Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 365 - 364 Principle of Equivalent Exchange

Chapter 365: Chapter 364 Principle of Equivalent Exchange

The first route is the relatively friendly "Enlightenment Route."

The first interstellar civilization that the Gliese Civilization encountered, which is the Enlightener Civilization, seemed to follow this route based on its external behavior.

This unknown alien civilization provided a little assistance to the still primitive Gliese Civilization, altering their original historical trajectory.

Even though the Gliese Civilization didn’t eventually develop real technology, and was soon exploited by another interstellar merchant, it can’t be said that this help was ineffective.

However, for humanity, the difficulty of this route seems to be a bit too high.

Firstly, humans themselves are not very kind creatures. Humans are self-interested, and policies that go against their natural instincts are unlikely to yield real success.

Secondly, it is very difficult to forcibly twist the ideologies of a stable ordinary civilization.

It is hard to change the worldview of sentient beings; the most difficult things in the world are, first, to put one’s own thoughts into another’s mind, and second, to put someone else’s money into one’s own pocket. Thus, theoretically, the same should apply to aliens...

Unless humanity is willing to spend decades or centuries here, slowly guiding, or perhaps committing mass slaughter, with a "those with me prosper, those against me perish" mindset, and so on...

But current humanity isn’t idle enough to force the guide of alien civilization values.

Second, there’s the trade route. The second civilization that the Gliese Civilization encountered, the interstellar merchants and the Badeit Civilization, should be on this route.

Whether the other side is strong or weak, as long as they have a certain level of intelligence, able to communicate, humans treat them all equally.

You trade what you can afford to pay.

Humans need many things, such as the history of a civilization, the artistic products it produces, its local specialties, or the population of a civilization, local biological specimens.

People will believe in the principle of "equivalent exchange." For weaker civilizations, "do work for me, and then I will give you some compensation."

Especially... the population of intelligent species, whether for biological experiments or virtual world experiments, may sound evil, but what about it?

If one wants to advance, there will always be sacrifices. Since we can’t sacrifice the population within our own civilization, we can only sacrifice other civilizations.

Zhang Yuan even heard from Prince Bart that "the trade market includes trafficking of populations from different races" for experiments to a large extent.

Then, there’s a difference in nature between populations taken by force and those obtained through trade, and that’s inherent human hypocrisy.

Third, there are routes like plunder or destruction.

Some twisted civilizations enjoy bullying the weak for internal pleasure, or some civilizations cannot bear to see others do well, believe in the "Dark Forest Law," and like to destroy life on other planets, and so on.

But this policy is not suitable for present-day humans.

For the majority of people at present, such acts of slaughter do not bring any pleasure but only disgust and revulsion.

After some discussion, everyone still decided on the second trade route policy.

Maintaining a moderate attitude in trade, this should be said to be the easiest to control and most flexible policy.

"So, the current work plan is as follows: first, establish specific diplomatic policies, that is, the rules that diplomatic personnel must follow, including various aspects of etiquette and culture."

Zhang Yuan summarized everyone’s views and announced from the podium, "There are still many tasks ahead. First is the maintenance of spaceships, large and small; it’s been many years, and they’re due for a major overhaul. Colonel Guo, you think it’s necessary to produce another Falcon-class Destroyer, right?"

"Yes," Colonel Guo nodded. "This Falcon-class Frigate will be equipped with brand new interstellar ramjet engine technology, as well as the hyper-velocity electromagnetic gun based on Super-magnetic A material. This type of electromagnetic gun can reach one percent of the speed of light, possessing terrifying kinetic energy for destruction. It’s better to build anew rather than just retrofit."

Several materials scientists also raised their hands, indicating the technology was indeed mature.

"Understood," Zhang Yuan nodded.

"The second task is the retrofitting of Kunlun Mountain. The electromagnetic shields, after years of use, have significantly reduced wear on the spaceship’s surface. Therefore, I hope to use this device on a larger scale and upgrade its technology."

"As for the third matter... as long as we confirm that this planet is safe enough and establish a diplomatic strategy..."

Of course, the third matter was about scientific and corresponding diplomatic exploration. Many experts present were quite eager, with a continuous stream of hands going up to volunteer.

After two hours of discussion, the secretariat team pulled together a list of one thousand people for scientific exploration, diplomacy, and soldiers, ready to head to Riley Star for scientific exploration.

...

The Riley Civilization, a very ordinary religious civilization within the Milky Way.

After years of development, nearly 100% of the population had become devotees, with all countries achieving the union of church and state.

Without the power bestowed by the "Divine," even the government became unstable.

And the dawn of Science, due to religious factors and difficulties such as combustion phenomena, was delayed indefinitely...

The history of this civilization was so ancient that no one knew how many years it had existed, leading to a significant loss of historical materials that made it hard to conjecture what had actually happened in the past...

"... That is the basic background of this planet. Investigate history, understand culture, collect biological specimens, or whatever else, everyone think about your own topics first; twenty people to a team... And reporters, don’t wander off everywhere." Wang Junpeng was incessantly droning on in front. As the commander in charge of this operation, he had to thoroughly state all the precautionary measures.

But in theory, there shouldn’t be too many problems; it was the old guiding the new, and these newcomers, despite their excitement, were sensible enough not to cause trouble.

"Buzz!"

The transport ship entered the atmosphere, began to reverse thrust, and slowly reduced its speed. The process required orbiting the planet several times before reaching the designated velocity.

Due to the low oxygen content in the atmosphere, many animals on this planet had evolved the ability to breathe in a dual manner. When inhaling, half of the fresh air went into air sacs, the rest into the lungs; when exhaling, fresh air from the air sacs entered the lungs, while waste gases were expelled directly.

This breathing method, whether inhaling or exhaling, always ensured fresh air passed through the lungs, greatly increasing the efficiency of gas exchange. Therefore, these native creatures could effortlessly adapt to the low-oxygen environment.

What was most intriguing was the Riley people, this unique race, actually had bat-like leathery wings, allowing them to glide in the sky for several minutes...

This was a very interesting point indeed, free flight—even if just gliding—what a fascinating concept in human eyes.

Even in the Virtual World, humans could attach wings to themselves, like angel wings or demon wings.

However, the feeling of having wings and how to utilize the back muscles to generate force, always seemed slightly discordant when left to imagination, which made the structure of this civilization quite significant for reference.

As they neared their destination, a group of human biologists sat in the transport, pointing and commenting on the Riley people engaged in warfare below, filled with curiosity.

"Look, they’re at war!"