Chapter 949 Stealthy Development Is the True Way

"Boss, we’ve decoded the content of the electromagnetic signal."

"That fast?"

"The later parts of the electromagnetic signal carried a dictionary."

So that’s how it is.

But very quickly, Mo Jingchun realized something was off again.

What kind of dumbass civilization would do this—sending out electromagnetic waves and exposing its own position and direction was bad enough, and then being afraid other civilizations wouldn’t understand the content, so it even attached a dictionary.

Unless... it’s a trap! Just waiting for some civilization that doesn’t know the universe is a Dark Forest to jump right in.

For some reason, at this very moment, Mo Jingchun suddenly thought of a very popular novel.

This scene was so damn similar. The difference was just that the roles of the civilizations were swapped.

The civilization that broadcasted electromagnetic waves and exposed its position wasn’t human civilization, but an unknown civilization from a distant star system in the direction of Jupiter.

If things were really like what’s written in the novel, that the Sun is an electromagnetic wave amplifier, then the contradictory parts would suddenly make a lot more sense.

But that’s exactly where the problem is: a novel is a novel, reality is reality.

No one knows whether the Sun has some special structure like in the novel, being a natural electromagnetic wave amplifier.

Because even if someone suspects it, no country dares to risk exposing the coordinates of its civilization by firing high-intensity electromagnetic waves at the Sun to experimentally verify it.

After all, thanks to the novel Three-Body, most humans on Blue Star firmly believe in the Dark Forest law.

The Beautiful Country launched the Voyager probes, and who knows how many times netizens have cursed them out for that.

Sitting at the dinner table, Li Xuanyu and Candy were both absent-minded, with no appetite.

Zero’s reaction just now, no matter how you look at it, seemed like something extremely serious had happened.

In all these years following Mo Jingchun, it was almost unheard of for him to rush back to the company late at night.

And to the lab, at that.

"Sis-in-law, I’m kinda freaking out, I’m scared. From what I remember, Zero has never been like this before."

Li Xuanyu looked at Candy’s confused eyes and comforted her:

"Don’t be scared, it’ll be fine. I’ll sleep with you tonight, okay?"

"I won’t be able to sleep, I want to wait for my brother to come back."

"Okay, we’ll wait together."

The screech of a hard brake startled Dagger, who was squatting at the entrance of Lab Building No. 1.

"Woof woof woof~"

The next second, when Dagger saw who was getting out of the front passenger seat, he tucked his tail and ran.

Under the puzzled gaze of the on-duty armed police, Mo Jingchun didn’t have time to care about his random parking; he and Zero jogged straight into the lobby.

The elevator had been waiting for quite a while already.

By the time Mo Jingchun walked into the private lab, Zero had already projected the translated content of the electromagnetic signal onto the wall of the brightly lit lab.

Standing in place, Mo Jingchun frowned and read the somewhat clunky passage word by word.

Elsewhere, at the National Emergency Incident Handling Center, after a brief period of chaos, everyone was methodically performing their respective duties.

With the state machine running at full tilt, the content carried in the electromagnetic signal was also successfully translated.

In the huge hall, everyone stopped what they were doing and quietly watched the holographic projection in front of them.

"Greetings, unknown civilization that receives this message. I am a scientist from the Merc Civilization. For three thousand years, our exploration of alien civilizations has never ceased, but sadly, our Merc Civilization seems to be alone—we have never discovered any other civilization.

The birth of a civilization is a stroke of luck.

Equally fortunate unknown civilization, if you are lucky enough to receive the electromagnetic waves I sent, please reply.

Civilizations need communication."

The text was very short, a little over a hundred characters.

But it revealed a lot.

The other side calls itself the Merc Civilization, and speaks in the first person, as "I".

This suggests that this electromagnetic signal might just be some individual scientist of the Merc Civilization acting on their own.

The exploration of alien civilizations has gone on for over three thousand years!

That’s terrifying! It means their civilization—its development—has lasted longer than human civilization, and their technology is more advanced.

After all, strictly speaking, the rise of human technology has only been just over a hundred years.

Yet the other side claims they’ve never found any other civilization. Whether that’s true or not, it undoubtedly reveals a piece of information.

Civilizations seem to be rather rare.

"Reply?"

Chen Daobin, who had been tasked in a crisis as the overall person in charge of this emergency incident, shook his head.

No matter how much of the information up there is true, replying would just be stupid, wouldn’t it?

To gamble the entire fate of human civilization for the sake of "communication between civilizations" would be extremely irresponsible.

What’s more, there’s a huge flaw in that message.

Reply—how?

Electromagnetic waves? Don’t kid yourself. The farther electromagnetic waves travel, the more they attenuate.

Half an hour later.

A global conference was convened online.

If you ask under what circumstances nations can actually unite,

There’s only one scenario—an Alien incident.

At the meeting, when Chen Daobin proposed a "no reply" policy, for the first time ever, all countries of the world stood on the same side.

To prevent anyone from privately broadcasting electromagnetic signals, each country pledged to build detection systems and to deliver devastating strikes against any emission facilities sending out electromagnetic waves above 10,000 megahertz.

This meeting, which would determine the course of human civilization, went on for a long time, and a new joint institution was established.

When a few countries suggested sharing technology to accelerate the development of human civilization’s science and tech, so as to prevent alien civilizations from attacking the Solar System, the rest kept a very deliberate silence.

Obviously, as long as we don’t reply, the chance of being attacked by an alien civilization is almost zero.

As long as humans don’t go out of their way to screw themselves, we can keep developing as usual.

So... why should we share hard-earned technology?

Especially the major powers—who would agree to that?

..................

Sitting on a chair in the lab, Mo Jingchun kept thinking, analyzing that passage.

"Zero, how likely do you think it is that the Sun is an electromagnetic wave amplifier?"

"Boss, the Sun is an electromagnetic wave amplifier. That segment in the Three-Body novel about the electromagnetic waves from Jupiter being observed by humans after reflection off the Sun—that record is actually real in reality."

Hearing this, Mo Jingchun rubbed his temples, head aching.

If Zero Energy can discover something, it means others can too—it’s only a matter of time.

Mo Jingchun was genuinely worried that some brainless scientist would insist on firing electromagnetic waves, within the range that can be reflected and amplified, directly at the Sun.

If that happens, human civilization will become just like the Merc Civilization—the flashiest kid on open mic in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Mo Jingchun strongly suspected that this Merc Civilization might have already vanished into the long river of time.

Imagine this: when you’re trying to sleep, there’s always a mosquito buzzing by your ear. How would you feel? And what would you do?

Of course you’d beat the crap out of it!

That’s why lying low and developing is the true way.