It wasn’t the first time Jiang Chen had spoke in front of an audience, but it was his first time in front of such a high-profile audience.
He took a deep breath, and cleared his mind. With all eyes gathered on him, he slowly said, “There may be doubts in the minds of everyone here, whether it’s regarding the topic to be discussed or the summit itself.”
“I don’t have much to say here. Taking the literal meaning, the theme of this summit is security.”
“It’s not security between countries and not related to any territorial disputes, sovereignty disputes, or politics. Don’t show impatience; I’m not joking. Everyone, I’m not an alarmist, but we’re on a fine line between life and death.”
Jiang Chen noticed that when he said this, there were whispers. From the closest representatives, he was able to clearly see their disbelief.
It was just like he said something ridiculous.
Jiang Chen completely expected this reaction. Although evidence about the existence of extraterrestrial civilization and acts of aggression were summarized in the documents, the audience wasn’t the director of NASA or ESA but senior foreign minister of each country, after all.
They weren’t experts in the area. They wouldn’t take everything Jiang Chen said for truth. It would take time to verify.
After a moment’s pause, Jiang Chen went on.
“Just a month ago, Celestial Trade Space Department discovered an interesting phenomenon when observing extraterrestrial planets and exploring extraterrestrial civilizations.”
The image on the holographic screen turned into a star map, and in the center of the star map was the Gliese 581 galaxy, 2 degrees north of the Libra-β.
“Gliese 581g. According to our researchers, the planet has a 90% chance of life.”
The UA delegation couldn’t sit still. The man sitting next to Secretary of State Kerry pressed the button next to the microphone and requested to speak.
Jiang Chen didn’t mind that his speech was interrupted and gestured for him to continue.
The man stood up and fixed his microphone, then he put his hands on the table and looked at Jiang Chen with his eyebrows furrowed. He kept an oppressive posture and said, “NASA long ago conducted a detail observation on the Gliese 581 galaxy fifteen years ago and reached the conclusion that this blue-green pattern may contain life.”
Benjamin stood up straight, shrugged and said with a mocking tone, “But your researcher apparently didn’t pay attention to the journal ‘Science.’ Even as a layman, I know that four years ago, a paper published by the University of Pennsylvania researchers in Science pointed out that the planet didn’t actually exist and it was a color ray error caused by the stellar magnetic field burst of the 581d.”
“If you want to divert the attention of the international community to your ignorance in outer space, you may wish to utilize a more realistic excuse and not blame aliens.”
When Benjamin said this, the venue became rattled.
Although the aerospace technology of Celestial Trade was indeed powerful, the UA was also an established aerospace power. While they might be slightly inferior in terms of hardware, their soft power couldn’t be underestimated.
Celestial Trade just said that there was life on Gliese 581g, yet the representative of UA immediately stood up and slapped his face. If the UA proved that the planet didn’t exist four years ago, then why did they come here for a meeting? To listen to nonsense from Celestial Trade?!
Anger was boiling among the representatives.
After his speech ended, Benjamin didn’t sit down immediately. Kerry, next to him, crossed his arms and looked at Jiang Chen. He wanted to see how he defended himself in irritation.
Stein raised an eyebrow and put his ballpoint pen on the table. He was very curious about how Jiang Chen, who was exposed on the spot, would defend himself.
The Hua Foreign Minister sat in silence, the Russian Foreign Minister and his deputy exchanged looks. The French Representative began to check his watch impatiently…
Jiang Chen’s calm reaction surprised Secretary of State Kerry. It was too calm that almost made what just happened boring.
Jiang Chen nodded at the diplomat. He cleared his throat and swept his eyes across Kerry. He turned to the entire venue and raised his hand to indicate for the representatives to be settled.
After the venue once again become silent, he raised one finger and slowly said to the UA delegation, “First of all, let me correct a mistake you made. Gliese 581g is green, and there is no blue-green pattern at all. As for why, I’ll talk about that later.”
“Does this have anything to do with it?” Benjamin requested to speak after he heard Jiang Chen’s argument. This time, he didn’t wait for Jiang Chen’s acknowledgment. He stood up and sneered in disdain. “No matter what color it is, it doesn’t exist—”
“Furthermore-” Jiang Chen interrupted him and raised a second finger. It was the middle finger next to the index finger. This time, his tone carried a hint of indifference. “Do we need to pay attention to what papers you’ve written?”
Kerry suddenly looked agitated. Delegations from other countries also focused on this side with more or less an eagerness to watch the scene unfold.
Yes, with Celestial Trade’s technology which could colonize Mars, was it necessary to worry about who published a paper on the planet in ‘Science’? It was like a person soon graduating from high school needing to consult with what someone wrote in an elementary school essay?
However, this unadorned statement made it impossible for the UA delegates to sit still. Jiang Chen’s statement wasn’t euphemistic at all. It raised a giant middle finger to the UA aerospace practitioners by saying: “Everyone here is rubbish”.
Benjamin opened his mouth without a show of expression, but anyone could guess the embarrassment on his mind.
“I just mentioned that Gliese 581g is green, and now I will prove it to you.”
Jiang Chen knocked twice on the touchpad of the podium, and soon, the image on the holographic screen behind him was cut onto an enlarged star map.
The center of the star map was locked on the galaxy 2 degrees north of the Libra-β. The white box locked the orange-red star then continued to zoom. The lens focused on that star until the red star filled half the screen.
Stein narrowed his eyes as the light was too bright. However, this discomfort didn’t last long, and soon, the star on the screen was dimmed as if some kind of filter was added.
The light continued to decay until there were several black spots visible to the naked eye around the star.
Benjamin’s eyes almost popped out as he stared at the image in front of him
He already knew what Jiang Chen was doing, but it was impossible!
Even if he was a layman, he knew it was absolutely impossible to directly capture a planet image 20.5 light-years away. Only stars could be directly observed by telescopes. Most of the planets outside the solar system required various techniques such as spectroscopy to measure the planetary data, and then computers would be used to draw a rough concept map.
To put it into perspective, it was easy for someone to see a light bulb hundreds of meters away, but it was impossible to see mosquitoes on the light bulb, no matter how powerful the telescope was. Even with a filter to dim the light, it was impossible to change the fact that the planet itself shouldn’t shine!
Are you kidding!
Using computer animation to fool people?!
Eyes locked onto the black dots with Gliese 581 as the background, Benjamin snarled in his heart.
However, Jiang Chen’s nonchalant words shattered his fantasies.
“It’s almost at the limit. The optical observation resolution of Celestial City Astronomy Telescope can only observe up till this point. It might not be visible to the naked eye, but I can tell you with certainty that those pixels are indeed green.”
Only!
What do you mean by only?
As soon as this statement came out, the audience was astounded.
