Chapter 802 - 757: Puddle (Part 2)

Giant planets (gas giants) mean there is a considerable reserve of elements, and both light and heavy elements are present in significant proportions, which also lays the groundwork for development.

For foresighted observers, they would quietly mark the Solar System in their database. If they planned to colonize other star systems or establish stations like transfer hubs in the future, the Solar System would be worth an extra look.

Just an extra look, because the Solar System is located on the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy and, like it, there are countless star systems. Distant observers didn’t have much reason to pay more attention.

The scale of the Milky Way Galaxy reached an astonishing 100,000 x 100,000 light-years, with four arms each about 4,500 light-years apart and housing hundreds of billions of stars.

Assuming one hundredth of a percent of these systems could support life, that would still be tens of millions.

Even if the Milky Way had one million civilizations capable of interstellar travel, each civilization would need to visit dozens of star systems to complete their exploration.

And if we are to use human history as a reference, the duration of a single interstellar journey could be enough for a civilization to undergo tremendous changes.

According to the theory of relativity, a spaceship travelling at nearly the speed of light across 10,000 light-years could experience only a few hours.

In ten years, significant local changes could occur, enough to give rise to a new technology;

In twenty years, a technology could move from the lab and apply to every individual;

In thirty years, the generation that holds the reins of civilization would gradually be replaced, and the new situation would be unpredictable;

In fifty years, the traces of the old era would have almost disappeared, and the new humans would propose ideas that were utterly incomprehensible in the past;

In one hundred years, even the greatest political entities couldn’t avoid conflicts, and history would inevitably reach a turning point;

In ten thousand years, that cycle could happen a hundred times.

When the space travelers arrived at their destination, the home star at the other end of the communicator might no longer exist, or even the civilization might have perished.

But this doesn’t negate the possibility of a civilization or an ideology existing in the long term; the Zhou Dynasty has a verifiable history of eight hundred years and the commonly acknowledged chaotic and rapidly changing Warring States period lasted more than two hundred years. When a civilization develops to a certain stage, it really might start to maintain the status quo without further changes.

However, even if the likelihood of change is low, time would give it enough opportunity to turn coincidences into certainties.

This unpredictability of the future, to some extent, restricts the pace of civilization expansion. Interstellar colonization is not a trivial matter for any civilization, and indispensable resources cannot be discarded without burden.

From that perspective, no civilization would travel thousands of light-years to a strange star and then engage in intense urban street battles with humans (scratched out).

Humans always hope to hear the voices of intelligent beings in the universe, regardless of whether the outcome would be good or bad, and have proposed countless guesses and hypotheses.

In the 21st century, the most accepted theory is the Great Filter, suggesting that almost no civilization can throw off all burdens and expand furiously while continuously maintaining rapid technological progress, enough to project their presence in the universe.

Partly because of this, some people remain pessimistic about humanity’s future, a sentiment that aligns with the seemingly disconnected appearance of the world.

Therefore, those who have a certain understanding of technology and industry, and have dabbled a bit in cosmology and sociology, know that Aliens invading the Solar System are not doing it for some meager mineral resources or to enslave humans, just as modern humans wouldn’t catch monkeys for assembly line work.

However, a more accurate analogy might be Abraham Lincoln driving a muscle car from America, across the Bering Strait, through Eurasia to Africa for capture. Humans do not need to go through great lengths for monkey labor or their wild bananas.

If humans ever really decide to do this, the purpose would surely not be so simple.

"Crack... crack..."

In the profound darkness, the "ground" primarily composed of ice developed thin cracks, which widened with continual tearing, emitting a dull yet dangerous sound.

Initially, the cracks were as wide as a palm, but they quickly expanded under the action of plate tectonics from the bottom up, soon forming a massive abyss several kilometers long, with a maximum width of nearly 10 meters.

As the ice surface at -197 degrees Celsius was parted, various sized light blue/white cloudy substances fell continuously into the still widening cracks, resembling a sudden collapse of old snow, and quickly formed a majestic "waterfall."

The primary components of these obscurities on the ice were alkanes, which liquified or solidified in the ultra-low temperature environment and combined to varying degrees with ice and nitrides, ultimately forming clump-like materials of various sizes.

Under one-sixth gravity, it took a long time for them to completely fall into the pitch-dark abyss, finally landing on the equally dark water surface below, quickly absorbing the heat from the liquid water and beginning to vaporize.

The earliest pieces of alkane fragments almost completely froze the sea level, but were soon smashed by later ones, continuing this process.

Vapors formed not just from alkanes but also included plenty of hydrogen, nitrides, etc., which rapidly expanded in the gaps between the float ice, stirring up fierce bubbles.

The water surface "boiled," an unusual boiling at extremely low temperatures, with the solidified alkane mixture rapidly dissolving, pulling up mist and particulates to create a vast expanse of white as if being evaporated by heat.