Chapter 917

The sun is always bright; even when separated by ten thousand miles, when sunlight shines upon the Earth, it still brings warmth and vitality.

Yet, if one observes this vigorous, primeval star from a close distance, one can feel that surging heat and the natural, awe-inspiring power that makes the spirit tremble.

Above the Mercury base, one can see a larger sun; this light, which cannot be looked at directly, becomes faint in the face of abilities and technological equipment that exceed those of ordinary people, and from this perspective, one can see even more mysterious and beautiful patterns.

Standing on the roof of the Mercury base, watching the surging solar particles, Stark turned his head to look at Shiler and said, "Who do you think is right, the Skrulls or the Kree?"

"The Skrulls say they only wanted to build the universe, that they were the ones who gave, yet they received no reward in return; on the contrary, they suffered heavy losses during the thousand-year war, and the Kree are shameful thieves and traitors."

"The Kree feel that the Skrulls' help to other civilizations threatened their own living space, and that they plundered the Skrulls' technology only for self-preservation; their so-called great ideals were merely excuses to satisfy hegemony."

"They each have their own story. Who do you think is right?"

"Perhaps, they are both right?" Shiler also looked at the sun and said, "Impure ideals and impure people are destined to produce tragedy."

"The Cotati and Kree's greed for technology and resources, and the Skrulls' arrogance in believing they could determine the direction of the universe, together constituted this tragedy."

Shiler suddenly smiled, as if he had thought of something interesting. He looked at Stark and said, "Let me ask you, if one day, an advanced civilization like the Skrulls descended upon the Earth and displayed their infinite power..."

"If they said to humanity, 'You must participate in a competition, and the winner can obtain our resources and technology,' how do you think humanity would react?"

Hearing this question, Stark revealed an extremely complex expression—helpless, absurd, and amused. He said, "Although this hasn't happened, I can already imagine that situation."

"The first to jump out would definitely not be the debate faction arguing over whether to participate or not, but the questioning faction."

"We would question whether the other side's technology is truly that strong. What is the ultimate purpose of this competition? Is this a conspiracy? Are they plotting something else against humanity?"

Stark still couldn't help himself; he let out a "chuckle" and continued, "Although we are poor, extremely weak, and almost useless, we are suspicious at every moment that all intelligent life is plotting against us."

"And after a wave of discussion, there would certainly emerge a participation faction, a non-participation faction, and a 'couldn't care less' faction. But it is foreseeable that the members of these factions would inevitably argue, struggle, and bicker endlessly in various forms."

"If the deadline given by this powerful civilization is ten years, they would argue for ten years; if the deadline is one hundred years, they would argue for one hundred years."

"Moreover, humanity is not only suspicious but also very forgetful."

"Perhaps, when these aliens arrive full of expectation to collect the results, humanity might have long since forgotten them."

Shiler crossed his arms and said, "Really? Is that all you thought of? Then, from your personal perspective, how would you respond to this?"

Stark paused for a moment and then said, "You've asked the key question. If a group of strange aliens really ran to Earth and asked us to participate in a competition, the first thing I would think of might not be how to win the competition, or even how to participate."

"I would think, since their technological strength is already so strong and they came here in spaceships with equipment, why should we go to the trouble of participating in some competition? Why not just keep them here? Wouldn't that allow us to obtain the resources and technology we want just the same?"

At this moment, he seemed to suddenly react and said, "Since the Kree had a way to get the Skrulls' warships, why didn't they do that from the beginning? Why did they go to participate in the competition?"

Just after saying this, Stark froze again. He rubbed his chin and said, "Of course, this must be because I've been with you for too long. Near vermilion, one gets stained red; near ink, one gets stained black. My moral bottom line has lowered; it must be your problem..."

"If you say this conclusion was infected by me, shouldn't you think more deeply about the answer in your heart?" Shiler said.

Stark frowned and began to think. He said, "... The answer in my heart? What else is in my heart... Alright, when I first heard you propose this hypothesis, my first reaction was indeed not this conclusion."

"When you said they displayed infinite power, my first reaction was, 'Is that really true?'"

Stark explained further, "What is this so-called infinite power? Huge spaceships? Advanced navigation technology? Star-war weapons with sufficient firepower?"

"And after these questions arose, my first thought was, 'Can't I build that?'"

"Other people's resources and technology are, after all, other people's. If they give us a spaceship as charity, then when the spaceship breaks later, we have to go to them to fix it. If they give us energy, when the energy runs out, we have to go to them to ask for more."

"I would rather be a poor man than a beggar."

"The road of exploration has no end. The so-called infinite power is just a small threshold on the road of scientific exploration. They are moving faster than me, but that doesn't mean they will go further than me."

"Back then, if the Kree had thought like you, they wouldn't be fighting back and forth with the current New Skrull Empire, evenly matched."

After finishing, Shiler made a summary, "In this hypothesis, you should have already discovered that the only thing that can defeat greed is deeper greed, and the only thing that can defeat arrogance is greater arrogance."

"Humanity will never be satisfied. If the victory condition you promise is one spaceship, we will want ten. If you promise ten spaceships, we will want to swallow the fleet you dispatched along with them."

"Humanity doesn't think about how to win the competition, but how to destroy the competition."

"The moment we sit at the card table, there is only one goal: to defeat all opponents, including the dealer. No one gets to stay out of it."

"And what makes you refuse the help of a higher civilization is not restraint or reason, but the arrogance that will sooner or later surpass them—the arrogance of a surface creature already beginning to look down upon interstellar civilizations."

"Alright, I admit it." Stark nodded and said, "I am arrogant. So what if they are Skrull scientists? Has that Arongael achieved any decent results?"

"The so-called top scientist of the Skrull Empire worked in my lab for such a long time, and the only decent result he produced was the application of the Dark Elf light-shielding technology."

Stark stroked the eye part of his mask and said, "So far, this technology only allows us to look at the sun without it being too dazzling. To truly achieve instantaneous cooling and heat shielding, there are still several technical hurdles to overcome."

"The Skrull genius scientist is nothing more than this, and the so-called three great empires of the universe are just developing earlier and moving faster."

"A hundred-year gap is just me being busy for a while longer; a thousand-year gap is just all of humanity's genius scientists being busy for a while longer; and a ten-thousand-year gap... I have to say, Peter is doing quite well. The villainous scientists and Spider-Men in the multiverse have made no small contribution."

A smile appeared on Stark's face beneath the mask. He said, "How absurd it sounds. Right now, the vast majority of humanity cannot even take a single step off Earth, yet I dare to say things like catching up to or even surpassing the three great empires."

"Fireflies dare to compete with the bright moon, only because they don't know the brightness of the moon. But now, we not only know the brightness of the moon, we even got a spaceship and crashed it directly into the moon's head."

Stark shook his head and looked at Shiler, saying, "You are fueling this greed and arrogance, letting these tiny fireflies master the means to blow up the moon too early, so that we no longer have any awe for it..."

"But sometimes I also wonder, to what extent do you want to go? If there isn't a sufficiently grand goal, then what you are doing regarding these cosmic empires is actually redundant."

"According to the current situation, even without the windfall from them, humanity is developing steadily and will one day be able to step into the universe and compete with these behemoths."

"But what I want is not competition." Shiler shook his head and said, "Defeating them, conquering them, destroying them—this is a path destined for destruction."

"I am willing to provide more help to Asgard, not just because they are the masters of the Nine Realms and can provide protection for humanity, but more importantly, they have already walked this path of conquest to the end."

"They have already tested the mistakes for us. This path is impassable. What brings about Ragnarok might be some mysterious existence we don't yet understand, or it might be the will of this universe."

"But in short, constantly increasing power and constantly creating wars and chaos will only bring destruction. With Asgard as a cautionary tale, humanity doesn't need to walk this path anymore."

"Then what do you want to do?" Stark asked.

"The Skrulls' ideals are good, but this seems to be a destined tragedy."

"Exporting with limited resources without asking for a return will inevitably weaken oneself. But if one asks for a return, the human heart will inevitably fall into the judgment of profit and loss, thereby forgetting the original ideal."

"The more one cares about profit, the more one forgets the original intention. In the end, one will inevitably lose the support of others, and to revive one's prestige, one can only walk the path of conquest and destruction."

"It sounds like a dead end, but in reality, this is only based on the premise that resources are limited. What if there were infinite resources?"

"But the mass of the universe is constant." Stark emphasized.

"That's right, and this creates another problem. After productivity reaches its limit, and under the premise that all resources in the universe can be utilized to the maximum, are the resources in the universe enough to support all civilizations?"

Stark shook his head and said, "Civilizations are constantly being born, and the resources they need are also increasing. If all civilizations could develop steadily to their peak and never perish, then the universe would one day be unable to support them."

"You say the path of conquest and destruction is impassable, then is this path definitely passable?"

"Not necessarily." Contrary to Stark's expectations, Shiler gave a negative answer quite readily, then said, "But if you don't let me walk this path to the end, you will never be able to convince me that this path won't succeed."

"But then again, if I truly climb the peak, reach the summit, and take all the intelligent life in the universe to find an ultimate answer for all civilizations, but still fail, I would have long since found a reason to comfort myself."

"After all, those who walk this path have long understood from the fall of a behemoth that this path is not about reaching the end to be considered a winner."

"Only by trying can one know the vastness of the sky and the breadth of the sea. What is important is not necessarily the result; it could also be... having been there."