other as compatriots. Because of the existence of this mental connection, we cannot do anything to harm our own kind."

"Sociologically speaking, are we currently closer to your concept of a utopia that combines high governance with high obedience, achieving a perfect balance between all individual needs and desires?"

"Oh... this is indeed... much ahead of us."

"Although we seem to be heading towards a state similar to what you call the 'Valley of Ideas' due to the inevitable gradual decentralization of civilization, it's not a bad thing."

"What? But doesn't the Valley of Ideas, in human understanding and philosophical concepts, mean..."

"Yes, the disintegration of civilization is indeed true in a sense. But the reason we are experiencing this phenomenon is that our technology is gradually developing to the point where a single individual can sustain everything needed for the development of an entire civilization. In that case, whether society or civilization disintegrates or not doesn't matter. After all, we are still interconnected at the level of thinking and consciousness. If a single individual can do everything that an entire civilization can do, then the gradual disappearance of the original civilization and social structure over time is not a big deal."

"And in fact, we've already seen examples of this. Besides retaining an instinct essential to maintaining their humanity, their civilization has also developed in a form close to the human concept of the Valley of Ideas. After the social structure composed of a large number of individuals disintegrated, their civilization not only did not decline, but even became more advanced and prosperous."

"They (she)?" Because in the conversation between one person and one glass eel, the translator accurately translated this sentence.

"Our friends, there's another civilization that bears a little resemblance to you. Of course, their similarities to humans are only slight. Their level of technology, development, and scale of civilization are even greater than ours, and... there's something you've been misunderstanding."

"It wasn't us who came to your galaxy first, but them."

"Besides, they might be more interested in you than we are. At least as far as I know, some of them have been on Earth for quite some time, and they have some serious opinions about human civilization."

"Wait a minute... Are you saying that you're not the only alien civilization in the solar system right now?!?"

"When did I ever say we were the only ones in the solar system? If we calculate according to Earth time, they discovered you more than half a year earlier than we did. Until recently, our ship had been closely observing the civilization 44 light-years away that was constructing a stellar astronomical project. Only then did we receive the news that they had discovered a civilization in this galaxy."

"Even the stargate in your Jupiter orbit was opened with their help. However, that gate is connected to our wormhole hub. They have their own distributed wormhole network."

"Wait a minute, let me think this through. You mean you didn't build that door?"

"No, but our stargates use the same interoperable technology, just with different overall construction scales and usage concepts. If necessary, we can connect to each other's impulse and stargate networks."

"They built the stargate in our solar system. After they opened it, we used the anchor wormhole connecting the two star systems to travel through it from 44 light-years away."

"In terms of order of precedence, we are the ones who came later."

"That spaceship in orbit around Mars..."

"It's theirs... But Zao Chiqi is the glass eel that brought you aboard first. He has a good relationship with them, so let Zao Chiqi be in charge of the contact with you..."

Margo felt like he had been struck by a bolt from the blue. The spaceship in the orbit of Mars was actually not of the same species as the one above the Earth. How could the humans on Earth not realize this until now?

"Does your expression now qualify as unease according to the human definition of emotion? Don't worry. They have no hostility towards humans. They simply have some issues with the development model and structure of human society to date."

"Well... in your words, they're just a little unhappy that human civilization can't break out of this vicious cycle."

"And the trust and connection between us and them is deeper than you might imagine. We are not the kind of so-called allies on Earth who can only trust each other when there are common interests, and might backstab each other if those interests are lost. We truly trust each other completely.

In Jupiter's Trojan asteroid belt, on the Salem, which has not yet been discovered by humans, a 100,000-year-old pink-haired elf girl is being intimate with her red-haired catgirl. It was not until the two of them had each other's bodies covered with traces of holy water and fell asleep in each other's arms that Salem had time to pull his consciousness out of this body.

"Really, Sister Kellyas is still so good at this." The red-haired cat girl's consciousness returned to the quantum computer array on the spacecraft. It took her less than a femtosecond to check the operation status of all the equipment on the spacecraft.

"The strange quark cluster microwormhole transmission device is operating normally, the naked singularity reactor's superluminal negative energy flow output is operating normally, the warp engine is in normal condition, the high-dimensional space jump engine is in normal condition, the wormhole network information and matter transmission system is in normal condition, and there are no abnormalities in the hull weapon system."

"Yes, the compatibility of all systems is perfect. At least within this galaxy, there's nothing that can threaten this ship. We probably won't need weapons for a while."

"Let's see if the humans on this blue-green planet can overcome their selfish and exclusive nature and truly reach for the stars. At the very least, we have to take the first step of building a mass accelerator and mining that asteroid. Otherwise, everything that follows will be just empty talk."

"If they can't even form the most basic planetary-level unified economic sphere, then I don't think there's any point in saving them."

"The solution lies in overcoming the barriers of language, culture, and ideological identity, and ensuring fair and efficient growth for all people."

"And...the intelligent creatures that evolved from natural life forms simply couldn't keep up with the impact of the technological development at the time of the explosion?"

"The natural evolution of intelligent species has completely failed to keep pace with the changes in social productivity systems and the progress brought about by technology itself. This may be the crux of the problem."

"We've clearly entered the information age, but the natural flesh of individual humans still retains the behavioral patterns of the hunting-gathering and farming eras. Originally adapted to hunting-gathering and farming, our bodies have gradually become a burden, a mountain of accumulated waste over millions of years. Simply improving productivity, external factors like this, won't cut it. To build an ideal civilization, we must eliminate the malignant factors that have accumulated in our genes."

"In this respect, the Theia civilization 44 light-years away is much better. Can they achieve digital uploading of the brain through cryo-electron microscopy?"

"But it seems that while the technology is mature, the computing power is insufficient to maintain a virtual paradise where every individual in a civilization can upload their brains. No wonder... they're in such a hurry to build stellar celestial projects like the Dyson Cloud."

"Will we be able to digitally upload the brains of all individuals while increasing the overall productivity and output power of civilization?"

"In comparison, the humans here are a bit lagging behind. They're still thinking of outdated methods like increasing population and fertility rates to increase the labor force... Alas, these humans haven't realized the root cause of the problem."

"Naturally evolved intelligent life, a von Neumann self-replicator with numerous inherent flaws, is simply incapable of achieving permanent exponential population growth. To maintain the sustainable development of civilization, we must create true AGI, a general strong artificial intelligence, and, as a follow-up, ASI, a super artificial intelligence. Using these, we can design even more perfect von Neumann self-replicators capable of permanent exponential replication. Only then can we achieve the sustainable development and growth of civilization."

"It's pointless to just focus on increasing the population and labor force without improving your own biological bodies, which are as backward as a pile of shit code!"

"People next door are already using von Neumann self-replicators made with general artificial intelligence. Although this rudimentary von Neumann self-replicator technology is still very crude, it's at least much more advanced than what's here."

"Aren't the humans here a little too backward? Can you at least give me some more advanced methods?"

For some reason, Salem felt that his thoughts were similar to those of modern people who traveled back to the Middle Ages and said, "It's too feudal, please come up with some capital." In Salem's own words, it was like "It's too inefficient and backward, please come up with some automation and science and technology!"

"Why can't naturally evolved intelligent life break out of this vicious cycle? We keep thinking of these superficial solutions. Wouldn't it be better to use cheap, universally accessible artificial intelligence and robots? And we're still thinking about how to increase the population?"