Chapter 855

So, was he truly wrong? Did he suppress the wisdom of the masses, stifle the human spirit of exploration, and hinder humanity from venturing into the sea of stars?

But is it true that every world would, like that one, suddenly achieve enlightenment and pour all its energy into exploring the star-sea?

No, that was merely an exception—a dreamlike world, even!

Pan-human history, and indeed the entire Myriad Worlds, had long since revealed the truth.

Repeating the tragedy of self-verification over and over, digging deeper trenches in a quagmire named "Error," never tiring.

Repeating the same mistakes, unrepentant, tireless.

Once humanity steps into the cosmos, it will inevitably trigger even more terrifying wars; interstellar colonization is a hotbed for breeding conflict and civil strife.

At that point, the best-case scenario is a horrific civil war, with humanity realizing its errors and unifying once more.

But the worst-case scenario might lead to the total extinction of humanity as an existence.

He could not understand how the Stellaris world achieved grand unification under such circumstances, but in his view, stepping into the universe without establishing absolute order was a mistake.

If it were up to him, he would have to establish an absolute centralized authority to allow humanity to explore the universe.

Simply put, a single consciousness ruling and representing the entire human consciousness!

【

Megastructure: The Return to Nothingness

Only this breathtakingly magnificent creation remained on these ruins, but it was enough. The Federation would inevitably launch reverse-engineering analysis on it, and once their technology matured in the future, they would completely restore it!

But just as the Human Federation was expanding vigorously, an emergency report made the entire Federation stand at full alert!

An interstellar civilization had directly cracked the Federation's linguistic system and communicated with them.

They called themselves the Othari Record Society, a super-ancient civilization whose comprehensive strength far exceeded the Human Federation!

Yet, what was puzzling was that they left such a message and then departed.

"Yes, yes, we already know. We are the Othari Record Society, you are the Human Federation. Hello, nice to meet you. However, do not approach our star sector, or you will certainly die. If there is nothing else, then disperse."

Arrogant, conceited, and peerless.

The Federation immediately replied with fury, "We shall await you on the battlefield."

But the message sank like a stone in the ocean, with no further response. This undoubtedly made the Federation even angrier, but the Federation was not foolish; to fight, one must clearly see the gap between enemy and self.

After learning more details, the Federation could not help but feel a lingering fear. The Othari's strength exceeded their imagination; just the tip of the iceberg they had displayed was enough to completely annihilate them!

What puzzled the Federation even more was why such a powerful empire did not continue to expand, but instead left after warning them not to approach?

The Federation could not fathom it. Putting themselves in the other's shoes, treating the Federation as the other party, they could not understand at all why a Federation possessing such great strength would stop expanding.

They should have conquered the entire sea of stars!

But such an outcome was undoubtedly favorable for the Federation. If the other party had chosen to annihilate them or treat them as a colony, the Federation would have had no power to resist.

The event of the Federation's first encounter with intelligent life spread throughout the entire Federation, and the imperial citizens fell into panic and unease.

The aliens calling themselves Othari seemed to have achieved space travel thousands of years ago, or even longer, but fortunately, they appeared to be an aging and stagnant race.

The Federation treated the other party as a hypothetical enemy to promote joint unification.

】

【Earth Federation: "No, no, it really was a wrong choice to let you go out back then. The more you resist the path to peace, the more civilizations in the galaxy will unite to deal with you. This super-civilization didn't care this time, but what about next time? Peace is the mainstream. If the Human Federation continues to be obsessed, you will regret it."】

【Fourth Calamity: "Shut up, you're noisy and annoying."】

【Morty: "So the alien civilization in that world is actually quite friendly? Although they made harsh threats, they didn't suppress or attack. It looks pretty good, right? At least much better than our side."】

【Sakura Haruno: "Could it be that this is somewhat similar to the Old Ones in the Warhammer world? Are they a peace-loving empire? They generally don't show hostility to other empires? They just have extremely strong territorial awareness and only attack if you get close?"】

【Sweet: "Do you mean that if your neighbor says they are going to kill you and prepares to buy weapons, you just watch and leave it at a warning?"】

【Gin Ichimaru: "Fantasizing that an enemy is gentle is better than drowning in a swamp early."】

【Three-Body Leader: "No... that's not right?! What about the Dark Forest Law?! Why didn't this more powerful hunter choose to annihilate or colonize the Human Federation? It's simply incomprehensible!"】

【Wise King Gil: "Fool, if you can't understand it, then just reverse-engineer the Dark Forest Law. Under what conditions would the Dark Forest Law not be realized?"】

【Kyubey: "Could it be that they have developed to the point where they cannot develop further? The technology in this world is truly a bit confusing."】

Three-Body World

The Three-Body people nodded blankly. Yes, just reverse-engineer the reasons why the Dark Forest Law would not be realized, right?

Then under what circumstances would the Dark Forest Law not be realized?

The theoretical support point of the Dark Forest Law is that the speed of light cannot be exceeded and cosmic resources are limited.

Conversely, does it mean that the Stellaris world has likely fulfilled all the above conditions?

Yes, first of all, faster-than-light travel has already solved the problem of slow light-speed information transmission and the generation of suspicion chains.

But what about resources?

Cosmic resources should definitely be limited, right? Even if the suspicion chain problem is solved, resources are the most important thing, right?

As long as this problem still exists, there is no reason for a powerful civilization not to expand and plunder, right?

Could it be that... the Three-Body people suddenly thought of a possibility, shocked to the point of near-dehydration.

The total amount of cosmic resources in that world is infinite?!!

How is this possible?! But only this can explain why the Othari Record Society did not invade the Human Federation!

They have reached their peak, entered a state of ultimate stagnation where there is nowhere to advance, and aggression and plunder have become meaningless to them.

Then in that case, what do the top civilizations of that world look like?

The Three-Body people only felt shock, while the Zero-er civilization felt arrogance and... helplessness, even pain, from the Othari's attitude.

Stagnant, even beginning to decline.

The more powerful one is, the more desperate one becomes.

【

The journey of humanity conquering the sea of stars was destined not to be smooth sailing. Just after pacifying the public regarding the Ousali incident, the research ship encountered another super-ancient civilization near the Yinggang Seven star system.

As the research ship prepared to call for the Human United to construct a stellar base in the Yinggang Seven star system, the Onad-Quirak relic civilization appeared and warned the Human United.

They declared this to be their military buffer zone; no civilization could construct a base here, otherwise, destruction would await them!

After the Human United investigated the Onad-Quirak relic civilization, they found its comprehensive strength to be the same as Ousali's. For unknown reasons, they too had abandoned external expansion and chosen self-seclusion.

This time, the Human United did not choose to compromise. The Human United needed to develop; they could not blindly concede!

The Human United ignored the Onad-Quirak relic civilization and continued to build the stellar base.

Just like Ousali, the Onad-Quirak relic civilization gave no reply. Only a few days later, the Onad-Quirak relic civilization transmitted a video to the Human United.

On a desolate planet, a planetary-class warship larger than an asteroid stood tall in the void.

It was a planetary-class killing celestial body cast from cold steel. Destructive energy flowed between its thick armor and giant industrial skeleton, and the weapon array hanging high at its core accumulated a violent torrent of destructive energy like the Eye of Judgment!

In the next instant, the torrent of energy spewed by the Colossus spanned the void, then tore open the surface and detonated the planet's core!

The crust groaned, and the shockwave tore through the atmosphere!

This strike directly destroyed the planet's crustal structure, and then the Colossus fired a relatively smaller shockwave, causing the planet to be completely destroyed!

When the video ended, the brains of the Human United's high command nearly crashed. This scene of world-ending destruction was deeply etched into their minds; that power to destroy the heavens and earth lingered in their minds like a shadow of death.

In their assumptions, even if these ancient civilizations were powerful, they only had more fleets and slightly more advanced technology than them.

But now it seemed they were wrong. This world-ending weapon that could directly destroy a planet—two shots would be enough to wipe out everything they had worked so hard to develop!

The Human United immediately followed the trend and issued a public statement: "The Federation should respect and understand the needs of the Onad-Quirak relic civilization; establishing a mutual military buffer zone is in the interests of both parties."

From then on, the Human United referred to ancient super-civilizations similar to the Onad-Quirak relic civilization and Ousali as Fallen Empires!

】

【Sakata Gintoki: "Hahahahaha! Those who know the times are heroes; they sure conceded quickly."】

【Fourth Calamity: "Nonsense, if they didn't concede, they'd be blown up and mined. But just wait, they'll find this factory again in less than ten years!"】

【Sato Kazuma: "But the Human United is really miserable. They left their home planet at the start, and just when they finally took off, they encountered two Fallen Empires blocking the door."】

【Guilliman: "Exactly. Although these Fallen Empires don't actively attack you, and will even warn you if you infringe on their territory, if they are blocking the way, how can others develop? They might as well just have four Fallen Empires block the north, south, east, and west."】

【Bone King: "In other words, if there were no Fallen Empires blocking the door, the Human United's path of development would basically be a bunch of newbies pecking at each other, right? These Fallen Empires lost the desire for expansion for some reason, leaving weak civilizations to develop and grow?"】

【Three-Body Leader: "The Dark Forest Law is a lie!"】

【Luo Ji: "Heh, then why don't you try publishing a coordinate?"】

【

While the Human United was hitting walls everywhere, the Earth United was constantly growing through diplomacy.

As more and more interstellar civilizations made contact and established formal relations, the Galactic Community was born!

An interstellar organization capable of reducing conflicts and friction and promoting the common progress and development of civilizations was born, and the Earth United and most interstellar civilizations joined it.

But there were some discordant voices, such as the Dyson civilization, which not only refused to join the Galactic Community but even declared that it would eventually exterminate these low-level civilizations completely!