Chapter 1427 Before Facing the Stars

The vast sea of ​​stars is vast and vast, and there are endless possibilities in the endless stars, and the endless darkness hides these possibilities in it—as a planetary civilization that has not yet broken free from the shackles of gravity, when ordinary people look up at the sky, they can only look at it with Imagination and reasoning are used to guess what the opposite side of the star sea looks like. Therefore, in this case, every piece of news from the star sea will especially stimulate the nerves of those looking up.

The setting sun has gradually sunk to the edge of the horizon, and the days in late autumn have begun to look short. The festive atmosphere of the Victory Day celebration has not completely dissipated from the city, and the streets outside the window can still see the flow of people coming and going for the celebration and selling goods. Souvenir vendors and shops, and street lights are being lit up one after another in the distance, and in the gradually dimming sky, twinkling stars can be seen faintly.

The Frost Sky isn't in the sky yet - but it's there.

Gao Wen stood in front of the French window of the study, looking at the faint stars in the sky outside the window, his expression was more serious than usual, and Amber's voice came from the side: "It seems that you are very concerned about this matter. ah……"

"There is a civilization capable of sending faster-than-light communications that has cast its sights on us in the sea of ​​stars. Of course, it is worthy of attention." Gawain did not turn his head, but said slowly, "For those who have begun to notice the stars above their heads but have no ability to For civilizations that have really stepped into the universe, the feeling of surviving in the world is like trekking in the night. We can't be sure what's in the darkness around us, and we can't be sure whether the companions who may exist nearby are enemies or friends. We have noticed When the darkness exists, but you still don’t have the ability to light up the lights to disperse the darkness—this stage is the most stressful state.

"Over the years, we have been sure that there is at least one figure walking with us in this night. This figure held a torch in his hand, but he didn't notice us who were still in the dark, but suddenly, he seemed to be aware of the darkness around us. There are other people, and now this figure is looking towards our hiding place... I think you can understand the feeling."

"...Indeed, I understand too well." Hearing Gao Wen's analogy, Amber's hairs stood on end. "It's like being kicked out suddenly in a stealth state. It's shocking to think about it."

"...When I was traveling alone, I hoped that someone would accompany me in the night, but I felt nervous and resisted when there was a companion," Gao Wen sighed softly, "I can only blame the star sea for being too vast, and there are too many uncertainties in it. "

Amber thought for a while: "But then again, in a sense, we are the ones who take the initiative. After all, we have known the existence of 'them' for so long, but 'they' have not known us. Even now, the alien civilization that sent the signal seems to be unsure of the existence of 'Unknown Civilization Alpha'. We are always hiding in the dark... Generally speaking, this is the party that makes people more nervous .”

"It is undeniable that the situation you mentioned does exist," Gao Wen said slowly, and then frowned in confusion,

"So sometimes I also doubt that the civilization that sent the signal is really an ethnic group that is more advanced than us? If the signal is not a trap, then their performance is too young and reckless. If the signal is a trap...then there is A civilization capable of superluminal communication should also be able to perform high-precision deep space scanning. As Siren once mentioned, deep space scanning is the front-end technology for superluminal communication, so it is impossible for the civilization that sent the signal to not know we exist..."

"Didn't you say that the 'technology trees' of different civilizations may be completely different," Amber said with a serious face, "It is possible that they have jumped the technological line, maybe they have found a development path that is different from that of the Kraken, so just Did not point out the skill of deep space scanning."

Gawain glanced at the Shadow Assault Goose who was seriously analyzing it with somewhat weird eyes: "To be honest, you have been talking about these 'proper nouns' with me all day long, do you really understand what they mean?"

Amber immediately became confident: "I only understand part of it, but I can't talk nonsense, can't I? Simply associating the context..."

To be able to talk nonsense with others even when he half understands it - Gao Wen thinks this is really an amazing talent.

And thanks to Amber for interrupting, Gao Wen also felt his emotions relax a lot. He breathed a sigh of relief, and saw that the sunset outside the window had completely fallen to the end of the earth, leaving only a faint red color along the clouds and permeating the city. In the sky above, the starlight became more and more eye-catching, and a few stars in the Frost Sky constellation gradually appeared in the night sky—the agreed meeting time was approaching.

He sorted out his thoughts, then turned to look at Amber: "Help me guard later."

Amber patted her chest: "You know, don't worry, I'm familiar with this."

...

Neural network, in a special encrypted space, a breeze suddenly blew up in an endless and open white flower field, and the breeze blew across the sea of ​​flowers, and then it turned into a white round table and several gorgeous chairs around the round table, and then, Several figures appeared around the round table one after another—the first one appeared was Gawain, followed by Rosetta Augustus with a serious expression and a thin figure, and then another glare appeared, a tall and beautiful The blond figure walked out of the light, it was Belsetia Morningstar.

Under normal circumstances, Gao Wen used conventional holographic projections to hold such remote meetings, but this time it was a special case. He set the address of the meeting in the "white flower sea" of the neural network - long before the Wasteland War, The Cecil-style communication network has already appeared in Typhon and the Silver Empire. Although it is still in its infancy, at least in places like the Obsidian Palace and the Elven King's Court, there is a full set of magic devices that can communicate with Cecil City in real time. guide equipment, this includes the Magic Net terminal and the immersion chamber.

Whether you use it frequently or not is another matter. After entering the cyberspace, Rosetta is obviously not used to it. The ruler of Typhon looked down at his body in the default mode, and raised his head again. After shaking hands, I couldn't help muttering softly: "...It really is an incredible technology, it can really be simulated to this extent..."

Then he looked up at Gao Wen and the Silver Queen, and greeted the rulers of the other two empires with a decent attitude.

"Welcome to this sea of ​​flowers—this is an encrypted space I specially prepared for special meetings," Gawain nodded to Rosetta and Belsetia, motioning for them to sit down at the round table before he said, "This is It's the first time we've met in this form, but as you can feel, it's almost as real as the real world, and you don't need any extra adaptation, just treat it as meeting in the real world."

"I think it's more convenient than the real world," Belsetia smiled, and after she sat down, she tapped on the table, and a beautiful tea set appeared in front of her, "This kind of tea can't be done in the real world." matter."

Rosetta next to her looked at the Silver Queen in surprise, but before he asked, Gawain said in surprise, "You seem to be quite skilled."

"I've always been very interested in this new technology," Belsetia said with a smile, "Although the number of immersion chambers in the Silver Empire is still very small, and the corresponding network has just started construction, my courtiers and I Already starting to figure out how to use this thing efficiently - speaking of which, the 'outages' during previous wars were really frustrating."

Speaking of this, she glanced at Rosetta Augustus next to her: "Your Majesty Augustus, don't you use it often? The networking conditions between Typhon and Cecil should be much better than that of the Silver Empire Bar."

"...I've only used it once or twice, and I don't usually spend much time on it," Rosetta said with a straight face, "But Matilda and Hadiron seem to use it often, I've seen them use it .”

Immediately afterwards, he turned to Gao Wen who held the meeting: "Let's talk about the business, why did you contact us all of a sudden, and choose such a special...meeting form?"

"It's related to the 'Xinghai signal' we've been receiving for a long time," Gao Wen said with a nod. "We've analyzed the disturbing content from the recently captured signal, but the specific situation...will have to wait for several other participants The attendees will be there to explain. The reason why the conference address is selected in the neural network this time is also because of these special participants.”

"Special participants?" Belsetia frowned suspiciously, as if she had guessed something vaguely, and almost at the same time as her words fell, a twisting light curtain suddenly appeared in the air beside the round table. Then, flowers and vines rapidly grew and condensed in the light curtain, and in the gorgeous light and shadow, an old elf with a calm face stepped out of it.

Belsetia was a little puzzled for a while after seeing the figure of this old elf, but soon she realized the identity of this "incarnation", and a look of astonishment suddenly appeared on her face: "You..."

"I'm here for the meeting," Amoen showed a gentle smile, and nodded slightly to Belsetia, "Just call me Amoen here, or you can call me by my code name in the Theocratic Council,' Mister Deer'."

"Um..." Belsetia's eyes fell on the head of the old elf involuntarily, and she swept across the letters "High Speed ​​Buck", and used her strong willpower to control her curiosity. , "Okay, Amon... Your Excellency."

At this moment, Rosetta also realized who the "participants" in front of her were. Although she already knew the situation of several senior advisors in the Theocracy Council, and also knew that these "former gods" were now working and living with mortals, but If you know it, you know, it is another thing to see the incarnation of the God of Nature in this almost real cyberspace, especially this avatar has the name of "High Speed ​​Buck" on its head, which makes people who have always been calm Emperor Typhon, who showed his calm posture, showed a bit of astonishment on his face: "'God of Nature'... Then it seems that this matter is really not trivial."

"Are you the only one here?" Gawain glanced behind Amoen, and found that only the God of Nature appeared in the venue, "Ms. Mirmina and Ms. Enya didn't come?"

"They're researching something, they seem very busy," Amoen shrugged, "Let me come first—they said they'll be there later."

"Are you doing research...well, let's not wait for them," Gawain nodded, and after Amorn took his seat, he turned his gaze to Rosetta and Belsetia in front of him, "I want to start Let me show you something."

After finishing speaking, a phantom of a document appeared in front of him. After the phantom became solid, he divided it into two and sent them to the two rulers of the empire.

Rosetta's gaze quickly swept over the document, and her expression immediately became extremely serious.

"As you can see, the civilization that has been sending out signals suddenly has some... changes," Gao Wen said in a deep voice, "They changed their style of sending out information without purpose in the past, and instead sent this one "Letters" with very obvious communication intentions, they are purposely calling "Unknown Civilization Alpha" and hoping to get an answer, which has never been the case before."

"... Are we the 'unknown civilization Alpha' mentioned here?" Belsetia raised her head from the document and looked at Gawain with burning eyes.

"Not sure," Gawain shook his head. "Our current technology is still unable to distinguish whether the signal is pointing in our direction or whether it is a wide-area broadcast as usual, let alone whether the sender has locked the coordinates of our planet."

"So we can't rule out the possibility that it's a trap," Rosetta rubbed her ring, and said slowly in thought, "They may not know where we are, or even whether there is anyone within their broadcasting range. So in this way, we can actively 'speak out'."

"This information mentions the voyager... and key words such as twinkling stars," Belsetia focused on another crucial piece of information, "There is too much information in it."

"Facts have proved that the voyager did leave footprints on more than one planet," Gawain nodded, and of course he noticed this part of the details, "We can boldly judge that the world where the civilization that sent the message lives is also The planet where the voyager once stopped - and what the voyager left on that planet has a profound impact on this "sending civilization". Judging from the content of the message, this letter-sending civilization understands the voyager and the "stars twinkling" I’m afraid it’s far deeper and clearer than ours.”

Rosetta frowned. He had never let his mind fall into such a complex, chaotic, and busy thinking state like today. This problem that suddenly appeared in front of him was so unprecedented, beyond his previous experience in dealing with any problem. In fact, the scene Except for Gao Wen, I am afraid that no one thought that he would suddenly face the issue of "exchange of alien civilizations", but he still maintained his rationality and calmness, and slowly said in his thinking: "Whether this Whether the message is a trap, the sender obviously holds some extremely important secret, the flickering and cycle of the stars... Frankly speaking, this is reminiscent of the magic tide."

Regardless of whether the sending civilization is fishing or not, at least the "bait" is real, and this is the fact before the three rulers of the empire.

But that's not enough to make them make rash decisions.

"The most critical issue now is that we are not sure whether the civilization that sent the message was benevolent or malicious," Rosetta said, "They did express their willingness to communicate friendly and help each other in the subpoena, but to be honest Yes, I don’t dare to believe it rashly—there are so many things on our planet that people can’t easily believe, not to mention alien stars hundreds of millions of kilometers away.”

"And even if the content of the information is all true, and the other party's attitude is not false, we still need to be cautious," Gao Wen continued, "Alien civilizations... are different from alien races on our planet. Alien civilizations It is very likely that there are completely different thinking logics, judgment standards, and even thinking organs with completely different principles from ours. Their "good intentions" are not necessarily good intentions, and their "maliciousness" may not necessarily be harmful to us. Do they regard devouring the life of a friend as a virtue, and a friendly greeting as a declaration of war? These are all uncertain things."