The stars, but they become the gray wind

"We haven't seen any of them in a long time. As a flawed life form born almost simultaneously with the universe, they are not something you can mess with. You're lucky to be treated as insignificant bugs by them. If they truly considered you their enemy, you would have ceased to exist long ago."

"Let me show you something, Admiral Yang." Yuki clapped his hands casually, and the scene around him suddenly changed. Yang was still sitting on his sofa, but he was a little unsure whether this was his room anymore. He was very sure that his room did not have such a highly realistic 3D holographic projection function.

A spiral galactic disk appeared in front of Yang's sight. It was the most common spiral galaxy in the universe. Yang looked at this spiral galaxy that was highly similar to the Milky Way, trying to observe its details. However, in the next second, a large number of light spots on one side of the spiral galaxy suddenly went out. Then, these extinguished light spots seemed to trigger some kind of chain reaction. The entire spiral galaxy began to dim at an extremely fast speed. In front of Yang, the entire spiral galaxy finally went out completely.

"What is this?" Yang asked curiously.

"How they deal with their real enemies.")

"You're witnessing the complete extinguishing and destruction of a galaxy the size of the Milky Way. They're completely annihilating one of their opponents who interfered with their plans." Yuki zoomed in on one of the stars. Yang Weili saw it, seemingly encased in some strange, translucent device even larger than the star itself. The planets orbiting it were completely frozen, reduced to a utterly dead place.

"Except for the stars that were extinguished and destroyed, all the stars in that galaxy were eventually encapsulated in facilities like this. This is the result of opposing these ancient beings. That civilization's galaxy was wiped out from the universe."

"We are the youngest and relatively friendly of those ancient beings. Let me give you a piece of advice: don't provoke those you can't afford to offend. Not every ancient being is as gentle as us."

Chapter 227: Ancient History from Other Universes (6000 words)

"Do the ancient and terrifying things in the universe have no ill intentions towards us?" After the mysterious alien visitor left after the conversation, Yang looked at the brandy left by the other party and thought about the hint left by the other party.

Yang called up a picture captured by the Alliance fleet before evacuating the Yamlitza system. The pure black body of the Night Fighter contrasted with the dark starry sky in the background. The faint light of the distant Yamlitza star illuminated this lifeless black starry sky. The Night Fighter in the picture was like a messenger of death, turning one Alliance and Imperial warship after another into nuclear fireballs that continued to expand outward in the vacuum. Yang Weili recalled the conversation just now.

"Just because we're in their way?"

"Although I'm reluctant to admit it, this is the truth, Admiral Yang. Imagine you're a traveler who wants to rest at a place and build a fire to warm yourself. Before you start the fire, you discover two ants and insects next to the fire that are hindering your progress. So you drive away the two ants to prevent them from disturbing you."

"The Alliance and the Empire, in front of us and other ancient beings, are like two ants that interrupted the travelers' fires. What you encountered in the Yamliza star system was just a trivial expulsion. You tried to prevent such a bug from hindering your fire, and also to prevent the fire you started from burning the bug. Think about it carefully. What would have happened if it had ignored the Imperial and Alliance fleets in the system and directly destroyed the star in the Yamliza system?"

"There is no doubt... both the Alliance and the Empire will be wiped out in the massive explosion of the Yamliza star system." Yang replied after thinking for a few seconds.

"So, from our perspective, this traveler was kind enough to drive away the insects before lighting the fire, preventing them from being burned to death. His behavior was quite kind, at least by the standards of those ancient beings."

"Compared to this, I'm more curious about the attitude of ancient beings like you towards a war of this magnitude. What are your thoughts?"

"From your perspective, is the war between the Alliance and the Empire as ridiculous as two primitive people fighting with sticks?"

"Rather than calling it a fight between primitive men, it's more like two animals in a zoo. In our opinion, the conflict between you is meaningless. Your petty quarrel is nothing more than this level VIII."

"In fact, you've never witnessed what true interstellar warfare is like. It's a war that exists and is waged with the complete extermination of the opposing species. The complete annihilation of countless star systems across the entire galaxy is commonplace. In comparison, this petty conflict between the Alliance and the Empire is as ridiculous as monkeys in a zoo throwing rocks at each other."

"Is that so?" Yang Weili said with a wry smile after taking a sip of the brandy the other party had given him.

"This is also why, in a sense, we don't like species like you... You're always fighting over such meaningless things, wasting resources that could be used to ensure the survival of your species for a longer period of time."

"Then... could you please tell me more about the history of the ancient race that appeared in the Yamliza system?"

"Them? Their history is a very long story. Do you have the patience to listen?"

"I'd like to hear more about it." Yang was curious about the history of this civilization from another race and another universe. He wanted to know what kind of history and past such a race, so completely different from humans, had. Since his youth, he had wanted to be a historian rather than a soldier. He had read the entire historical record of mankind and found that human history, to some extent, has always shown certain recurring problems. Yang Weili was curious, was this problem unique to humans? Could another civilization, completely different from humans, from another time and space, encounter such problems?

"The Xeelee civilization was born at the very beginning of their universe, in the early days of the Big Bang. They are a composite organism composed of solidified space-time defects, Bose-Einstein condensates, and ordinary baryons. They are an ancient and magical "space-time chemical" organism. They have survived repeated changes in the overall environment of the universe and gradually found ways to adapt to the increasingly cold cosmic environment. Although for them, the era relative to the current period of your universe can be said to be a symbol of cold, darkness, and death. At the beginning of their civilization, there was no "matter" in the normal sense. But as the universe evolved through the Big Bang, Then, gradually cooling and expanding, they discovered that they could effectively form a symbiotic relationship with organisms made of condensed matter, locking their existence within the expanded structure of a single quantum state. A completely new form of life carefully coalesced within the light-filled space, like an insect with a baryonic "body" and the "wings" of spacetime imperfections. This was the birth of a new ecological model, emerging from the fragments of the old universe. They found a permanent way to survive the gradually changing cosmic environment, and in this mode of survival, their stable existence will last throughout the universe until the end of time.

"To them, the universe at this stage is cold and dark, an expanding, icy corpse. As the temperature continues to drop, the universe becomes increasingly empty. In their view, the most beautiful days of the entire universe, and the most suitable environment for their survival, are the first three minutes after the Big Bang."

"At the beginning of their birth, an enemy appeared that posed a serious threat to their existence. At the end of the era of space-time defects at the beginning of the Big Bang, which occurred approximately 10-33 seconds after the Big Bang, the early Zerri civilization triggered an event that later became known as cosmic inflation. This event was a direct result of a conflict between the original Zerri and another group of space-time defect creatures. These creatures originated from a different realm in the early universe, completely disconnected from the speed of light limit. The original unified super-force decayed in a slightly different way. These different conditions caused them to evolve into an extremely aggressive species due to some factors, a species completely dedicated to military expansion. As the universe aged, previously unconnected regions of space suddenly had enough time to exchange signals of the speed of light limit. This led to the first contact between the original Zerri and the invaders' realms since the initial singularity."

"The resulting war nearly led to the extinction of the entire early Zerli civilization. To win the war, the Zerli civilization modified the symmetry-breaking parameters of the entire universe, creating more matter than antimatter, which directly led to the complete extinction of these invaders."

"Modifying the laws of cosmic physics and mathematics? Is this... a true interstellar war?" Hearing this, Yang gasped and sighed.

"Exactly. That's one of the reasons why I said that conflict between you guys was pointless."

"Compared to this war, which aims to completely exterminate the enemy by modifying the fundamental laws of the universe, your ambitions are nothing more than a boring monkey fight."

"Two hundred million years after the war that sealed the end of their universe, an unprecedented life form emerged within that universe—a group of beings composed entirely of dark matter. The birth of this life also spelled the end of their universe."

"These dark matter and dark energy beings, later known as photon birds, directly led the entire universe towards absolute death and a cold, dead silence."

"It also caused the entire Zerli civilization to choose to travel to other universes through a giant wormhole. This is why you see this thing in this place now."

Yuuki pointed at the Night Fighter on the hologram.

"After leaving the universe where they were born, they traveled to an infinite number of other multiverses. Since then, some civilizations have occasionally observed records of their brief appearances and spread information about them to other places."

"Can you tell me more about the life form of the photon bird?"

"Yes, photon birds are entities composed of pure dark energy and dark matter. They reside in the gravitational wells of stars. Photon birds will accelerate the aging of stars, causing all stars in the universe to rapidly decay and age into white dwarfs, accelerating the entire universe towards heat death."

"They and the Zerri civilization have engaged in offensive and defensive warfare for over tens of billions of years. To create an environment more suitable for their survival, they have endlessly altered the timeline and fundamental laws of the universe. However, unlike humans, their wars harbor no ill will towards one another."

"Both the Photon Bird and the Zerri Civilization were simply acting according to their instincts throughout this protracted cosmic offensive and defensive battle. They weren't compassionate gods. While they harbored no ill will toward other intelligent life, they also had no good intentions. This was because they simply didn't have such concepts. To them, other forms of life and civilizations were no different from cosmic dust."

"A war completely devoid of malice? Is such a war really possible?"

"Of course. The reason for this war, which has lasted for tens of billions of years, is fundamentally due to the complete disparity between the two life forms, which has led to the complete inability for them to communicate or exchange anything. They don't even have the concept of the other's existence."

"In comparison, it's ridiculous that humans would clash over a little ideological conflict, isn't it?"

"What about that other race you mentioned earlier that was wiped out from the entire galaxy by them?"

"They completely wiped out that race from the galaxy, not because they posed a threat, but because they interfered with what they were doing. It's like when you're focused on your work and there's always a fly buzzing around your ear, disrupting your concentration. They eliminated that race simply to eliminate the distraction, to swat away a bug that kept buzzing around your ear, interrupting your normal work."

"Is this why that night fighter attacked us? Because we were there preventing Him from making a fire to warm Himself?"

“Although the specific reason may be difficult to determine, this is the most likely reason.”

"This is really... hard to accept, isn't it?"

Yang Weili shook his head and gave a helpless smile.

"If the allied people and soldiers knew they were being attacked simply for this reason, they would probably find it unacceptable, right?"

"You think it's an attack, but the other side doesn't. From their perspective, they're just driving away a bunch of bugs that are interfering with their normal work."

"Then, as one of those ancient beings, what do you think of us?"

"You're a bunch of monkeys with terrible behavior who love to fight each other over trivial matters, yet you possess a wealth of potential and enormous room for self-improvement. Although we truly dislike you, we will still allow you a chance and time to improve. However... we've only gained disappointment from many civilizations. They almost never realize where their problems lie. Even with ample time and opportunity for self-improvement, they ultimately squander it, allowing themselves to embark on a path of internal conflict that leads to destruction. And you... are still on that path."

"You said we should stop being on the path of decline due to internal friction. So, is there any solution?"

"Yes... but your current level of technology is incapable of implementing it, and your society is incapable of accepting it. Furthermore, in our opinion, your social model has simply not kept pace with the growth of civilization and technology. It's simply a waste of time and resources."

"You currently have some hope and possibility, but that's all. If you can't even seize this opportunity yourself, why should we help you?"

The next day at breakfast, Yang Wei-li ran into Schneider and his adjutant Greenhill in the ship's dining room and told them about the previously unknown conversation.

"Oh my, Admiral, I think you overlooked something important."

"what's up?"

"There are so many people in our fleet, and countless officers and soldiers who witnessed that spacecraft in the Yamliza system. Why did she choose to look for you?

"How would I know?" Yang shrugged.

"This shows that in their eyes, you may be special." Xian Kobu directly grasped the key point of the whole matter that Yang Yang overlooked.

"Special? What's so special about me? I'm just a trouble-shy guy who wants to retire quickly and collect his pension.

already. "

"I don't know about that. Anyway, why didn't they find someone else but chose to tell you this? It only further proves that you are special in their eyes."

"I'm just curious about the past and history of other civilizations."

"So what's the result?"

"Perhaps I've caught a glimpse of the truly formidable power of the universe's civilizations. The scale and horror of a true interstellar war would make all previous conflicts in human history seem like jokes. Even the destruction of Dagon and the several assaults on Iserlohn Fortress pale in comparison to a war of this magnitude, scale, and intensity."

"It sounds like the Alliance and the Empire, whose science and technology are stagnant, don't even have a place in a real interstellar war?" After hearing this, Senkob did not express his frustration, but just spread his hands nonchalantly.

"I didn't expect you to react like this." Yang was quite surprised by Shen Kobu's reaction.

"Oh, what kind of reaction?"

"It's that look of, 'I can't do anything anyway, so I might as well have a few drinks and get drunk.'"

"Haha, Admiral Yang, you really have a sense of humor sometimes. Do you want to find an opportunity to go for a few drinks with me during your vacation sometime in the future?"

"Forget it. If I get drunk with you, Julian will blame me."

The two of them were jokingly discussing this conversation that could affect the fate of countless people in the future.

"If we just talk to him like this, the following problem shouldn't arise, right?"

"Anyway, the civil war between Reinhardt and the aristocratic families in the Empire must be fought. As for the Alliance, since Heinessen's defense system has been completely destroyed and the pro-war faction within the Alliance has been sent packing, the entire Alliance will probably no longer have the spare capacity to launch any active military offensives during the Imperial Civil War. There are only two things left for us to do."

Kaleese held up two fingers of her right hand.

"One is to ensure that a gifted military and political figure does not stray from his original aspirations. The other is to prevent certain nobles from engaging in inhumane behavior during the empire's civil war. This is much simpler."

"What should we do? Should we just beat them up directly? Or should we use the Night Fighter disguise to send them all to the sky?"

"No, I have a better way."

Kalisi waved her hand and opened the holographic star map, showing the galaxy distribution image on the imperial side.

"Come to think of it, there seem to be quite a few star systems in the empire that are underdeveloped because there are no planets to migrate to, right?"

“Yes, there are quite a few.”

"What if these stars in these desolate, almost uninhabited galaxies in the heart of the Empire were to ignite directly into supernovas?"

"For example, there are several galaxies that happen to be close to the fiefdoms of certain imperial nobles. If the stars there explode into supernovas or black holes, it would be interesting to see how those corrupt imperial nobles would react."

"You want to...scare them?"

"Some humans will always be like this. Without a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, a bottom line they cannot cross, they are bound to become corrupt and degenerate."

"Besides... I've been feeling a bit itchy lately. I haven't even finished blowing up Yamlitza's star with gravitational waves."

"Are you... turning green again? You like big bombs so much."

“Sometimes, explosions are art.”

"What's more, our Sky Star sisters are much more advanced than I am in certain more abstract art fields. I heard that some of our sister art groups have begun researching how to make the explosions of planets torn apart and shattered by gravitational beams during the disassembly process more artistic."

"Are there still people studying this weird art?" Yuki felt ashamed.

"Yes, indeed. Some artists have even come up with the idea of ​​using a massive rocky object as it's being dismantled and shattered to create a piece of music played in binary form, using the gamma rays released by the planet as it's gradually struck by lightweight relativistic kinetic warheads."

"Ah...this...isn't it too abstract?")

"There's something even more abstract. Remember those pulsars left over from the destruction of those stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud?"

"Some artistic sisters have begun broadcasting their own music to the entire universe through the targeted gamma-ray bursts released by artificially manipulated pulsars."

Yuki imagined that if some civilization in the universe that was looking up at the sky happened to receive and observe this piece of music played in the form of an ultra-high-energy directional gamma-ray burst, they would probably take this gamma-ray burst information that was obviously edited by humans very seriously, right?

If after they decipher it, they find out that it is just a piece of music casually composed by some Sky Star Sisters, and even has their own signature at the end, Yuki is very curious. If there really is an alien civilization on the other side of the distant universe that receives this message and is confused after deciphering it, will it be?

Perhaps the scenario by then will be something like this: an unknown civilization receiving the message will exclaim: Wow! An interstellar communication signal broadcast via an artificially controlled pulsar gamma-ray burst is worthy of being sent via such an extreme and dangerous celestial body. This must be some incredibly important message sent by a highly technological alien civilization, and we must decipher it!

Then, when the civilization that received the message spent a lot of effort and finally deciphered the content of the message, it would definitely be confused and scratch its head trying to understand what this piece of music that was just casually composed wanted to express?

The unknown civilization that received the message: What the hell is this? No! The information broadcast by cosmic beacons like neutron stars and pulsars must be very important. There must be some hidden message! I must have not yet deciphered it!

Thinking of this, Yuki shook his head and put this weird idea and scene aside for the time being.

"Does it feel like after spending so much time with our sisters, your artistic thinking has become increasingly abstract?"

"In fact, compared to this, just using the pulsar gamma-ray burst to play music on the universal frequency is nothing..." Carlisle handed over the data terminal in her hand. On it was a piece of work being done by a group of sky star art lovers in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

"Using highly regular stellar astronomical engineering, the Large Magellanic Cloud appears to be a piece of celestial text from a distance?!"

"In short, through stellar engineering, the approximately 5.27 million stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud produce noticeable differences in brightness. This allows third-party observers to see millions of stars within the Large Magellanic Cloud as a sky text message reading 'Hello!!!'"

"This short text message is about 6000 light-years in diameter and can be observed directly with a telescope or even the naked eye even from the direction of the Milky Way."

"Even if you're hundreds of millions of light years away, a decent telescope would be enough to detect the most straightforward textual information on this astronomical scale."

"Why does this thing always give me the feeling of showing off my skills?"

"Using celestial engineering to directly block most of a star's heat to obtain energy and resources is itself a kind of show of one's own engineering and technological capabilities, isn't it?"

"Moreover, as our sisters at the origin and genetic level, they have always had a penchant for engineering planets or stellar bodies into works of art. This kind of large-scale abstract art is not the first time we have seen it."

"Speaking of which, how far along is this abstract art project?"

"It seems we've already reached about 5% of the project. So far, we've completed astronomical projects to modify the brightness of stars in over 26 galaxies. There's still quite a while before completion."

"This progress is too fast. We've only been building large-scale stellar-class astronomical projects in the Large Magellanic Cloud for a dozen years now. Are they moving all of the macroscopic CTC factory's production capacity for the next few hundred years here?"

"Not entirely. The exponential growth rate of the von Neumann self-replicator itself is terrifying. Coupled with the nearly unlimited production capacity of the macroscopic CTC factory sent back from the future, it's not surprising that such a small group of artists could complete such a large number of stellar-scale celestial projects in such a short period of time."

Chapter 228: The true path for the continuation of civilization development?

When the alliance suffered heavy losses due to the surprise attack on its capital and was unable to carry out any military actions or intervention abroad, the empire was also caught in a struggle for the highest power due to the sudden death of Emperor Frederick IV. Since the emperor did not designate any successor during his lifetime, the nobles and royalist ministers were ready to make a move, especially when Chancellor Lidenrad announced that the throne would be inherited by a five-year-old child like Elwe Yushev who had no background or backing. The nobles headed by Brunswick and Lidenheim almost immediately formed the Lipschitz coalition, a noble coalition against Lidenrad and Reinhard.