Chapter 13: The Smile and Tears of the Stars (Part 1)
This is a beautiful planet in the vast universe.
A large number of green plants, an oxygen concentration of more than 40%, gravity, atmospheric pressure, and material composition are all very suitable for human survival. There are two small satellites orbiting around the planet in the sky. When night falls every day, two moons can be seen in two directions of the sky, sometimes full and sometimes crescent.
However, a group of humans from the universe abandoned their home planet that had been polluted and completely destroyed. After a long interstellar journey across 200,000 light years, they arrived here, only to discover that there was a powerful native race on this planet that was wantonly destroying the environment of the planet.
At that time, humans did not understand the harm they had done to the planet. They only found that wherever they passed, the surface changed color, trees withered, and animal corpses were everywhere. So, in order to protect the new living environment and to seize control of the planet from this group of native races, not long after they settled down, humans relied on advanced technology to fight against the group of native species. Then, in three years of sweeping and massacres, this group of native species was wiped out. After a few more years, the environment of the planet began to slowly recover, and humans who had gained a foothold on the planet also began to re-establish the order system.
New land, new environment, new ecosystem, and unheard-of flora and fauna.
Humanity has so much to adapt to. National borders no longer exist, and people of different languages and ancestries are mixed together, just like the Tower of Babel disrupted by God - there are still too many problems waiting to be solved.
Thus was born the Senate.
This is an organization formed by leaders from all over the world to unify the actions and development of mankind. Its emergence has further optimized the order and unified the language. Then, various departments - economic, political, and military - began to reorganize comprehensively. After ten years of countless under-the-surface battles, it gradually stabilized.
The New United States—that's what the people called their new country under the rule of the Senate.
After society was rebuilt, people began to study this new world. Then they discovered a major fact that they had been vaguely aware of before.
This planet is alive.
Not only the external natural environment, but also inorganic matter - stones can sense temperature, some minerals have pulsations, and even the planet itself has its own consciousness.
Naturalists were thrilled and shocked by this discovery, and of course, they launched a new round of investigation - and then they discovered the root cause of it all.
──Star Spirit Power.
This is a miraculous energy force that activates all living things and imparts a certain degree of biological reaction to inorganic matter. Plants and animals immersed in this force are extremely full of vitality, and minerals also take on a subtle spiritual aura. It is precisely because the entire planet is permeated with this power that the planet itself has consciousness.
This power caused a great uproar among human scholars.
Some people began to think about how to use this power. Others said that since the power of the stars can strengthen the bodies of native organisms, it can also bring benefits to humans. Some even wanted to use it to create real robots.
Of course, some scholars have raised objections - because the reason why those native organisms that were previously slaughtered by humans are so harmful to the planet is that they feed on the spiritual power of the stars. They eat the spiritual power of the stars, but excrete and leave behind only useless residues for the planet. It destroys the balance of energy flow. If humans want to use the spiritual power of the stars, they will follow in the footsteps of these creatures.
However, compared with the benefits that could be obtained, this voice of opposition seemed so weak that it soon disappeared amid the cheers of mankind for the technological revolution.
Departments to study stellar spiritual power were rapidly established, and researchers were gathered from all over the place.
While studying the spiritual power of the stars, people also discovered something strange - the consciousness of the planet tried to communicate with humans by manipulating plants and animals several times.
The scholars discussed for a long time and finally came up with a method - to use a powerful computer with huge storage capacity as a container for the planet's consciousness, so that the planet and humans can communicate in the clearest and most intuitive way.
Year 009 of the New United States calendar.
A huge computer was built in the center of the Senate, occupying a room the size of a basketball court. It was named "Feinheim" - which means paradise.
The planet's proposal was accepted, and its consciousness was indeed relocated to the computer, gladly accepting the name "Feinheim." Perhaps because humans had driven out those pests, Feinheim was very friendly and curious. Having never been exposed to human science and technology before, it was always asking questions like a newborn baby. Of course, it would answer all of humanity's questions about the planet without reservation.
Although it may have existed for tens of thousands of years, the planet's consciousness circuits are clean and straightforward. This is because before humans landed on this land, no highly intelligent creatures had ever lived in its body. Perhaps at that time it could be considered the only highly intelligent being. So after humans appeared, it almost wanted to make up for all the loneliness it had previously owed by communicating with humans.
The researchers who communicated with it even treated it like a child, coaxing and pampering it in a somewhat amusing way.
Time passed peacefully for a while, but soon the accident broke out.
The root cause of the accident lies with a female researcher named Theresa Oulica. She was a relatively unknown figure in the research institute, responsible for studying the fusion and enhancement of astral energy and the human body. However, the Senate offered her a generous reward for her research. Her father had died in the war against protozoa, her mother was critically ill, and she was financially disadvantaged. She coveted the prize money, so she secretly stayed at the institute after work, unbeknownst to her colleagues, and conducted her own fusion experiments, hoping to achieve results before anyone else.
It was just a small oversight.
During the experiment of fusing the white mouse with the star power, she dozed off in a chair because she hadn't slept well for a few days. When she woke up, she found that she had overslept for an hour and forgot to turn off the experimental equipment. As a result, the glass container containing the white mouse was broken by something, and the white mouse disappeared.
At first, Theresa didn't take it seriously. However, a few days later, similar incidents of unidentified animals injuring people were reported from all over the country. Then, there were tragic cases of humans becoming alienated and attacking others. Then, there was the conclusion that creatures would also become alienated after being attacked.
The incident expanded exponentially, and soon the source of this suspected biochemical disaster was discovered.
The excessive fusion of animal and celestial energy creates a mutation, which can be transmitted through blood. Humans, and the creatures they bring from their home planet, are not native to their planets, so excessive fusion with celestial energy can produce irreversible and horrific effects.
The mutated virus was named "star poison", and the treatment institutions were busy all night but still could not find any drugs to suppress it.
Theresa, sitting in front of the TV, immediately turned pale with fright - she knew that the trouble was caused by the little white mouse she had released.
What should I do? What should I do?
I became the executioner who killed so many people?
Should he stand up and admit it? Or should he secretly erase all his experimental records and destroy all evidence?
The Senate has begun to investigate the culprit of the plague, but Theresa, after repeated struggles and entanglements, is afraid of what will happen after she confesses, so she finally chooses to live in disgrace.
She destroyed her experimental records as quickly as possible, and then pretended nothing had happened, and started researching the star poison with her colleagues.
But from then on, she could no longer sleep peacefully. Her originally quiet and pretty face suddenly became sallow and her eyes were gray.
Not long after that, she received an email—it turned out to be from the planet's consciousness—Feinheim.
It turned out that no matter how cleanly she deleted the records, she couldn't hide them from the living computers connected to the Senate network—she had forgotten that this was no longer her home planet. In this world, even inorganic matter could potentially harbor life.
But she was relieved that Feinheim did not blame her too much in the letter, but let her take responsibility.
Feinheim explained that the star poison outbreak was caused by humanity's incomplete technology for extracting astral energy. There were two types of astral energy: the blue astral energy representing death, which was easily captured because it emanated from the dead bodies of various creatures and permeated the air. The other was the golden astral energy, which represented life and resided mostly within living organisms, thus remaining undetected by humans.
Simply put, blue star spiritual power and golden star spiritual power are like venous blood and arterial blood in the human body respectively. The human body can only function normally when the two types of blood flow alternately. If either one is missing, unpredictable consequences will occur.
The solution is very simple. All you have to do is find a living mineral - Star Spirit Ore, refine it into medicine and have people take it. By using the positive poison to neutralize the negative poison, you can suppress the raging star poison.
Theresa ecstatically agreed to Feinheim's request—finally, she had found a way to atone for her sins!!
Then, according to Feinheim's description, she secretly drove to the wild, found some leaves of the Star Spirit Ore and brought them back for research - then she made an antidote, and after testing it, she found that it was successful - she immediately and excitedly reported the results to the Senate, publicly announcing the method to remove the Star Poison.
The good news spread throughout the entire human territory in an instant. Teresa was promoted in one day and became a hero in the Senate and the director of the institute. Her mother was taken to the best sanatorium. Her ex-boyfriend who had dumped her because he thought she was boring immediately came to express his love - but was soon kicked away by a few handsome suitors who appeared out of nowhere.
Theresa smiled bitterly at the reality of humanity, but at the same time felt guilty that she did not deserve such an honor. Even though she enjoyed the treatment of a hero, she still couldn't sleep or eat. Although the planet's consciousness Feinheim chose to remain silent about her affairs, she always felt ashamed to face him.
──We must work hard on research to benefit mankind and make up for our mistakes this time.
Theresa made up her mind secretly.
However, the good times did not last long.
In the year 011 of the New United States calendar, a new shadow shrouded Theresa's life.
A man, Andrei Vega, appeared in front of her and told her the fact that she had buried deep in her heart and was most reluctant to face: she was the culprit of the great plague last year.
Andre is a retired soldier. When he was still a little kid, he participated in the mopping-up campaign against protozoa and made considerable military achievements. However, because his legs were injured in the battle, he could not continue to go to the front line. In addition, he knew a lot of pharmacological knowledge, so after retiring, he was assigned to this Star Spiritual Power Research Institute.
He used to be Theresa's boss. Although they were in charge of different projects, he had heard of Theresa's abilities and had confirmed it himself - she was just an ordinary researcher with very mediocre abilities. She could be an assistant, but she was definitely not capable of conducting research projects alone.
Therefore, when Theresa obtained the research results of the antidote, the first thought in his mind was: It's impossible. With this woman's ability, it is impossible for her to make such a major discovery.
The conspiracy theorist Andre observed Theresa for a while, and then found that, indeed, after she achieved that great achievement, her research level returned to its usual level - this further increased Andre's suspicion, so he used hacking skills to break into the computer and defeated Theresa's encryption technology.
Then he saw the letter written to her by the planetary consciousness.
I see.
For a moment, anger, ridicule, contempt, disgust, jealousy, excitement...all kinds of emotions flooded into Andre's heart at the same time. He continued to explore his computer and found several documents that she had shredded - those contained her research records - and among them, Andre discovered some precious research results that even Theresa herself had not discovered.
Considering the symptoms of star poisoning—mental degeneration and physical strengthening—Andre came to a conclusion: if the blue star spiritual power and organic matter were combined and controlled, they might create a truly remarkable biological weapon.
As a soldier, Andrei immediately started thinking.
Then, a plan slowly formed in his mind - he found Theresa and successfully frightened her with everything he knew.
Because she was afraid that Andre would make Teresa's crimes public, Teresa had to start swallowing her anger and letting Andre manipulate her.
Andre's ambition began to expand rapidly because of the power that was within his reach. He threatened Theresa, used a large amount of equipment in the institute, secretly prepared a lot of raw materials, and acquired a number of small carrier spacecraft, and began to secretly expand his territory to the two moons.
On one moon, he built a large factory for artificially cultivating poisonous life forms, that is, biological weapons. On the other moon, he prepared a space base in advance for taking refuge when war broke out.
However, there is no stellar spiritual power on the moon. It is okay for a refuge base to have no stellar spiritual power, but if the breeding factory for poisonous life forms does not have sufficient stellar spiritual power, it will immediately stop functioning.
So, Andre secretly installed two more stellar energy extraction devices, one large and one small, on two planets to extract the negative stellar energy from Feinheim. The large one was installed in the negative poison life form cultivation workshop, and the small one was installed on the planet where the refuge base was located.
Because of this, Feinheim got angry.
This large-scale extraction is irreversible, there is only going out and no coming back, and it cannot form a cycle. If this continues, the energy cannot be balanced, and sooner or later, the star spiritual power will be drained away by the two moons.
So Feinheim angrily contacted Theresa and Andre and warned them.
Teresa fearfully tried to dissuade Andre, but Andre ignored her. He promised to stop draining the celestial energy soon, but never put his foot down. Instead, he used his own Trojan software to block Feinheim's contact with outside researchers. Those uninformed believed Feinheim had fallen into a deep sleep for unknown reasons and were terribly worried, but that was far from the truth.
──Andre is determined to build an army of biological weapons that he can completely control and take over the entire world.
Moreover, to make matters worse, Andrei accelerated his own deployment of actions because he found that he had aroused the wrath of the planet.
He used Theresa as a springboard to secretly advise the Senate, making several serious statements about the persecution of planetary consciousness and asking the Senate not to get too close to Feinheim. At the same time, he also said that the plague would break out again, and if you want to avoid the virus, it is better to build shelters as soon as possible. His words were very reasonable, but in fact he just wanted to have an excellent fortress in Feinheim in the future.
Because the analysis seemed very reasonable, the Senate accepted Andre's opinion and began to build an aerial refuge base centered on the Sky Tower (the Ark of a Million People). Andre also attracted many followers by deceiving people.
Within a few years, Andre's power had become so great that he could enter and leave the Senate freely without even using Theresa as a cover.
Seeing that the warning was ineffective and instead aroused the other party's hostility, Feinheim was completely furious.
Then, for some unknown reason, within just one month, all the positive star spiritual energy was drained from the bodies of those who had drunk the antidote, and the negative poison that had been suppressed began to stir again - Andre's prediction came true, and the plague broke out on a large scale again. This time, humans discovered that the positive star spiritual energy in the star spirit ore was very scarce, as if it was suppressed by something... It was far from enough for the amount of medicine needed for detoxification.
It seems that Andre was right. The planet wanted to kill humans. The Senate angrily and anxiously accelerated the construction of the Sky Tower, and finally completed it before the plague spread to all human territories.
However, the number of people who can go to the Sky Tower is limited. In order to ensure that the survivors of the plague are the best and most suitable for survival, in addition to Andre, Theresa, and many designated candidates of the Senate, the screening of the remaining more than 900,000 people has become a headache.
After much deliberation, the Senate finally made a very cruel decision.
Although the star poison has no cure, if a person has a strong physique and resistance, he or she can fight against the star poison and return to human form from the diseased state. Those who are qualified to board the Ark are those humans who can heal themselves in the epidemic area.
The "selected" people flew to the Ark in batches, carrying a large amount of supplies, while the remaining people, the sick, and some survivors who were not rich enough to squeeze into the quota even if they survived, were left on the ground.
The entire planet fell into a cold era with rampant plagues and mass deaths of humans, animals and plants. In the sky, the two moons that continuously drew spiritual power from the stars also quietly changed.
——Because they were immersed in the star spirit power, they also began to slowly develop a vague consciousness.
Thus began an era of chaos, despair and sadness.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
