The floors inside the building had sky-high ceilings. The sense of vertical space gave the entire hall a majestic and solemn look.
It was almost like this wasn’t a conference room, but instead a court hall.
The abnormally tall conference table gave off a similar vibe.
The conference table had a horseshoe shape, wrapping around the room.
Sitting at the bottom seats were ordinary members of the parliament. Sitting at the higher seats were people of higher status, such as department ministers, president of parliament, and even the ruler of the Empire: the consul.
What a strange civilization.
Even though this was obviously a capitalistic society, the government/political structure did not seem efficient at all. Rather, it seemed to be deeply embedded in religion.
Lu Zhou speculated that this might be related to the Calan’s appreciation of philosophy and aesthetics.
Unfortunately, Lu Zhou was not a social scientist, so he focused his attention on more important things…
The meeting soon began.
Lu Zhou was standing on the side of the hall with Captain Ince, blending in with two other guards. Lu Zhou waited quietly for five minutes, staring intently at the conference table. Finally, the consul sitting at the center of the conference table looked at Professor Lane and spoke calmly.
“You’re Professor Lane?”
Professor Lane nodded and spoke politely.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“There’s been a rumor circulating in the Ring world, about something named the ‘Oracle’. According to the intelligence department’s investigation, all sources lead to you.”
The powerful Calanian consul continued to speak in a powerful manner, “I want to know why you’re causing such trouble to the Empire.
“The parliament and the people of the Empire need an explanation.”
Faced with the oppressive gazes from the parliament, Professor Lane kept his cool and spoke calmly.
“Your Honor, I must correct your statement.
“First of all, the Oracle is not a rumor. Our civilization is indeed facing an unprecedented crisis. Secondly, as a scholar, I am responsible for my words. What I say is true.”
There was a commotion in the conference hall.
Most of the legislators at the lower positions of power looked at each other and whispered to one another, even occasionally laughing from time to time.
Crisis?
If this were three centuries ago, this word would have been a lot more impactful. Back then, the world was full of doomers.
But ever since the Ring world was completed, the Empire had been shining in prosperity. Judging by the current population growth rate, they could maintain this prosperity for centuries.
They were in no danger of any kind of crisis.
Therefore, it was quite ridiculous to even mention the possibility of one.
The consul had a playful smile on his face. He had a look of contempt and ridicule in his eyes as he spoke.
“Then tell me, Professor Lane, what exactly is the crisis? Is it your theory on aliens?”
“No.”
Professor Lane frowned at the consul and began explaining his statement.
“I’m not sure if the crisis comes from them, but it is related to them.”
There was an even bigger commotion around the conference table.
The scholar looked around the conference table and spoke.
“One thing I want to say is that we are not alone in the universe. Even if there are no traces of life 500 light-years, or even 50,000 light-years away, that doesn’t mean there’s no external life at all. It is extremely unlikely that we are the only sentient beings in this universe.”
The consul looked at Professor Lane and spoke.
“That theory was popular many years ago, and I’m not interested in discussing it with you here. Even if they do exist, the sheer distance makes it so that we will never interact with them. So why does it matter to us?”
The Calans wasn’t a civilization that wanted to conquer the world.
Rather than expanding the territory of the Empire, they were more motivated on improving the peace and cohesion of their people. This was why they were able to create such a majestic giant engineering structure project that was the Ring world.
Aliens?
Even though in the early space age they wanted to make contact with an extraterrestrial species, that idea was abandoned in the early ages of the space colonization era.
Professor Lane nodded and spoke to the consul.
“Under ideal circumstances, staying in isolation is a wise choice. We don’t need to worry about species that are tens of thousands of light-years away… However, the problem isn’t that they have contacted us, but rather we have contacted them.”
The commotion in the room suddenly disappeared.
It was like a gun had just gone off.
A trace of astonishment had appeared in the consul’s eyes. The consul looked at Professor Lane and spoke.
“Where is the evidence!”
“I have published my findings in a paper 127 days ago, but that paper is precisely why my life is in danger… If it weren’t for Captain Ince and his team, I would have been captured by the attackers.”
Captain Ince, who was standing in the side of the conference room, nodded and spoke politely.
“Our pleasure, Professor Lane, your rights are protected by the state. Whether the parliament finds you guilty or not, you still have your rights.”
Professor Lane nodded as a show of gratitude.
He looked around the conference table and spoke.
“In order for us to reach an understanding, I will present my research again.”
He opened his suitcase and took out a thumb-sized prism from it.
When he gently pressed on the prism, the prism began to emit a blue light. Suddenly, a projected image appeared in the air.
It’s a holographic projection?
Lu Zhou was intrigued.
Is this a kind of naked eye holography, with a touchscreen interface?
How is that possible?
He felt like he was a kid from the suburbs that had just entered a city.
Other than Lu Zhou, everyone in the council was not surprised by what they saw. They quietly looked at the holographic screen and waited for Professor Lane to continue.
“… We all know that there is something that exists between black holes and neutron stars, which we know as quark stars. It is composed of up, down, and strange quarks. These stars are only the size of a pea, but they weigh hundreds of millions of tons.”
Professor Lane gestured with his hand and spoke.
“The research on quark stars has always been at the frontier of physics. It teaches us how to extract the materials we need from a black hole. A while ago, we were fortunate enough to discover and analyze a quark star that is 23,000 light-years away…
“And its size is… around the size of this pen.”
When Lu Zhou heard this, he was stunned.
Quark stars!
That actually exists?!
Physicists on Earth thought that “quark stars” was a type of fictional exotic star that did not exist…
The theory of its existence could be traced back to the conjecture that Witten put forward in the 1980s, in which he said “a large mass of strange quarks can form a ground state of a strong acting system”. There had been speculations regarding its existence during the early transition phases of the universe, caused by supernova explosions and neutron star collisions etc.
However, the conditions for the existence of a quark star was harsh. Theoretically, if it made contact with any matter, it would instantly explode, releasing terrifying amounts of energy.
Therefore, neither astrophysicists nor particle physicists had found evidence for its existence.
The only speculation so far was that the extremely high-energy cosmic rays with particle energies higher than 10^19eV might come from quark stars. However, just like neutrinos, it was difficult to capture these cosmic rays.
But Professor Lane confidently claimed that there was a quark star in the universe that was large enough to be seen with a naked eye.
If all of this was real, the entire physics community would go crazy…
Lu Zhou couldn’t help but get excited.
However, his excitement didn’t last long.
Because he knew that even if he knew the existence of this exotic star, there was no way to prove it to others.
It wasn’t like he could use this “Void Memory” as evidence.
He didn’t even know where the Calanians were located, nor if they still existed or not.
Lu Zhou began to feel a little down.
If only I can find the coordinates of the quark star or obtain the technology to find one.
I don’t think that information is inside the Void Memory.
It’s so close in front of me, yet so far…
“… Gentlemen, this is ground-breaking. A quark star that is large enough to be seen by the naked eye!”
“What’s the use?” a member of parliament said. He looked at the excited Professor Lane and continued, “Even the most advanced research ship in the Empire can’t fly 230,000 light-years away.”
The member of parliament spoke quite loudly.
Professor Lane looked at the member of parliament and spoke.
“Any theory is useless upon its creation… If we don’t understand it, there’s no way to make it useful.
“Basically, I am responsible for researching the quark star. At first, we thought it was stationary, but then we analyzed the gravitational wave and found an interesting pattern… This means that the quark star is not technically in motion. However, it is heading toward the center of the galaxy through a light bridge!”
The consul coughed and spoke in a serious manner.
“This is the Empire council, we’re not interested in theoretical physics.”
“… The main point is that the discovery changed everything we know,” Professor Lane said in a serious manner. “This quark star was man-made.
“Another civilization created it.
“The civilization that created it is probably far more advanced than us.”
