Ding!
The sound of steel banging awakened Lu Zhou from his trance.
That was the sound of metal striking.
When he came back to his senses, he was already standing in front of a primitive house made of wood, stones, and some white fluff. A strange furnace was next to him. When he looked up into the distance, he could see the wall built up by dirt and wooden sticks, as well as the vast farmland.
Like General Reinhardt said, these bugs learned to walk upright. They even learned to use tools and developed the embryonic form of a farming civilization.
But in his opinion, their walking posture was quite goofy.
He looked at the “grassland” surrounded by the fences and the larvae. A thoughtful expression appeared on Lu Zhou’s face.
General Reinhardt walked to his side and asked jokingly, “What kind of experience is it to lose consciousness for tens of thousands of years?”
Lu Zhou heard the ridicule in the tone, but he had no time to think of a comeback.
“… Tens of thousands of years have passed?”
General Reinhardt shrugged.
“You can think of it as a fast forward. After all, I can’t really let you stay in my memory for tens of thousands of years.”
What?
Jesus!
Lu Zhou thought he had slept for tens of thousands of years!
Lu Zhou looked around and looked at the village at the foot of the mountain for a while before continuing to speak, “We are now in the stone age?”
“Slightly farther than the stone age. They have learned to smelt metals… We are probably in the bronze age.”
“Did you teach them this?”
“No, they may have a slightly smaller brain capacity, but they are not so stupid that they need my help to build houses and domesticate beasts.”
“But you told me that you enlightened them.”
“Yes, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the stone tablet I left behind taught them how to write. Because of the ability to write, their knowledge can be passed on. Isn’t this enough?”
There was a humming sound in the room, and the tranquility and peace in the air suddenly disappeared.
Cockroaches with metal horns on their heads rushed out of the woods and rushed toward the village at the foot of the mountain.
Screams came one after another, and the cockroaches were armed and ready to fight.
Lu Zhou watched the cockroaches rushing toward one another.
Fortunately, General Reinhardt, who was standing next to him, raised his hand and flew into the sky with him. Otherwise, he might have vomited from the disgusting scene.
Lu Zhou looked down at the flames rising into the sky under his feet, as well as the bloody fight. He suddenly had an illusion that he seemed like a god.
In fact, this was indeed the case. He was looking at the life of a civilization through the perspective of a god…
“Do you feel like an omnipotent god?”
“Kind of.”
“It seems that you have gradually realized how I feel.” General Reinhardt smiled faintly. “In fact, any higher civilization will have similar thoughts when facing a lower civilization. This is probably how The Observers think about us.”
While the two were chatting, the battle at the foot of the mountain was over.
The battle between the two groups of cockroaches finally ended in the victory of the invaders.
The victors set up a fire in the center of the village, lit a flame, and danced to please the gods. They enjoyed the plundered supplies and slaughtered the enemy’s livestock.
General Reinhardt continued blankly.
“This is the first stage of evolution. Civilization and barbarism are fighting for the last time. At first, the latter had the upper hand, but in the end, the former would end up on top. The Martians on this land would begin to merge into one. In order to manage more population, they would transition from a tribal system to a feudal system, then through countless reforms and even revolutions, they would realize the liberation of productivity…”
Lu Zhou: “Then what role did you play in it?”
“Me?” General Reinhardt smiled faintly and continued, “I didn’t play any role. When they contacted me again, they were already in the electronic age.”
While General Reinhardt was talking about this, the ground under the two of them changed again.
The rustic hut was gone, replaced by a house made of red bricks and granite.
The bonfire also disappeared, replaced by chimneys rising to the sky and factories covering hundreds of acres.
Carriages of finished steel products were transported out of the factory and loaded onto the train.
Not far away, circles of houses rose from the ground, and the outline of the city began to appear rapidly.
“Is it shocking?”
“Yeah…” Lu Zhou looked at everything that happened on the planet under his feet. He said, “It’s just something I don’t quite understand.”
“Don’t understand what.”
“Since the Martian civilization is nearly three billion years ahead of us… Why does The Observer civilization not choose them, but to pin their hopes on three billion years later, on a civilization that is inferior to the Martian civilization in terms of resources and environmental conditions? Us.”
In Lu Zhou’s opinion, the initial resources of these Martians were perfect.
Unlike the human civilization that had experienced countless obstacles, this group of insects living in a greenhouse had hardly been affected by natural disasters. Even if the crops were not harvested for a year, they could still hunt from the lush forests and find food underground.
“This question is actually interesting. Does the most fertile land breed the strongest civilization?”
Seeing that Lu Zhou was lost in thought, General Reinhardt continued, “In fact, although the planet Gaia has an ecological environment that all organic life forms envy, it is not the most suitable environment for birthing civilization.
“A rich environment means that you don’t need to make a lot of effort to obtain the basic materials needed for survival. Although the Martians have the same curious personalities as humans, they don’t know what hard work is in their culture. And more deadly, tens of thousands of years of evolution have allowed them to fully adapt to the ecological environment of Gaia. This makes it difficult for them to find an acceptable second home.
“Imagine if the Earth’s ecosystem could accommodate 20 billion people or even 30 billion people and the abundant resource reserves could not be exhausted. Would you still want to give up the good life on Earth to explore the Moon or Mars?
“In contrast, those harsh and extreme environments are more likely to nurture a powerful and aggressive civilization. You should remember this.”
General Reinhardt continued, “As for time… A civilization with a longer period of time may be more developed, but the reason for its development isn’t because of time alone. I only knew about these things after reaching the center of the galaxy.”
In just a few minutes, the ground under their feet was already full of life.
The endless grasslands were no longer visible, the borders of the forest continued to shrink and shrink, finally disappearing into the horizon. It was swallowed by tall buildings made of reinforced concrete and steel which had covered almost every inch of the planet.
Lu Zhou finally understood where the rust all over the surface of Mars came from.
And those hematite veins and silicate sedimentary rock formations with strange structures…
All that turned out to be the “corpse” of a civilized city on Mars!
“Unbelievable, how did they finally get to… this step?”
Lu Zhou looked at the planet that had almost been completely changed by the reinforced concrete man-made objects, the neon lights on the streets, and endless prosperity.
However, the advancement did not change the ugly appearance of the Martians.
If he hadn’t seen what Mars would look like billions of years later, he would never believe that this powerful civilization would eventually disappear…
“There are many reasons and even many coincidences.
“Aside from this, let’s make a hypothesis. If cancer cells know that they will expand endlessly and one day they will die with the host, do you think it will consider proliferating in a relatively gentle way?”
Lu Zhou asked subconsciously, “Is it still cancer then?”
Reinhardt nodded and said, “Yes, so it’s impossible to expect civilization to constrain itself and achieve common prosperity with nature. It’s like the duality of man. Expanding to a more distant world is the only way for civilization to survive, just like the first fish that jumps onto land.
“However, due to the problem of habitability, the Martian civilization finally did not embark on this path. Normally, the resources of a Gaia planet would be able to meet their needs, until… they finally do something stupid.”
Lu Zhou gulped.
“What did they do?”
“They built a geothermal well, which was dug from the bottom of the sea to the mantle layer, to extract heat and minerals from it, to build and support their city.”
“They are crazy…” Lu Zhou was stunned. “Did they not think of… other ways?”
“Other ways? Like controllable nuclear fusion?” General Reinhardt smiled faintly. “Don’t forget that Mars was formed only a few hundred million years ago, so the entire solar system is still very young. There is not a large amount of deuterium and tritium that has accumulated in the ocean like that on Earth.
“Martian civilization did invent controllable nuclear fusion technology, but for their conditions, this was not the cheapest option. Downward exploration was more attractive. After all, drilling holes was their instinct for survival.
“A large amount of mantle material was pumped to the surface, and the energy in the core was released. In fact, this was a very slow process. It included the cooling of the core and the weakening of the magnetic field. Most Martians were not able to feel the changes during their lifetime.
“When the local nuclear temperature finally fell below a certain critical value, the weak magnetic field could no longer resist the high-energy rays from the universe, but it was too late. They watched in despair as the atmosphere was blown away. After most died from cancer, cities became ghost towns. They were forced to take everyone and retreat from the surface to the underground world.
“However, even in the underground world, there was no place for them. At that time, Mars was like a dying old man.
“Before the civilization was about to die, they made certain efforts… Such as the ignition plan and the planting plan.
“I have talked to you about the ignition plan. They begged me for help. They hoped that by sending my engine to the upper mantle, the zero-point energy in the energy module would be detonated and the heat borrowed from the Mars core would be returned. They hibernated some of their compatriots and took turns to wake up to complete the work, but they failed in the end.
“As for the planting plan, that was more interesting.”
General Reinhardt smiled.
“Maybe because they were stimulated by the upheaval on Mars, they finally realized their weakness in adapting to the environment, so they drastically tailored their genes through genetic modification.
“Unfortunately, genetic modification was a very sophisticated technology. In this regard, they were obviously immature. They could only forcibly improve their habitability at the cost of weakening other parts. The new Martians were intellectually flawed.
“But this was the only hope for survival. If after billions of years of evolution, if one day these new Martians re-awaken the genes of their ancestors, they could recover their civilization.
“Some Martians turned their eyes to Earth, which is your home planet. Although Earth was still in chaos at that time, they tried to detonate nuclear weapons, put acid-resistant, nitrogen-fixing bacteria and other artificial methods to accelerate the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere.
“I don’t know if this is part of The Observer’s plan. But in some sense, they were making progress.
“The genetically modified, cryo-dormant new Martians were sent to Earth by their compatriots. The Martians hoped that the little guys could someday rebuild the glory of the Martian civilization.”
General Reinhardt showed a sad expression on his face and spoke softly.
“As for the result, you should already know…
“They spent billions of years, spanning hundreds of millions of kilometers…
“And finally succeeded in becoming the cockroaches you know of.”
Earth.
Bodleian Library, the University of Oxford
An old man who was nearly sixty years old was crouching in front of a wooden table, carefully checking the print in his hand.
His name was Vernal; he was an archaeologist. Although there had been a slight deviation in his research direction in recent decades, he was still an archaeologist in essence.
As of today, thirty years had passed since the original trip to Mars.
In the past 30 years, the international community did not give up on digging The Gates of Hell. It was only recently that the funds were cut and cut again, slowing down progress.
Relying on his position as an authority in the field of Martian archaeology, he had successively visited Mars several times in the past 30 years to investigate the remains of The Gates of Hell, and at the same time, to investigate some newly discovered clues on the Martian civilization.
He had also changed from a middle-aged man to a proper old man.
Although space travel was not as simple as eating a meal, it was much more accessible than it was 30 years ago. Many newlyweds with well-established families chose to spend their honeymoons on the Moon and experience the wonderful experience of the weightless environment.
There were not many scholars like him who insisted on doing it by hand and completing a thesis on paper in this era of advanced multimedia technology…
“Professor, I brought you your manuscript.” Footsteps were heard from the door, and a young man with freckles holding a stack of papers opened the door and walked in.
The pile of papers was so high that it blocked his face, and he almost tripped over the chair at the door.
Professor Vernal stood up angrily.
“Be careful! You stupid simpleton! This is a precious historical document.”
“But professor, they are just printed copies…” With a helpless expression on his face, the young student continued, “If you want, I can go to the printing room to get you another copy.”
“The manuscripts of any great man were brand new when they were first stored in this library. Electronic files have no soul,” Professor Vernal said as he began to count the batches of documents.
Confirming that there were no files missing, he nodded with satisfaction.
“Very good, they’re all here.”
The young PhD student looked at his supervisor with a weird expression. He wanted to complain, but in the end, he didn’t say anything.
His supervisor stood up and walked to the coat rack at the door. He took a khaki coat and put it on him, then stood in front of the mirror and adjusted his collar.
He looked at the old man in the mirror, and a trace of nostalgia appeared in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by strong confidence.
Today!
My research will change history!
Professor Vernal’s voice brought a hint of excitement.
Like he was in a Broadway play.
“Go get ready, Dr. Gilbert!
“Take out the most expensive suit in your closet and iron it. The report will begin in the afternoon.
“The whole world will remember our names forever because of this amazing discovery!”
The neuroticism of the old professor was no surprise, so Gilbert cast a glance at him and murmured, “Okay, professor.”
He really wanted to write a paper.
On whether leaving Earth would break someone’s brain…
Compared to decades of time, waiting for a mere afternoon was nothing more than a blink of an eye.
Professor Vernal quietly waited for the clock on the wall. He approached the microphone and cleared his throat.
The lecture hall was quiet.
The pair of eyes looked at the old professor on the podium, waiting for his opening remarks.
The report seminar finally began!
“Ladies and gentlemen.
“I’m glad you all came here today.
“I will announce an important discovery to you here—
“The Martians were by our side this entire time!”
People’s faces showed surprised expressions as voices of discussion spread everywhere.
Young people joked with each other and said, “Are you a Martian?”. Some people took notes seriously while others sneered and shook their heads to show disdain.
Professor Vernal had a smile on his face.
Satisfied with the surprise on people’s faces, he continued, “Although this sounds ridiculous…
“But based on the fossil specimens we found in the Olympus crater and the various signs we have investigated from other relics, we have been able to make a preliminary judgment that they belong to the Insecta, Blattaria… Just like the American cockroaches.
“Maybe the cockroaches we see today are actually the same species as the Martians from billions of years ago!
“All of this is possible!”
The entire lecture hall went crazy…