Chapter 1,012 All Secrets and Truths
The patriarch has a lot to tell us, but the premise is to confirm Sandora's identity. The Green Star originally had the function of identifying Xiling apostles. Unfortunately, these ancient equipment were destroyed by several accidents during the long years of exile. The only facilities that are still available on Green Star are its own structural support device, energy furnace, and some defense and alarm devices. Moreover, the control of these devices is not in the hands of the patriarch. In the old empire era, the tree elf race was the last one. The Familia who came into contact with the old empire received too little technical support from the empire, and they had no time to digest it. Eighty percent of the things handed over to them in a hurry were automatic equipment.
Fortunately, even if we cannot get confirmation from the planet system, we can still make the patriarch believe in his identity: the Legion of Shadow City is patrolling above the Green Star. Even if the old tree elf elder has not learned how to sense psionic energy, She also had vivid memories of those giant ships.
After confirming our identities, the tree elf leader recounted the history she knew.
The tree elves were once an advanced civilization that was isolated from the world but had advanced technology.
This is a bit incredible, because in many cases, elves should be creatures associated with magic and the Middle Ages. It is hard for you to imagine how illegal it is for an elf with a laser gun and an infrared night vision device to stand in front of you. And (let us temporarily forget about the blood elves riding anti-gravity motorcycles in Shadow City, racing and heavy metal rock music are not the original elf culture) but in the void where everything is possible. Let us let go of these common senses that are fixed by books: Although the tree elves have elements of civilization similar to magic. But what really supports their continuous development is the power of science and technology. To the tree elves, magic is more like an individual talent passed down from their ancestors. Just like the top of the earth's pyramid, the tree elves ultimately did not rely on their limited life talents to leave their home planet. According to the empire's judgment standards, they were a technological civilization before the old empire discovered these peaceful creatures. They have developed mature space technology and a life support system that exceeds their civilization level (the latter is due to the talent of tree elves in understanding the essence of life). These fantasy world protagonists with pointy ears drive the spacecraft they made. The ship wandered around their star system with ease and successfully built space teleporters to carry out various explorations across the galaxy. They are full of curiosity and keen to travel far. A tree elf family will never stay in a fixed place for more than three years, which will make them uncomfortable. For tree elves, the most interesting thing in the world is to go where they have never been. Places where you can see things you have never seen before, even if you have to spend several years traveling to do so. In the past, they explored their entire planet. In the space age, they began to take steps towards the dangerous vacuum and radiation environment. With seeds from the home planet, we hope to make lush forests grow on more suitable planets. However, fate was twisting and the disaster that almost caused the tree elves to become extinct also came after the largest excursion.
It was their first attempt to send an exploration team to the center of the galaxy. It was the most daring voyage the tree elves had made since they mastered space technology. That voyage impressed the patriarch deeply. Stargazers among them used hyperspace equipment to observe a series of incredible space strangeness happening in the center of the Milky Way. A large number of celestial bodies inexplicably disappeared from the observer's field of vision, and some old stars suddenly burst out with young stars. Vitality, crazy release of astonishing torrent of energy and matter, the speed of star creation in the star nest has increased to an unprecedented level. The puzzled tree elf scientists sent the most advanced deep space spacecraft and the bravest astronauts to the center of the galaxy to find out. They expected these brave adventurers to bring back brand-new knowledge, or an unheard of Cosmic energy model.
Until that time, the tree elves had never come into contact with the abyss, and they never imagined that the madness happening in the center of the galaxy was not a cosmic wonder at all. It is a harbinger that the galaxy is about to collapse under the pollution of the abyss.
The first exploration team quickly lost contact and only sent back some garbled and frantic phrases. They seemed to be partying in the center of the galaxy, and those crazy recordings showed a hysterical mood. If the tree elves immediately chose to flee their home when they received these messages, they might be able to avoid the next disaster: the power of the abyss appears in the center of the galaxy, And there is only a little leak. It will take a long time for their weak strength to break through the extreme environment there. Their spreading speed is less than the speed of light at the beginning, and will continue to accelerate to super-light speed as the infection expands. The tree elves immediately Setting sail and escaping could delay the disaster for at least hundreds of years.
But they made a wrong decision: they sent out a second exploration force to see what happened to the previous team.
After experiencing the same communication severance as the first exploration team, a spacecraft of the second exploration team miraculously returned successfully, which was the beginning of the disaster. The scientists and medical experts who went to respond found that the tattered spacecraft, which seemed to have escaped from death, was empty and all the crew members were missing. The spacecraft flew back on its own under the action of the automatic navigation system. During the subsequent inspection, one after another anomalies of the returning spacecraft were exposed to people: inexplicable damage to the shell, traces of fierce fighting and blood stains in the personnel area, instruments smashed by the crew, and crazy graffiti in the captain's cabin. Pushing further and further in the direction of horror and weirdness, the last anomaly they discovered was a several-minute video clip.
"I still remember that scene vividly. I was a scientist on Tandani at that time, and I personally experienced that scene." The patriarch folded her hands tightly, and she was still trembling a little when mentioning the history of that year. , "The surveillance recorded the scene at the gate. The captain and commander of the deep space spacecraft pushed the corpses into the airlock compartment one after another, then placed bombs in the spacecraft. They set up a path to Tandani. The message was sent and ended up being pulled out of the airlock along with all the bodies. They committed suicide."
"Individuals with strong wills will occasionally regain their consciousness in the early stages after being infected." Sandora said quietly. "It seems that the captain and commander have guessed that there is something in the ship that mortals can't deal with, so they want to destroy the ship. They are worried that they will lose their minds again before the bomb explodes and prevent the ship from self-destructing this last chance, so He chose suicide first."
The sister sighed: "It's a pity that they didn't expect that invisible force to destroy the detonating device of the bomb as well: the abyss was destroyed indiscriminately, and the bomb was destroyed before it exploded, along with the transmitting device of the spacecraft. Together."
"Yes, later we found the message that could not be sent. There was only one sentence: Don't come, run away!"
Abyssal infection is initially difficult to detect. Especially when they are still weak. Those dim two-dimensional planes were hidden in the darkness. Before they started to destroy everything, no one would have thought of the harm that a coquettish pattern could cause. At first, people only discovered that there were many weird things appearing in some places on the expedition ships that returned home by chance. "Graffiti". Later, the lighting system and power furnace of the starport frequently failed. Within a few days, the tree elves in the base began to be infected by an inexplicable depression. Violence increased day by day, and the army gradually lost control... When the capital finally When they discovered that something was wrong, their orders could no longer be delivered to the border. Then, like many worlds infected by the abyss, first the first batch of infected people suddenly began to attack others, and then spread outward from the infected area, and various creatures Mutations occur one after another. The giant beasts began to slaughter civilians. The space city that the tree elves had built over thousands of years began to fall apart without being attacked. On the colonial star, the earth cracked and magma spewed.
The tree elves have resisted this unexplainable "plague" for fifteen years. For a civilization that knows nothing about the abyss (and they don't have a god-given treasure like Otie, nor a lost goddess of life) ability to turn the tide), this was a pretty good record, but in the end they were still on the verge of extinction, with only the last fortress left on the colonial star. The Space Force was basically wiped out - it was at this time that the Xiling Army appeared.
It is now impossible to find out which emperor's army it was. They discovered the severely infected tree elf kingdom at the last moment. Fortunately, the imperial general who performed the purification mission at that time was a careful soldier. He did not directly attack the entire kingdom. The galaxy releases weapons of extermination. Instead, they slowly advanced the front line and discovered the tree elf civilization that was still resisting tenaciously.
Extrapolate from timetable. At that time, it should have been less than two years since the disaster that destroyed the empire (this was calculated based on the history mentioned by the patriarch). It is very likely that the tree elf civilization was the last vassal race of the old empire.
"After getting acquainted with the empire, we were first allowed to rebuild society, and at the same time the empire transformed our planet into a mobile fortress." The patriarch took a sip of water and continued, I thought to myself, isn't this just a direct requisition!
The way the old empire acted was really...well, what they did was a good thing, but after they finished it, they commandeered their home planet as a space fortress (it should only be regarded as a space fortress, in the old empire era, this kind of A starship made by hollowing out a planet is not qualified to be called a star battleship). This behavior is really overbearing. Fortunately, the tree elves have just escaped from the genocide and did not have time to care about it. It may be that they are against I didn't really care about this, anyway, this is how the matter developed in the end.
"With the help of the Empire, we spent two years covering the surface of our planet with rechargeable armor. When the transformation of the planet was about to be completed, the Imperial General suddenly visited. He was very urgent at the time. I thought something might have happened. For a big event, he brought a batch of equipment, which are huge machines that drive the planet to travel across the world. These things were strictly prohibited for races like ours before. He ordered the engineers to bury the new equipment in the mantle, and later executed it himself. He carried out several modification projects and gave us some things. Finally, he asked all the tree elves to hide underground and started the starship's engine."
"Then you just carry out the mission so honestly?" Lin Xue felt a little incredible, "Aren't you curious why the other party did this? Don't you feel weird about leaving your own universe suddenly?"
"It's okay to leave your own universe. The tree elves don't care about this." The patriarch shook his head. "The general told us that the end of the world is coming and all universes are no longer safe. Some other vassal races are already on the way. There are also has died, and the tree elves have no ability to stay and fight, so they have to perform other tasks, which is to escape with those vital information. The farther away, the better. The journey will end when the imperial army chases us back. Yes. But the general also reminds us, be careful and chase them, there will be corrupted imperial warships that will hunt down the starships and tear the mantle apart. Destroy the data inside."
I thought of the legends of the tree elves, and then shook my head, feeling that there were still many secrets that had not been solved: "The oasis is the small planet we are staying on now. What is going on? This is the important thing that the old empire asked you to transport away. material?"
"No, the data is in the system. The small planet in the center of the earth is just a part of the system. It was originally our moon."
Everyone: "...Huh?"
"The oasis was originally our moon. The tree elves' home planet had two huge satellites. The larger one was destroyed in the war. We used mass weapons to blow it into a star ring to slow down the bombs dropped by the polluters. The smaller one was named Oasis and survived the war. Before deciding to set sail on the starship, the elders of the tree elves felt that at least something from their hometown should be brought with them. So the general agreed, and he transformed the center of the home planet. , put our moon in it.”
What a haphazard way of transformation!
After some introduction by the patriarch, we finally understood the ins and outs of the history of Green Star and how the oasis appeared. I didn’t expect that it would be such a long and tortuous story. At this time, I thought of another thing. It seems to be more confusing than anything else: "So are the tree elves sleeping in the dormant cabins of the mantle or living on the oasis now? What are the mass projections outside? And the villagers last night exchange..."
"This is a solution taken when the journey is too long," the patriarch said helplessly. "After setting sail from the home planet, we quickly lost contact with the empire (it is estimated that the situation in the old empire was out of control at this time). We haven't fully learned how to use the complex operating systems of Planet Fortress, and we have no chance to learn anymore, so we can only continue sailing with the automatic navigation system. At the beginning, we will stay on the home planet for a few short years. We came to live on the surface, but soon we discovered that the world had indeed suffered a catastrophe just as the general warned. The external environment became extremely dangerous, with war and the abyss everywhere. After several consecutive universes encountered danger, , the tree elves finally gave up the surface completely and moved to live underground. Later, as time passed, the elders realized a problem: if the end of the journey is far away, staying awake would be a catastrophic event, which would make The consequences of people going crazy are no less than the pollution of the abyss. Tree elves have a long lifespan. If they are trapped in the dark underground for such a long time, sooner or later they will have a collective mental breakdown, so we entered hibernation in batches - at first At that time, they entered hibernation one by one. Later, the situation became more and more serious. There were fewer and fewer tree elves who could stay awake and maintained the system. In the end, almost everything was handed over to automatic facilities, and only one percent of the tree elves were still awake. , and the awake tree elf scientists discovered a terrible phenomenon: due to the extremely long period of continuous dormancy, the spiritual power of the tribe is dissipating: even if the body can be preserved in the dormant cabin, the soul cannot live forever. The mission looks like it will fail. Li: This is something more terrifying than death for the tree elves. Our racial brand does not allow us to give up our commitment, so the last scientists, including me, came up with a plan to delay the situation.
Enable the oasis in the center of the earth to form a world composed of mass projections, simulating the most primitive environment of the home planet, and allowing the tribesmen to enter this projection world in batches to dream..."
"Dream?" My sister suddenly interrupted the other party.
"Yes, dreaming," the patriarch nodded, "Use the soul extraction device to transfer all the spirit of a tree elf, input it into the mass projection, then selectively seal most of the memory, and finally put it on the oasis. In this way In the dream, the soul trauma caused by the long journey and continuous dormancy will slowly heal. The purpose of sealing most of the memories is to let the dreamer forget about the journey, so that when they leave the dream, they can take a piece of memory with them. A perfect sweet dream that is enough to heal wounds. Soon we found that this method was effective, and the soul dissipation phenomenon that permeated the tribe completely stopped, so we simply extracted everyone’s souls and stored them in the mantle of the home planet. In a giant database, it is easier and safer to transfer souls from the database to dreams than to temporarily extract them from the body, and it also saves energy. Therefore, those bodies in the dormant cabins in the upper mantle can be transferred to low-power storage. After all, no one knows that the journey will continue. How long ago, when the first energy furnace failed, we had such a sense of crisis."
I sighed silently: Fortunately, 80 to 90% of Green Star's energy furnace is still intact, but they were right to prepare for a rainy day.
"Things are basically on the right track." My sister crossed her hands on her chin and looked at the patriarch, "Then you..."
"I am one of the navigators," the old tree elf laughed. "When the crew of the starship is sleeping, there is always someone watching the navigator. The navigator is the nominal starship pilot, but our authority is limited to We can only observe the operation of the system, and this work was forced to be suspended after a malfunction thousands of years ago. Until now, we have not been able to repair those things. We are just some trainers who were accidentally thrown into the spacecraft. The primitive people left suddenly, everything was too fast, and there was no time for us to even learn how to brake the mother planet..."
Navigators need to maintain intact memories and a clear mental state when other tree elves enter sleep and dreams. There are not many of them, and they have to be divided into many shifts. In order to observe whether the aging system of the starship is still intact for a long time, they Under tremendous pressure, only one navigator appears in the dream of the oasis at a time: in the name of the ancestors and the patriarch, this is their only rest time, and even during such rest time, they must stay awake, after all , someone must be responsible for maintaining the integrity of this dream.
So I was in awe of the patriarch in front of me. (To be continued)