Age of Cosmic Exploration
chapter-287

Chapter 287: Confirmation

This spaceship that contained about 200,000 human beings was the largest and the last human spaceship. Its original name was Noah Two.

Initially, after humanity obtained the anti-gravitational system and space warping system, they didn’t have to worry about the presence of the neutron star fragment. Their main purpose was actually to repopulate another planet.

After all, for a lifeform to exist solely on one planet in one solar system was extremely dangerous.

The cosmos was ridiculously expansive, and the dangers of the cosmos were unimaginable as well. Theoretically speaking, the cosmos wasn’t conducive for the birthing of life; therefore, the life-preserving planets were like oases in the wide desert, incredibly rare and treasured.

Like how an oasis could dry up any minute in the desert, anything could happen in space. A stray asteroid, a change in the sun, a collision between planets, or space catastrophes, anything could happen. With one calamity, the whole solar system could collapse, much less a planet.

Because of this, a race that hadn’t completely entered space and left their home planet could go extinct at any moment. It might not even be caused by a space catastrophe. Things like sudden outbreaks and civil wars could cause this regrettable end.

In conclusion, for the 21st century man, there was nothing more important than space colonization. Therefore, after they gained the two systems, the world pooled together the power of the greatest countries to build the Noahs One and Two. These were giant spaceships that could support tens of thousands of people in space for at least 10 years.

However, the mankind’s production rate was simply too lacking and the technology was simply too backwards. For example, the most basic metallurgy was even lacking. This caused the first spaceship, the Noah One, to explode in space, causing the governments to give up the Noah Two, this steel coffin, and choosing to build a smaller and compact spaceship to escape Earth.

However, at Human Calendar Year 014 January first, the Hope, or the original Noah Two, received a signal from the Noah One!

How… was this even possible?!

Twenty minutes after the news was received, Yao Yuan, Guang Zhen, Liu Bai, and the rest of the Black Star Unit, and then Zhang Heng, Ren Tao, Xiao Niao, Bo Li, and Eva, the most important Homo Evolutis, Speaker Matt, and three other high ranking representatives, several leading scientists and seven scientific committee leaders were gathered at the Hope’s fifth level secret meeting room.

These were leaders from the Hope’s political, military, and scientific scenes. Yao Yuan stood at the stage and explained, "You’ve read the secret report, and it is right. At least twenty minutes ago, the surveillance team discovered a large amount of secret signals. After they were decrypted by the central mainframe, the electrical signals that were received were… our own human electrical signals. This is observable from its signal type, words, and content…

"Furthermore, this signal is the original signal without quantum programming. In other words, they were signals from the third revolution. After studying its code, we realized that its encryption was completely similar to the Hope’s! The only difference is this code represents Noah One!"

This speech baffled everyone there. While Yao Yuan spoke, they read the report handed to them. The report was written in both Chinese and English, and its contents were jaw dropping!

After all, the Hope had left Earth fourteen years ago. Most of the information taken from Earth had been released to the public. The fact that the Noah One had blown up in space was common knowledge not only to the people gathered here but also the common public. Initially, Earth built two large spaceships. The first one exploded during warp, that was the Noah One.

Now it was Year 014 and they could still receive signals from Noah One? How was that possible?

"The reason that we’re gathered here is to discuss this situation. I have three question. One, did the Noah One really explode? The information we’ve taken from Earth contains a video of the explosion process. I wish for the experts from the related field can help look into its validity, to see whether it was computer generated or real…

"Two, where is the Noah One's signal coming from? The arrival of this signal was too sudden and abrupt, like it appeared from space. Even after the surveillance team used super magnetic scanning technology, they still couldn’t find out the signal’s origin…

"Three… Is there a possibility that this is bait by a high-level civilization?"

This third question caused a ruckus among the people gathered here. After all, the Hope had just finished a war with the space merchants. Therefore, it was very likely that information about them had been released by the space merchants to other alien races when they returned to their Shelter. There might've been Level 3 space civilizations among them.

However, there was an issue with this hypothesis, the problem of space and time to be specific.

Middle tier civilizations that hadn’t entered level four had difficulty traveling the wide cosmos easily even with the usage of the warp drive. To borrow a simple analogy, the space merchants would spend at least one hundred years to complete a single business trip, and this was only the distance between two Shelters. If they were to spread human beings’ information to the whole cosmos, it would require at least several thousand years.

But…

"We’re not the only human spaceship," Xiao Niao finally said.

"That’s right, this is why I posed the third question." Yao Yuan nodded and continued, "From the information we garnered from the space merchants, not all human refugees have been destroyed. Against all odds, they might have survived. Of course, they might have survived after being captured by high level space civilizations. If this is true, then the Noah One would be common knowledge to the other aliens. In that case, using the Noah One’s signal to lure us in is a possibility."

As Yao Yuan was talking, two scientists left the room with the video of the Noah One’s explosion. They would conduct validity tests on it. With the Hope’s current technology, the tests would take less than a minute, but due to the gravity of the situation, after the first test was completed, another method was used to test it again. In any case, all available analysis software was used, and half an hour later, the report was brought back to the secret meeting room.

The video was 100 percent real. There was no evidence of tempering; however…

The energy profile produced during the explosion had some mistakes.

According to the central mainframe’s calculation, the explosion’s power wasn’t the maximum power produced by the Noah One’s nuclear reactors. Simply put, the explosion’s force was a lot smaller than expected. Based on the mass calculation, at most the explosion could only bring down one-fifth of the Noah One!

This again stunned everyone there!

In reality, the Hope hadn’t really done any tests on the Noah One before. It had been fourteen years since they left Earth, so who would conduct tests on the Noah One for no reason? If not for this weird development, this issue would probably have been forgotten in a corner of human history.

However, at that moment, everyone knew that the Noah One had exploded, but the explosion wasn’t enough to engulf the entire spaceship. In other words, it was likely that a large part of the spaceship had already warped while the remaining part that couldn’t catch up exploded.

Of course, this didn’t bode well for the spaceship as a whole. A spaceship was a whole structure. There weren’t cases of spaceships still running after missing one-fifth of their bodies; that was too unrealistic…

However, reality was often stranger than fiction… What if the Noah One had found itself a habitable planet and survived?

What if, after warp, the rest of the ship didn’t explode and a majority of the people had survived?

This was not a complete impossibility. According to quantum theory, unless it was already confirmed, nothing was "definite"…

Yao Yuan quickly picked up another document. This was also taken from Earth. It was the list of people on the Noah One…

21,000 plus trained soldiers from various countries, 7,000 technicians specializing in spaceships, space tech, and future tech, and… almost 3,000 scientists!

This was a miraculous find! If all these people were added into the Hope, the issue of manpower would be completely resolved!

Yao Yuan’s eyes glowed. He turned to Xiao Niao and said, "Xiao Niao, follow me outside, I need you to do something for me…"

To confirm the reality about Noah One. If there was even a small possibility, no matter how big the risk or sacrifice, they must get everyone on it to join the Hope!