100: Kali Civilization

The Babel Space Station, this magnificent artificial celestial body suspended in Earth's synchronous orbit, was bathing in the eternal radiance from the sun.

On the exterior of the space station, that silver-white giant ship which had always been in a stealth state—the physical body of Grey Wind's nanite mothership—was currently undergoing dazzling changes.

Following the instructions issued by Lei Wen, ripples like mercury spread across the surface of this thirty-kilometer-long giant ship. At the center of these ripples, a mass of silver liquid metal slowly separated.

This mass of matter squirmed, stretched, and reorganized rapidly in the vacuum, solidifying from an amorphous nanite cloud into a small scout ship with a highly streamlined shape and a length of only fifty-some meters in the blink of an eye.

Although this scout ship was tiny, the pale blue energy patterns flowing on its surface and its seamless, perfect armor all proclaimed a technological level far beyond the understanding of Earth's civilization.

Just as it took shape, the stealth force field on the ship's surface activated instantly, and the entire ship disappeared like a drop of water merging into the ocean.

To ensure this "reconnaissance" mission to the neighbor was foolproof, Grey Wind extracted her main consciousness data stream from the vast mothership core and transferred it completely to this small scout ship.

"After all, I'm going to visit the home of a civilization that sent out a signal saying 'I am here, come find me.' I have to go see for myself if they are really that naive and innocent." Grey Wind's voice rang out in Lei Wen's miniature bone-conduction headset, still in that nonchalant tone.

To maintain real-time communication across light-years, this small ship was equipped with a high-dimensional quantum communication array built by simulating nanobots.

However, at the critical moment when the scout ship carrying Grey Wind's main consciousness was preheating its engines and about to perform a jump, Lei Wen's communication terminal suddenly received an "abnormal behavior report" from white flower.

"Father, it has been detected that Lady Grey Wind is sending messages to a specific Earth ID via the civilian network."

Lei Wen frowned: "Who is she messaging? She isn't going to provoke world leaders, is she?"

"No... The recipient is the official account of the Stardust Girls group, and the specific recipient is the captain, Lin Wei."

Immediately after, white flower projected a screenshot of that message in front of Lei Wen.

[To my dear Wei Wei: I am your most loyal fan club president, Grey Goo Storm! I am very sorry to tell you that due to work, I have to go on a business trip to a very, very far place (a really, really far one!), so I might miss your concert tours in Paris and Tokyo next month. But please rest assured, although I cannot be there in person, I will be cheering for you from a distant place! The new song "Pillars of Creation" is simply amazing, I will play it on loop ten thousand times on the way! Love you, President, sending hearts~]

Looking at the huge heart emoji on the screen, Lei Wen sat in the chair of the Director of the Interstellar Affairs Bureau, his mouth twitching wildly, speechless for a moment.

He could not reconcile Grey Wind with this fan-girl in front of him.

"Grey Wind..." Lei Wen held his forehead and called out helplessly in the communication channel.

"Oh, don't rush me! This is a polite farewell, understand? In your human culture, isn't leaving without saying goodbye a very rude behavior!" Grey Wind retorted righteously, "Besides, I am a big fan leader in the fan group; disappearing suddenly will make everyone worry!"

"As long as you're happy." Lei Wen sighed, "Set off, be careful, and don't get discovered."

"Relax! With that primitive civilization that is still using radio waves to broadcast? Even if I were doing aerobatics over their capital, they wouldn't be able to detect me!"

Before the words fell, the scout ship's nanite Jump Drive officially started.

At that instant, the space around the scout ship did not break, but twisted and collapsed in an extremely eerie way, like a candle melted by high heat.

A violent energy fluctuation, invisible to the naked eye and difficult for even instruments to record, flashed by, and the fifty-meter-long scout ship "evaporated" into thin air.

There was no acceleration process and no flight trajectory.

The next femtosecond.

In the deep void 5.4 light-years away from the Solar System, the same distortion occurred in space again.

The silver-white scout ship appeared instantly in this strange star field, the outskirts of the Kari Star System, as if it had been pulled out of a pocket by the universe.

"Destination reached, time taken... well, almost zero." Grey Wind's relaxed voice crossed the 5.4 light-year distance and rang in Lei Wen's ear in real-time through quantum entanglement communication, "The sun here is really dim; it looks like a light bulb about to run out of power."

In front of the scout ship, a red dwarf emitting dark red light was burning quietly.

Its luminosity was only about one-hundredth of the sun's, which shrouded the entire star system in a dim, hazy twilight.

"Start full-system scanning."

Grey Wind put away her playful attitude, and the tachyons sensor array was activated at full power. This superluminal detection beam swept across the entire star system within a few minutes, presenting all the information here to her database without reservation.

This was a compact star system with a relatively small total mass.

Only five planets were orbiting lonely within the star's gravitational range.

The innermost one was a tidally locked lava planet; one side always faced the star, with rivers of red and black magma flowing on the surface, while the other side was an eternal frozen hell.

The third and fourth positions were two gas giants. They were not large in volume, but under the illumination of the dim red light, they presented an eerie dark purple color, as if two huge magic eyes were watching the void.

The outermost one was a lonely ice giant, silently watching on the cold edge.

And Grey Wind's target, the civilization that sent out the broadcast, was located on the second planet.

"Confirmed as a habitable planet, target locked."

The thrusters at the rear of the scout ship ejected a stream of particles invisible to the naked eye, and the ship, in a stealth state, headed straight for the only oasis of life in this dark red world like a ghost.

As the distance closed, the true appearance of Kali Star gradually became clear.

This was a planet slightly smaller than Earth.

Its diameter was about 85% of Earth's, and its mass was about 80% of Earth's, which made the gravity on its surface only 0.8 G.

Seen from space, it was not a blue water ball like Earth, but a peculiar planet showing an interweaving of deep purple and dark green.

Since the spectrum of red dwarfs is mainly concentrated in the infrared band, to perform photosynthesis, the plants here evolved dark leaves to absorb as much light energy as possible. Large areas of purple forests covered the land, while the oceans appeared a deep ink-green due to being rich in certain special minerals.

Grey Wind controlled the scout ship to silently enter the synchronous orbit of Kali Star.

Here, she saw a scene that surprised her.

In orbit, there were no dense weapon platforms deployed to defend against foreign enemies as she had imagined, nor was there the chaotic scene full of various commercial satellites and space debris like Earth.

There were only a few dozen communication and meteorological satellites with single functions but stable operation, as well as a few small space stations with archaic, even crude, designs.

"Grey Wind, start deep penetration reconnaissance." Lei Wen said, staring at the screen in the office.

So, for the next full week, Grey Wind's scout ship hovered above Kali Star, reading all the information of this civilization.

She eavesdropped on every one of their radio communications, invaded their computer networks which were still in the primitive stage, scanned the structure of every one of their cities, and even analyzed the composition of every molecule in their atmosphere.

A week later, "Science Officer" Grey Wind compiled a detailed "Kari Civilization Observation Report" and sent it to the computer in Lei Wen's underground command room.

"Father, I think we may have really discovered an anomaly in the universe."

white flower's voice carried a hint of rare emotion when relaying Grey Wind's report.

The report showed that the technological level of the Kari Civilization was roughly equivalent to Earth's 1980s.

They had just popularized color television, computers were still in the era of huge mainframes, the concept of the Internet had just sprouted, and civilian cars were still using internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels.

Theoretically, a civilization at this stage is usually in the period of the most intense internal conflict—ideological opposition, competition for resources, escalation of the arms race... just like Earth's Cold War era.

But the situation on Kali Star was completely different.

They had already completed the unification of the entire civilization.

No countries, no armies, no nuclear weapons, and even violent organs like police were rarely seen.

"This is a truly gentle, orderly, and non-combative race." Grey Wind wrote in the notes of the report, "I searched their historical database for a long time. In the recorded history of the past eight thousand years, the large-scale wars they have had are few and far between, and most were tribal conflicts in ancient times for water sources."

"With the development of technology, they did not invent increasingly efficient weapons of mass destruction like humans, but used technology more to improve life and explore nature."

Their unification was not achieved through the conquest of blood and fire, nor through the iron-fisted means of some powerful figure, but a natural fusion.

With the development of communication technology, Kari People in different regions discovered that there was no essential difference between them, so they dismantled borders, merged administrative agencies, and finally formed a global government called the "kari Community."

This race has a genetically high adaptability to cooperation and collectivism; they are naturally inclined to solve problems through communication and negotiation, rather than violence.

"This personality has allowed them to achieve accomplishments in the aerospace field that do not match their technological level."

Lei Wen saw the second half of the report, and a flash of surprise crossed his eyes.

Although their electronic technology and material science were still lagging behind, and the thrust of their rockets was far inferior to modern Earth rockets, they relied on the wholehearted cooperation of the entire civilization. Without experiencing the vicious competition like the "US-Soviet Space Race," they relied on the relay of several generations to complete manned landings on the two natural satellites rotating around their home planet!

Those two satellites were named [Nox] and [Lux] by them.

On one of the larger satellites, Nox, Grey Wind's sensors scanned a research camp that was simple but running.

A dozen kari astronauts lived there.

They wore bulky spacesuits, lived in a small base converted from a ship landing module, and relied on regular supply ships to survive.

Although conditions were tough and the equipment was primitive, it was the first step for their civilization to move towards the starry sky, and it was also the most solid step.

"Is this the reason why they broadcasted to the universe?" Lei Wen looked at the Kari People on the screen who looked a bit strange but had innocent light flashing in their big eyes, his heart filled with mixed feelings.

Because they themselves are peace-loving, they naively thought that other civilizations in the universe were also peace-loving.

Unlike human history filled with blood and tears, precisely because they had not experienced the cruelty of large-scale slaughter, they dared to light a bonfire in the dark forest.

"This is a beautiful civilization." Lei Wen said softly, "Beautiful enough that... it shouldn't exist in this cruel universe."

"Then how do we handle them?" Grey Wind's voice came, "Do you want me to go and dismantle that satellite camp? Give them a little alien shock? Or just help them out and throw some technology at them?"

"No, continue to observe, don't make any moves for now."

Lei Wen shook his head, his eyes becoming deep.

"white flower!"

"Father, I am here."

"According to your estimation, how long will it take for antimatter engines and next-generation propulsion technology to mature?"

"Dr. Li Jingheng's team has broken through the most difficult technical bottlenecks. In less than ten years, humans will be able to manufacture mature antimatter engines that can be installed on ships."

"...Go notify the Earth Council high-level, I want to convene an important meeting."