Just analyzing the data such as pictures and videos sent back by the satellite photos and the rover, it is exactly the same as Mars before the main universe was transformed.
The atmosphere is dominated by carbon dioxide, accounting for 95%. The average temperature is -63°C. Stable liquid water cannot be maintained, and there does not seem to be any life.
However, scientific researchers firmly believe that there is a high probability that there are some anaerobic microorganisms that prefer low temperature and dry environments under the surface of Mars. They also speculate that Mars was suitable for life ten thousand or hundreds of millions of years ago.
Therefore, driven by the wave of interstellar exploration and interstellar colonization, as well as the majority of governments in the Eastern and Western camps intending to end the century-long confrontation and attempt a peaceful transition, a joint scientific research team was formed.
With sufficient manpower, material resources and funds, all preparations were completed in just four years.
Astronauts and living supplies first use the space station for transit, and then use the permanent base established on the lunar surface to board a jointly funded and built engineering ship to officially sail to Mars (the closest point), which is about 60 million kilometers away.
This process represents the first public cooperation between the East and West camps in a century. It is also the first manned voyage out of the Earth-Moon Circle, which is of unprecedented significance.
After three months of sailing, the engineering ship "parked" in the low-Earth orbit of Mars.
Then, the engineering ship airdropped materials and supplies to the designated coordinates.
Then, the five astronauts who best represented the East and West camps followed closely in the landing module and built a temporary scientific research station on the Chris Plains at the landing site.
The entire process was broadcast live in a delayed manner.
As for the "first" astronaut to set foot on the surface of Mars, it was actually five astronauts who set foot on the surface of Mars at the same time, and behind these five, they respectively represent the five most powerful countries on the earth.
The story ends here.
Gao Tiankuo couldn't help but sigh: "Twenty-six years ago, I was just a young captain, but when I saw human beings standing together on the surface of an alien planet for the purpose of voyage and exploration, I was moved beyond words."
As he spoke, Gao Tiankuo looked directly at Evereni, who was sitting opposite: "I don't know if you can understand the excitement that mankind is finally ending its internal fighting and is about to start a new life and a new future."
"Of course I can understand this. As I said at the beginning, we are the Otieno nation of human society." Everene responded with a smile.
See this.
Gao Tiankuo nodded lightly, and then continued to elaborate: "Humanity's journey to Mars was supposed to lead the future, but we never thought that this move would lead to the end of mankind...
…”
after.
The engineering ship continued to dispatch another two groups of astronauts to build a semi-permanent scientific research station on the surface of Mars in the shortest possible time to conduct research and exploration on the Martian soil, atmosphere and areas where underground rivers are suspected to exist.
In the first month or so, all projects went very smoothly, and the footage revealed in the delayed live broadcast gradually eased the antagonism between countries around the world.
However, during this period, the hatred accumulated from World War I and World War II, as well as some historical issues, were also deliberately mentioned by the five major powers, and they carried out forceful measures against the defeated countries that were unwilling to admit or chose to forget.
pressure.
Facing the end of the confrontation between East and West, we have to face the five major countries that have chosen to unite...
From the initial ignorance, delay and inaction of these defeated countries, in the end, the vast majority of the defeated countries had to choose to "sincerely" apologize and pay a large amount of economic and resource compensation.
However, the apology issued by one of the defeated island countries was "avoiding the important and minimizing the important", portraying itself as a victim, expressing it from the victim's perspective, and apologizing, let alone substantive compensation.
And this defeated country instantly angered the five major countries.
After all, under the general trend, "you" are still avoiding history, deceiving the people, and preserving the war criminals temple.
In this regard, the defeated country was lucky and believed that it was impossible for the five major powers to truly unite the front and still be able to navigate among the five major powers with ease.
The real situation is that the five major countries have prepared to launch absolute sanctions in military, economic and other aspects. It just so happens that the five major countries also need to kill the chickens and scare the monkeys to end the confrontation between the East and the West once and for all and lay the foundation for the establishment of a unified government of mankind.
However, just before the five major countries were about to impose sanctions, the Mars joint team, which had been conducting scientific research and exploration projects for three months, suddenly encountered an accident.
To the general public, people only know that the engineering ship was unable to contact the scientific research station on the surface due to the Martian storm.
For the five major countries, 25 astronauts, scientists and engineers at surface scientific research stations have died.
at this time.
Gao Tiankuo took out a palm-sized and coin-wide personal computer from a storage bag on his waistband.
Flip.
Power on.
He turned the screen to Eveleni and said: "When I was invited here by you, I had already expected that you would like to find out the origin of the alien species, so I will share our army's relatively public information about the alien species.
Make a copy so that you can understand it more intuitively."
At the same time as he said this, the computer screen played the experiences of the twenty-five astronauts for Ephreni according to the established program.
——
The picture changes from black to twinkling stars and flowers.
Immediately afterwards, the picture began to stabilize.
The perspective is first person, and the photographer is an astronaut named "Yang Li".
And due to the viewing angle of the helmet's camera, it is impossible to observe Yang Li's face through the content of the screen alone. We can only see the surface of Mars outside the helmet through the helmet's multi-layer protective cover, which is no different from the desert on Earth.
In the upper right corner of the screen, there is also a helmet auxiliary function similar to the main space power armor, showing that Yang Li and four other astronauts are driving a sealed Mars rover with a decompression chamber, heading towards the coordinates of 40.75°N, 9.46°W.
Move on to location.
At the same time, following the perspective of the helmet camera and looking out the car window into the distance, you can vaguely see a mountain range with a special shape at the end of the front.
During the journey, the five astronauts used real-time translation to communicate.
Although most of the exchanges are academic and technical, they also make some simple and easy-to-understand jokes to "warm up" the conversation. After all, their conversations will be broadcast to the earth nearly 100 million kilometers away through scientific research stations.
Later.
An "x3" symbol appears in the center of the screen for acceleration.
Back to normal.
At this moment, the car window showed that everyone had arrived at the southern foot of the target mountain range.
Yang Li and his party got up and left their seats, and checked whether the remaining oxygen, the pressure of the space suit, and the sealing were normal.
After the inspection was correct, they entered the decompression chamber to decompress, and set foot on the yellowing desert one after another.
After walking a certain distance, a prominent crack gradually appeared on the right side of the camera. After reporting this discovery, Yang Li and his party headed towards the crack.
Wait until they get closer.
You can see that at the end of this crack is a cave about ten meters wide and high, which seems to reach deep into the mountains.
The most important thing is that when Yang Li switched the HUD of the protective cover and enhanced the photocathode surface at the entrance of the cave, he discovered a square grid pattern, like...
Floor and wall tiles?
See this.
"Huh~! It seems that Martians really exist, hahaha! This trip was not in vain!"
In the video footage, an astronaut could not help but laugh loudly.
"Watch your words, Mike." But another astronaut immediately said: "This is Lieutenant Colonel Gnolev, scientific research station. We found an entrance to a suspected man-made tunnel. Please switch the live broadcast to other team members, and
, we will investigate the tunnel."
"This is a scientific research station, got it."
The conversation just ended.
The astronaut named Gnolev appeared from the left side of Yang Li's perspective and walked slowly to everyone. After a brief observation, he began to issue orders:
"Lefevere, Bonnet, you two stay to guard the rover, ensure the normal operation of the base station, prevent us from losing contact with the scientific research station, and use the equipment we brought to scan this mountain range.
Yang, Mike, follow me into the investigation."
"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel."
After hearing this, everyone responded respectfully, but Yang Li, the photographer, had the most obvious voice.
Next.
Gnolev, Yang Li, and Mike moved forward through the ravine-like crack and arrived at the entrance with man-made traces.
Come closer.
Expand scan.
Preliminary results indicate that the size of these floor tiles and wall tiles are relatively consistent and are placed regularly.
This alone basically rules out the possibility of natural formation.
When the surrounding natural light became darker and darker, Yang Li, a video shooter, chose to turn on the night mode of the protective cover.
After continuing to dig deeper, the data displayed on the right side of the protective cover showed that the weathering traces of this man-made tunnel were at least tens of thousands of years old, but to get a more clear date, Yang Li and the others needed to take samples back for study.
Just when Yang Li picked up a fragment and prepared to put it into a small sealed box, the gaps between the floor tiles and wall tiles actually emitted light, from dark to bright.
??
"Oh my God!" Mike shouted over the communication line, "Lieutenant Colonel, what is going on?"
Yang Li also placed the fragments, stood up, and looked into the depths of the tunnel.
I saw the lights lighting up one after another, extending to the core of the mountain range.
Waited for a few seconds.
"call!!!"
A violent surge of air spurted out from the core area, causing Yang Li to almost fall and causing the video screen to shake violently.
Wait for the movement to stop.
Yang Li looked deeper and saw countless sparkling "mirrors" gushing out at extremely fast speeds, like...
Mercury tsunami.
!!
Seeing this scene, Genolev, who was at the front of the screen, paused for a moment, then turned around quickly: "Withdraw! Yang! Mike! Quickly..."
Before he could yell out the word "Run", the mercury fluid had completely enveloped Genolev. The next moment, Yang Li, who was standing in the second position, could not escape the consequences of his superiors.
"Hey...!"
In the end, all that was left in the video was a burst of silver and black stars and harsh noises.
Playback ends.
"..." Eveleni frowned slightly and looked up at Gao Tiankuo: "Is this the source of the alien species?"
"It should be said that it originated from within the solar system." Gao Tiankuo explained: "The alien species that were raging before were carbon-based organisms, a mass-produced biological weapon. You must already know this.
But..." Gao Tiankuo pointed at the personal computer on the table with his right index finger, "But what you just saw is a silicon-based organism.
Although the time was short, when those fluid creatures attacked our astronauts, some sample data was still captured and sent back to the engineering ship before the scientific research station fell.
Based on the analysis, we can be sure that the creator of the alien species is a silicon-based civilization that exists in theory and has not yet been recognized by mainstream academic circles."
"Silicon-based..." Evereni fell into thought.
Before and after the establishment of the Human Empire, the main universe had been in contact with more than two hundred parallel universes. The vast majority of the space gates were "ephemeral". They were either judged by the empire to have no use value, or the space gates could not maintain stability for a long time and required the emperor or the emperor.
Primarch-level psychic powers to intervene.
Among so many worlds, the Empire did discover some silicon-based life.
But most of them are insignificant. Rather than being civilized, they stop developing into a race and then self-destruct due to "continuous development".
Although carbon and silicon can form four covalent bonds, and silicon is much more stable than carbon and more resistant to heat and high pressure, the actual situation is that carbon is much more active than silicon.
Therefore, the silicon-based organisms recorded in the Empire are either kept in a protected environment for easy observation, or samples are taken for safekeeping.
But now, what Evereni has to face is the true silicon-based civilization, which...
This is not a threat to the empire. It only increases research projects and funding. Moreover, the current empire is bound to completely eliminate alien species and the silicon-based civilization that creates alien species.
Next.
It is the war between humans and alien species in 109.
On July 22, 2046, the Mars scientific research station lost contact, and twenty-five top astronauts, scientists, and engineers were confirmed to have died.
On July 23, the engineering ship that was originally in a safe position and wanted to continue to observe the surface conditions also lost contact. It was later confirmed that it was shot down by some high-speed object.
The entire scientific research team died and encountered alien life with obvious hostility. Only the five major countries knew the inside story in the early stage.
The public believes that in the event of a solar storm, communication between the Earth and Mars will be unable to be reestablished in a short period of time.
August 17th.
When the focus of society was successfully shifted by the five major countries and no longer paid attention to the situation of Mars for the time being, a sudden swarm of meteorites entered the earth's field of vision.
The Earth-Moon defense circle had not been able to be explored and shortened before this, and it was naturally impossible to provide early warning. Subsequently, the meteorite group broke through the atmosphere at a minimum speed of Mach 83 and scattered and fell on the islands on the western side of the Pacific...
It was also the location of the defeated country that hesitated to admit its mistakes and apologized.
Faced with the meteorite impact, 65% of the cities of the defeated country were instantly destroyed, and the number of casualties was approximately 34 million.
But this is just the beginning.
The first batch of crystal-covered, rock-like alien species broke out of their shells and began to devour them with their spiky mouths.
August 29th.
The island nation is gradually turning to hell.
The five major powers and the military powers of the Eastern and Western Camps all dispatched fleets and various military forces to the island. While trying to rescue as much as possible, they also tried to contain the alien species within the island.
However, this is only the prelude to the alien invasion.