Age of Cosmic Exploration
chapter-226

Chapter 226: Signal

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Human Calendar Year 11 Month 7…

Yao Yuan looked out the window with melancholy. It had been one year and six months since they left the new planet. In this period of time, the Hope fleet had warped more than a hundred times since they warped daily. None of these more than 100 warps brought them any closer to a new home planet. Every time they ended up in empty space, the closest planet was several tens of thousands of light-years away.

At this kind of distance, surveillance was impossible, much less physical contact. After this had happened so many times, the Academy suspected that the warp exit would get further and further away from any solar system as the number of warps increased. As proof, the latest warp found the Hope to be a billion light-years away from a terrestrial planet.

Since they didn’t understand the warp technology, they couldn’t do anything about it. The warps were totally random. The lack of results for hundreds of warps slowly ate into the people’s spirit, especially since they had just left a wonderful home planet.

Today was another warp day. All the related personnel were busy, bustling about the four ships. The members from Workshop were checking for damages while space cartographers were finishing up their mapping of the area. These would take a whole day to complete.

It was worth noting that since Defender One, Two, and the Observer were new spaceships, no one could guarantee their safety during warp. If the link was somehow broken during warp, it was certain that their fate would be over. It would be a fate worse than death.

Therefore, almost everyone remained on the Hope. The people would spread out to the remaining ships after and before warps to conduct repairs and maintenance. This provided quite a sizeable amount of jobs. Since leaving the new planet, the number of jobs available had significantly dwindled, causing the previously deflated H-coins value to bounce back. Of course, this was not really something worth celebrating.

On the other hand, when the people left the new planet, there was initially a fire burning within each and everyone, but one and a half laters, that fire had become a slow-burning ember. The zeitgeist instead became one of depression.

This departure was something completely different from mankind’s first departure from old Earth. They had no other choice then; venturing into space was their only hope and no one expected to find another home planet in their lifetime. Since there was no gain to begin with, there was not much of a sense of loss. The public knew life had to go on.

This time things were different. Mankind had obtained a new home planet, a new beginning, a new life. This kind of ending was hard to stomach for many. It felt helpless to have something valuable forcefully taken way. Therefore, as the fire died down, depression settled in. They had squandered one possible home planet, so chances were they wouldn’t be setting their eyes on another in their lifetime. They knew how rare these habitable terrestrial planets were…

This situation had Yao Yuan worried, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Unless something big happened to distract the public’s attention, this psychological quandary couldn’t be solved so easily.

This was Yao Yuan’s biggest worry. If allowed to fester, it would become a giant problem in the future. However, statistically speaking, they could warp a billion times and be no closer to another planet or interesting celestial body.

As Yao Yuan stared out the window thinking of solutions, he heard a series of rushed footsteps coming from behind him. He turned around and saw a bunch of workers run into his room in a hurry. He quickly asked, "Why? What’s wrong? Has something happened to the Defenders or the Observer?"

The leading man said excitedly, in a mixture of both anxiousness and happiness, "No, Captain, it’s a signal! We received a set of weird signals. After analysis by the central mainframe, it is more than likely to be signals coming from an alien civilization!"

Yao Yuan’s heart skipped a beat. He didn’t dawdle and move to accompany these workers to the surveillance room. People were waiting there to explain the situation to Yao Yuan in detail.

Like all the previous warps, all units started to move out to accomplish their given tasks. The mission of the surveillance room was the most important because all external information would be received here. The place was also the information central for all the remaining units, so it could be said to be the busiest place on the Hope.

After today’s warp, the surveillance room was like usual, full of people. A small group accidentally showed an electrical signal on screen but were shocked to find a set of weird signals. The set of signals was sent to the experts to be analyzed, and the result was that the signal was unlike the natural signal sent out by pulsar planets but something more complicated with its own set of logic and a large amount of information, something that was most likely to be…

A signal left behind by an alien civilization!

The signal was sent through space in electromagnetic wave form and the Hope just so happened to pick up a segment of it. However, due to the language barrier, the signal was unreadable. The elementary analysis could only conclude that the signal had its own unique logic and a large amount of information. They couldn’t tell anything beyond that.

When Yao Yuan arrived, the workers were trying to convert the signal into audio or video files, but the process was highly challenging because the signal itself came with inscrutable quantum cryptography. The part that had been solved would rearrange itself as the cypher changed. This weird cryptography alone was enough to make the team excited. They hadn’t even gotten into the actual message yet.

Yao Yuan could feel his heart racing after being told all of this, but after he calmed down, he was struck by a boatload of worry. Where did the signal come from? Who was behind the signal? Would the sender be friendly? How far away was the Hope from the signal’s origin?

Many people rushed to the surveillance room after the news spread across the ship. There were representatives from the government, the Barracks and the Academy. The small surveillance room became even more crowded than before. Yao Yuan had no choice but to move everyone to a conference room nearby and called for a new meeting.

This meeting wasn’t hosted by Yao Yuan. He stood off in a corner with Ren Tao and Xiao Niao discussing the impact of this signal.

Even though the signal hadn’t been fully cracked, one thing was sure: there was once an alien civilization around or near the space the Hope was in now. The next course of action was naturally to decipher the signal, to at least gauge the general direction and location of said civilization, to tell whether it was still close by.

The three of them came to a consensus: if it was at all possible to avoid contact with this civilization, then that should be done. Mankind’s technology was still stuck in early 4th revolution, so if the civilization was hostile and was at a higher technological level than mankind, then contact was inadvisable.

It was a fallacy that the more advanced the civilization, the more cultured it would be.

In humanity’s history, most colonization and wars were started by the more advanced societies…

Furthermore, the alien civilization had a greater chance to be more scientifically advanced than humanity, since not every civilization was forced into space. This reinforced another perspective… The alien civilization’s reaction would probably depend on its own technological level in relative to mankind’s technological level. There was no reason to expose oneself to such a debilitating situation.

Therefore, the three reached the conclusion that if possible, contact was to be avoided. Of course, if contact was inevitable, the key depended on both parties’ technological levels. If the other party’s level was almost similar to the Hope’s, then contact was not an issue. After all, warfare would not simply occur since both parties had misgivings and scruples to worry about.

While the meeting was going on, another group of workers rushed into the room. This time, their expression definitely showed anxiousness.

"Cap- Captain, our surveillance just found out that the signal's origin is moving towards us…

"With a speed faster than light!"