Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 228: Hypothesis

The translation was simply too suspicious. Many were at a loss for words…

What did it mean by "Space Recycling, Recycling all types of technologies and biomass?" This was like an for a recycling company…

There were plenty of blank expressions in the room, befuddled by this message that was seriously inconspicuous. After who knew how long, Wa Luo suddenly said, "What the f*ck?! The signal is from a garbage man?"

The shock was warranted. The alien civilization that could space warp was a waste picker…? This was too suspicious.

Someone asked, "Could the message have been mistranslated? After all, there must be plenty of linguistic differences between our language and theirs."

These words were echoed by many. After all, the idea that such a powerful civilization was a waste picker didn’t sit well with many. Many even tossed it out as nonsense.

Bo Li gave the screen a closer look and concluded, "No, the translation is correct. This signal is part of the junkyard civilization’s database, and the signal's origin is someone they had made contact with before. I remember now, this signal belongs to the merchant civilization that they traded their two cosmic adaptors with!"

Merchant civilization?

The Hope, or more specifically, the human race within the Hope, hadn’t really had actual contact with other alien civilizations. However, they did know of their existence through other means.

The first was, of course, the junkyard civilization that contributed greatly to mankind’s current technological level. The second was the merchant civilization that traded with the junkyard civilization. The third was the liquid robot civilization that demolished the junkyard civilization. These were the three first alien civilizations humanity encountered.

Technically speaking, the mother nest alien and the aquatic civilizations consumed by the mother nest alien were alien civilizations known to mankind as well.

The above were the alien civilizations mankind had some knowledge about. Of course, the wide cosmos was home to more civilizations than these, each with their own uniqueness and technological levels.

When Bo Li mentioned the merchant civilization, everyone thought back to the information they received from the junkyard civilization on this merchant civilization.

The incomplete information taken from the junkyard civilization stated that the merchant civilization wasn’t exactly a race but a space conglomerate made up of several alien races. Its technological prowess was between the peak of the 4th revolution and the early 5th revolution. The conglomerate had perhaps more than a thousand individual ships across the cosmos.

They were the middle man between many civilizations, trading technologies, materials, and biomass. The merchants slowly picked up pieces of information and improved themselves from the technologies that passed through their doors.

They were a unique space civilization.

In comparison to the many space civilizations, the space merchants were one of the rare ‘peaceful’ civilizations. At least they didn’t present themselves as predators. Even when treating civilizations way below their level, they presented themselves as traders or merchants. They were in popular demand for many civilizations that had just entered space, or level 2 civilizations. This was because they could get the important star navigation maps or valuable 5th revolution technology from the merchants. These were essential to the survival of level 2 civilizations.

When the identity of the signal's origin revealed itself, another set of questions appeared. The main one being: should they warp immediately to avoid the merchants?

The argument for immediate warp was because mankind had no idea who the signal's origin was. Yao Yuan decided to warp in case the alien civilization posed an insurmountable threat to the Hope.

However, now that they knew about their identity and modus operandi, the thought process would be different.

Yao Yuan’s mind started spinning in overdrive. First, humanity couldn’t avoid contact with other space civilizations forever.

Before this, he had discussed the theory of Black Forest [1] with a group of scientists, and the Academy had vetoed the theory directly. According to the scientists, the first rule of the Black Forest Theory, which said that light speed was a barrier that couldn’t be broken, was already wrong. The highest travelling speed in space was light speed. However, technology like warp drive, wormhole, and star gate completely undermined the Black Forest Theory. Since the first rule was wrong, the other rules were questionable as well.

This meant that communication between space civilizations was entirely possible. Of course, while symbiotic relationships weren’t a given, it also didn’t meant that every space civilization must necessarily be out to harm each other.

In other words, for humanity to really be a part of the cosmic society, communication with other space civilizations was inevitable.

Therefore, if the signal's origin was really the space merchants, then it didn’t seem it was necessary for humanity to warp. After all, compared to other unknown space civilizations, having the space merchants as mankind’s first contact with space civilization might be a good thing. At least they could exchange information or even obtain 5th revolution technology like the warp drive from the merchants!

The Hope’s space warp technology, while high up there, was highly unpredictable. The warp exit was a random toss of the dice. To get stuck within the new planet was nothing; what if the Hope suddenly warped into the sun, near a neutron star, or a bottomless black hole? The result would be the extinction of humanity within the blink of an eye.

Not only that, the Hope would always warp out at a location several light-years away from a solar system. The distance of half a light-year was already a despair-worthy distance for humanity, much less several light-years. Therefore, more often than not, mankind had to abandon the possibility of discovering a new home planet. However, with the access to the warp drive technology, wouldn’t that issue be solved? The discovered planets might not be naturally suitable for human habitation, but with humanity’s current technology, they could terraform the planet easily!

Therefore, warp drive was a super valuable technology to have…

Weighing all the pros and cons, contact with the space merchants seemed to be more beneficial than not…

Of course, since the lives of the whole of mankind hinged on this decision, Yao Yuan had to be extremely cautious about it. Even if he had made the decision in his mind, he still needed to consult it with Xiao Niao and Ren… Where was Ren Tao?

Yao Yuan looked around curiously, but he failed to spot Ren Tao. This made him scratch his head. Wasn’t Ren Tao in the room minutes ago? Did he leave without them noticing?

Finally, it was eagle-eyed Ying who spotted him. He found Ren Tao spacing out on top of a 10-meter-tall device. Ying had someone fetch him down, but the question of how he even got up there in the first place was one that no one could answer…

When Yao Yuan sought their opinions, the two of them gave differing answers. Xiao Niao agreed with Yao Yuan. "I believe it is fine for us to stay. Just like you said, instead of placing our bet on a future unknown civilization, why not have our first space civilization contact be with the space merchants? The one thing we’re lacking the most right now is information, information on other space civilizations, like how many are there, what are their customs during communication, the technology variance, and the likes. Valuable information like this we can procure from the space merchants. Furthermore, they’re willing to take anything for trade, right? We have some valuable minerals that we can trade for the information."

Ren Tao’s answer was different. He said, "I think the key to staying or not depends on whether the space merchants have had contact with us humans before or not…"

While others were confused by his observations, Yao Yuan responded directly, "Of course they couldn’t have gained contact with us before; this is our first time being so physically close to them."

Ren Tao shook his head. "Have you forgotten about the humans that left Earth before us? Their technology couldn’t be better than ours since it is statistically impossible for them to stumble into a junkyard civilization that they could siphon technology from. If they ran into the space merchants, I don’t think it would end up well for them. After all, all the civilizations that ventured into space were level 2 civilizations. The government officials’ spaceship technology was only level 1. Do you think the space merchants would trade with them, or capture them to analyze the technology that allowed them to venture into space in the first place?

"They would find out the number of disproportionate cosmic adaptors within humanity. Wasn’t it stated before that their most valuable commodities were cosmic adaptors…

"What do you think will happen when they run into us, level 2 civilization human beings?"

Translator's Thoughts

Lonelytree Lonelytree

A theory put forth by novelist Liu Ci Xin in his sci-fi novel, Tri-Body.