by <unknown>
"To hell with your cooperation, just tell me what you want with me?"
Evan Glen spat and pulled himself back up. After this, he noticed there was a large panel of glass in front of him. "Hey, I know you're out there brat. You better watch out!"
Evan Glen barked as he glared at the glass viciously.
Chen Chen darted a glance at Little X, to which Little X responded with a quick pout, implying that she just picked the first person she found on the list and that she had no way of knowing whether this person would turn out to be such a head case.
Chen Chen decided this argument was not worth having. He looked for a certain button on the control button and upon pressing it, the observation window immediately became tinted. When he pressed another button next to the previous button, Even Glen's stream of curses became muted as well.
"Play it for him now."
Chen Chen gave a lazy signal before lying back on the couch and got some shut-eye.
"Alright."
Little X got to work immediately after receiving Chen Chen's orders. She found the video from the quantum computer and cast it into the isolation room.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes…
Five minutes later, Little X informed, "Sir Godfather, the video has ended. I scanned the video frame by frame and didn't detect signs of any suspicious memetic content or anomalies within it. Evan Glen didn't display any notable symptoms upon watching it. His physical and mental state are completely unaltered."
"Excellent."
Chen Chen got back up and approached the control panel again where he reactivated the observation window and unmuted the isolation room.
"Buddy, what the hell were you saying?'
The man inside the isolation room was having trouble making sense of what he just saw as he exclaimed, "What successor, USB drive, what the hell was that video all about?"
Unfortunately, nobody was going to answer his questions. The previous two Black Knights stepped inside again and dragged him outside.
Chen Chen waited until the Delta-level research staff was escorted out of the laboratory before approaching the computer and playing the video for himself.
"Click click click…"
The display became filled with white noise in the starting portion of the video. Judging by how blurry the video was, its resolution was probably 360p. It was something filmed from a long time ago.
There was a sudden blink following the white noise. The image of a man who looked to be in his thirties appeared on the screen. He was good-looking and had fierce, piercing eyes.
The man was dressed in a black suit. Only his upper torso was visible in the video. Although there was no reliable way to determine how tall he was, it was evident that he was well-built.
Most notably, this person was a Chinese man!
"If you're watching this message, I'll take it that you've either reached my present stage or at least drawing close already."
The man filmed the video inside a laboratory in which walls were built with metal. He revealed a fine row of white teeth and smiled like a madman. "Fascinating, isn't it? I'm sure you've guessed it by now. That's right, the magical USB drive you have there was left behind by me.
"My name is Zhao Shanhe, the second person to hold the dimension key… Well, I only found clues of one previous owner of the dimension key, so I'm going to assume I'm the second. I also founded the Earth Federation. It was I who united humanity on the same front for the very first time!"
When the phrase "united humanity" was brought up, the man in the video smiled with great pride., "Hahaha, to think that someone like me, little Zhao Shanhe could accomplish a feat as great as this, maybe this life was worth living after all!"
The man quickly switched his candid complexion with a solemn one within a second. "Unfortunately, I'm afraid the Earth Federation wouldn't have much time left after I leave here and head to the Event Horizon dimension. Without my supervision, it's only a matter of time before the united organization of mankind falls apart."
Chen Chen squinted his eyes in thought. Could this mean that the antimeme that he ran into was this person as well?
Chen Chen juggled the theory in his mind and figured he should continue watching.
"I'm filming this video to inform you that humanity is in a potentially dangerous situation…"
Zhao Shanhe expressed solemnly, "I'm sure you've heard of the civilization theory called The Great Filter. If we treat a habitable planet as a singular collective similar to a regular human with an independent soul, then the unit of life for our planet Earth would be known as 'Gaia'.
"What most people don't know is that the emergence of civilization on 'Gaia' is more than mere coincidence. The formation of civilizations can have comparisons drawn to the development of cancer cells. The development of civilization inevitably goes hand in hand with the destruction of the ecosystem around them. This is what's known as the second law of thermodynamics. There's no other way around this principle of entropy. The only way for civilization to continuously develop is to inevitably enter a cycle of destruction, slowly draining Gaia of its life force…
"Therefore, there's an established ecosystem or cycle for each civilization where they must be able to survive this filter to extend their life cycle. This filtration process is an inherent part of Mother Gaia and is inevitable. As long as civilization remains standing, there'll always be this opposing nature that has to be considered.
"This was how I came to discover a certain truth…"
A wipe of horror appeared in Zhao Shanhe's eyes as he said this, "Would you believe it? Human's understanding has been wrong all this time. There hasn't been any further large-scale disaster ever since we, as a collective, survived the last two World Wars. This creates a false illusion that the world we reside in is supposed to be a safe place. However, history will tell you that this 'safety' is just a mere circumstance. The foundation of human civilization has been cemented in constant man-made disasters ever since its dawn!
"What I'm saying here is that this world is far more vicious than we ever expected. In the vast universe, the Earth is like a lone island in the vast ocean while human civilization is a feeble sandcastle built by a child. It's as delicate as it's fragile. This civilization that we humans put so much pride in can easily be washed away faster than you can blink when the tide rises…
"So, do you understand now?"
Zhao Shanhe took a deep breath. "This world is only growing more treacherous!
"I can't precisely explain what these dangers will be or when they will come… But what I can tell you is that it is accumulative. By now, you should've figured out that the reason I united humans to establish the Earth Federation is to combat these dangers. 'Adam' is specifically designed to address these concerns as it continuously predicts whatever danger Earth may face and issues warnings to the Federation accordingly. This way, the Earth Federation at least has a window to react."
Zhao Shanhe fell silent for a moment upon arriving at this point. He seemed to have steeled his heart when he said this, "And now, I'll be entering the movie Event Horizon to exact a plan of mine. If this plan works out… Then I suppose you won't be watching this video in the first place and everything should've worked out. But if you're watching this video now, that means my plan has failed…
"Heh! Don't even bother trying to figure out what my plan was or to dive into my identity or proof of my existence. There's no longer any evidence of my existence in this world. It's like I never existed because I was afflicted with some weird thing known as antimeme… There's a chance you've dealt with this entity as well or maybe you haven't. If you haven't run into it, I'll have to advise you to be careful. I'm afraid I can't give you much advice since I can barely keep myself safe from harm!"
Zhao Shanhe expressed almost frustratingly, "I'm not afraid of death, I'm just afraid of being forgotten. I suppose that the more you fear something, the more important it is that you confront it head-on!"
Afte
r that, silence again.
Chen Chen looked at the video length, he was now approaching the end of the video.
"There's also something else incredibly harsh that I need to tell you."
Zhao Shanhe suddenly chuckled, revealing his row of pearly white teeth. "When you keep using the power of the dimension key, the dangers that follow will continue to stalk you, this is entirely unavoidable. You can figure out the rest of the details yourselves. It doesn't come immediately, it's like a butterfly effect."
Chapter 416: Fermi Paradox |
Chen Chen was aware that the theory of The Great Filter was one of the elements of the Fermi Paradox.
In 1950, while Northern American physicist Fermi was discussing the prospect of UFO and aliens with other people, he suddenly brought up an intriguing question. "Where are these aliens?"
For the average person, this question raised by Fermi was nothing more than a subject of curiosity concerning the unknown potential of the vast universe. Put in the mind of the Nobel Prize winner, it represented a carefully crafted reality with many elements of potential horror —
On the scale of the entire universe, the range of what was observable to humans was 12.7 billion light-years. The current age of the universe was calculated at 136.2 (with a slight variance of 1.2) billion years old. There were more than 100 billion outer galaxy systems in the entire universe, making the Milky Way only one among countless of them. It was essentially a grain of sand on the beach, perhaps even lesser than that.
Considering the grand scale and magnitude and the countless millennia that had passed, why was it that humans had yet to encounter any extraterrestrial life force?
The way this question was presented may be too generalized, therefore the scientists went a step further to present it in finer detail. First of all, considering the immutable characteristic of the speed of light, the only galaxy system closest to the Milky Way would be 3 million light years away. Therefore, the existence of extraterrestrial life in other galaxy systems should not be factored in.
Additionally, some believed that sentient entities in the universe should not be limited to carbon-based life forms only. There was the possibility of other life forms existing, only humans were unable to detect them. Many people tended to default to "silicon-based life form" when discussing this topic.
However, from the perspective that life was a complex instance that experienced constant selective interchange with the environment, the basic laws of the entire universe could be viewed as a unified element. It was composed of the four basic forces that were atoms, protons, electrons, and other substances. According to the arrangement of the periodic table, the only stable element that should give birth to life would be carbon.
Carbon was composed of four electrons on its outermost layer, which was equivalent to four limbs. Each one of these limbs held onto another atom that may allow them to form a further chain of connections to create up to four stable covalent bonds. This was the upper limit of the number of chemical bonds that could be formed between elements.
In addition to carbon, silicon was another existing element that was most likely to lead to the birth of life in the entire universe. However, silicon atoms had one more layer of extranuclear electrons than carbon atoms. Its electromagnetic force was also weaker, thereby making it a weaker alternative to carbon.
Carbon played the role of a cross-pollinating flower that could attract a variety of other atoms to combine with. The types of compounds that could be formed with other elements were almost limitless.
Therefore, it should be safe to say that if there were other life forms existing in the universe apart from humans, there was a ninety percent chance that they would be carbon-based, a nine percent chance of them being silicon-based while the remaining one percent implied of them being composed of other substances.
Therefore, by extending this argument of the basis of life form to the Milky Way scale and measuring it from a carbon approach, the result obtained was — the Milky Way was about 12.5 billion years old, two thousand light-years in thickness, and 160,000 light years in diameter. There would be approximately a trillion stars akin to the sun and numerous planets impossible to quantify.
Even if the formation of human life was considered a near-impossible miraculous occurrence, when expanded to the scale of the Milky Way, the odds were still greatly magnified.
Based on the current discovery of physics, chemistry, biology, cosmology, and sociology along with the rate of development that humanity had displayed so far, scientists believed that if an alien civilization developed just 10,000 years earlier than the earth, it should have left its footprints all across the Milky Way by now. Thus, the entire galaxy system should be filled with interstellar civilization by now.
However, the concrete fact was that apart from some conspiracy and strange theories, humans had never found any strong evidence of the existence of aliens. Even a radio telescope could not detect any signs of alien spacecraft or alien engineering...
This brought us back to the question raised by Fermi, where in the world were the aliens?
This question had been boiled into the classical Fermi Paradox that was still prevalently discussed in the scientific field.
After the video ended, Chen Chen became unbelievably flustered, feeling like he had just been played for a fool.
Little X turned to Chen Chen and then to the video that had ended before finally asking, "Sir Godfather, is there something this person said that is inaccurate?"
"None, I completely agree with the points he raised."
Chen Chen nodded, his expression becoming unreadable as he said, "But he hasn't said anything that I don't know of already. Coming down to it, he only spent the duration of the video reminding me that humanity would soon face a crisis. Everything else other than that was hot garbage!"
Little X scratched her head in confusion.
"Everything he described was phrased like there was a tremendous point to be made. He talked about The Great Filter, the USB drive butterfly effect, everything he mentioned, I have already known since some time ago. However, he didn't so much as address what I wanted to know."
Chen Chen shrugged. "What's the theory of The Great Filter? It's based on one of the explanations of the Fermi Paradox first proposed by a man named Robin Hansen. He divided the evolution of civilization into 9 stages, starting from the genesis of an appropriate planetary system to the birth of self-replicating molecules, to single-celled life, sexual reproduction, multi-celled life, fully-formed animals, to the stage we're currently in. The final stage would be interstellar colonization…
"Which means that he believes that current human civilization is on the eighth stage of The Great Filter. The only criteria missing for the final stage that was interstellar colonization was nuclear fusion control."
"Haven't we already achieved nuclear fusion control?"
Little X promptly remarked.
"Yes."
Chen Chen nodded. "Specific calculations had been conducted and determined that even if the chemical energy of the entire Earth was spent, it still wouldn't suffice to transport humans to the nearest solar system which was Centaurus A within a few decades. This proved that chemical fuel was a poor substance which in its most optimized form only served as a traditional fuel source for humans. Nuclear fusion control acting as a powering system would be the first step to kickstart humanity's venture into space."
Little X researched online herself when she heard this. "The basis of The Great Filter theory matches well with the theory of evolution. It took 4.5 billion years before humans started emerging on the earth and more than 200,000 years after that for humans to discover what we now know as science. In this incredibly lengthy process, all it took was one fatal natural disaster to terminate the progress of human civilization.
"This means that without the existence of this Great Filter, life should be able to flourish like dandelions on fields. Countless civilizations would've overtaken mankind and aliens woul
d've discovered Earth a long time ago. Even we could pull the same thing off by now."
Chen Chen nodded in agreement. He was aware that the reason Little X was so confident in claiming this was because she was now more than capable of constructing her own Von Neumann probe.
The Von Neumann probe was a self-replicating probe that continuously performed self-replication using raw materials found in various galaxy systems to allow itself to explore the universe. It was named after the mathematician, Von Neumann.
All the functions of this kind of detector were based on the existing technology of mankind. However, based on scientist's calculations, only one such model could be produced at the moment and it would take millions of years before it could traverse across the entire galaxy.
By reverse-analyzing this subject, could we presume that the reason we have not found a similar Von Neumann probe of another civilization was that there was no existing civilization within a million years' distance from Earth?
"Which is why something like The Great Filter must be present to hinder the vast population of the galaxy system."
Little X summarized.
"You've hit the nail right on the dot."
Chen Chen agreed. "Which is why I said that this Zhao Shanhe is full of it. He speaks of this issue but doesn't go into specific detail of what exactly he's referring to. What a lot of crap isn't it?
"Also, the points he raised about Gaia and the natural disasters incited by Earth to wipe out humans are very common immune responses."
Chen Chen explained, "From a metaphysical point of view — Earth treats humans as foreign elements. Since many endangering and destructive actions of humans posed a direct threat to Earth's health, Earth releases viruses to kill humans as it's unable to house so many humans. This is done to maintain the balance of its biosphere. Marburg virus, Sudan Ebola virus, and Zaire Ebola virus are among the strongest counters displayed by nature.
