Chapter Summaries

Liu Miyan urged Yue Yuan to approve a more powerful collider so scientists could investigate the Grand Unified Theory, but Yu Nanfeng said humanity lacked the technology to build one at the required energy. The discussion ended with Liu insisting the theory’s reasoning remained sound, while the question of how to test it remained unresolved.

• After another collision experiment produced no discoveries, Liu Miyan decided to speak with Yue Yuan about building a more powerful collider.
• Liu Miyan traveled to the Lyra and found Yue Yuan meeting with Yu Nanfeng on the bridge.
• Liu Miyan explained that testing the unification of the Strong Nuclear Force and Electroweak Force required a collider reaching at least 10 to the 15th power GeV.
• Yu Nanfeng told Liu Miyan and Yue Yuan that humanity could not build a collider with the necessary energy using its current technology.
• Yu Nanfeng questioned whether the Standard Model and Grand Unified Theory could be wrong, but Liu Miyan maintained that their reasoning was sound.

Liu Miyan argued that the Standard Model’s predictions made his proposed path toward unifying forces worth pursuing, despite the immense energy demands of a more powerful Particle Collider. The chapter explained how the Higgs Mechanism separated the Electromagnetic Force from the Weak Force and ended with the connection between the universe’s early cooling and Cosmic Inflation Theory.

• Yu Nanfeng warned Liu Miyan that building a Particle Collider powerful enough to test his theory seemed impossible with humanity’s current energy systems.
• Liu Miyan insisted that scientists should follow foundational theories and experiment rather than abandon a path because it seemed impossible.
• Liu Miyan used the successful unification of the Electromagnetic Force and the Weak Force under Electroweak Theory as evidence that the Standard Model could guide future research.
• Yu Nanfeng acknowledged the established account of how the Higgs Mechanism gave the W and Z Bosons mass and caused the two forces to manifest differently.
• The chapter described the Electromagnetic Force’s everyday effects and the Weak Force’s role in radioactivity and nuclear decay.
• The chapter explained that a temperature-driven phase transition split the Electroweak Force, then linked the universe’s rapid early cooling to Cosmic Inflation Theory.

Liu Miyan sought a more powerful collider to recreate the universe’s earliest conditions and investigate how the Strong, Weak, and Electromagnetic forces unified. Yu Nanfeng understood the scientific goal but knew humanity lacked the technology to build such a collider.

• The chapter explained how high temperatures restored symmetry and unified the Weak and Electromagnetic forces.
• It described how the Strong Force confined Quarks and how extreme temperatures could free Gluons and make the Strong Force long-range.
• Scientists’ collider experiments revealed Quark-antiquark pair production and led to the discovery of Chiral Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking as the source of most proton and neutron mass.
• Liu Miyan wanted a collider capable of reaching 10 to the fifteenth power GeV to study the Strong Force before symmetry breaking and pursue Grand Unified Theory.
• Yu Nanfeng understood Liu Miyan’s request but recognized that humanity lacked the technological capability to build the required collider.

Yu Nanfeng explained that Human Civilization had reached the limits of its material technology and that building a more powerful Particle Collider would require extraordinary materials and immense engineering efforts. Liu Miyan remained determined to pursue the collider, leaving Yu Nanfeng questioning whether they would really attempt the colossal project.

• Yu Nanfeng told Liu Miyan and Yue Yuan that material scientists believed microscopic nanotechnology had reached its limits without the Grand Unified Theory, though new material structures might still be possible.
• Yu Nanfeng explained that Alloy No. 1 and Alloy No. 2 had been created through extraordinary luck and were later understood to be Quantum Materials.
• Liu Miyan questioned why extraordinary materials were needed, arguing that existing materials could be assembled into a collider 6,684.6 Astronomical Units long.
• Yu Nanfeng considered the project's enormous demands, including vast quantities of resources, untested equipment, complicated coordination, and the need to make the collider mobile.
• Yu Nanfeng asked Liu Miyan whether he truly wanted to build it, and Liu Miyan replied that they had no other choice.

Liu Miyan urged Yue Yuan to begin work on an enormous New Particle Collider, while Yu Nanfeng outlined the immense resources and technical challenges it would require. Yue Yuan left the decision unresolved, but privately welcomed Liu Miyan’s boldness as the Great Fleet continued toward its next Star System.

• Liu Miyan pressed Yue Yuan to decide soon whether Human Civilization should build the New Particle Collider during the Great Fleet’s remaining eight years of transit.
• Yu Nanfeng said the project might require hollowing out six star systems and tens of thousands of scientific and engineering teams, and discussed how stronger magnetic fields could shorten the collider.
• Liu Miyan argued that stronger magnetic fields could reduce the collider’s length and asked Yue Yuan to settle the issue.
• Yue Yuan said Liu Miyan would still have to convince those seeking Alien Civilization ruins, and Liu Miyan planned to argue for the project at next year’s Summary Conference.
• After Liu Miyan and Yu Nanfeng left, Yue Yuan privately said that a little madness was good and that he feared hesitation more than boldness.

Liu Miyan pushed Humanity to build the New Collider, but repeated votes rejected the plan amid concerns about its cost and the risk of Humanity fragmenting across distant star systems. After decades of failed revisions and arguments, he grew exhausted and began recalling certain things.

• Yue Yuan asked Tianhe Light to estimate the time needed to hollow out the planets in a Star System, and it estimated roughly a thousand years of mining alone.
• Liu Miyan presented the New Collider plan at a Summary Conference, where opponents warned that it would consume Humanity’s resources and risk splitting the civilization into factions.
• After the proposal was rejected, Liu Miyan rallied supporters and secured a special conference for voting on the plan, but it too rejected the proposal.
• Liu Miyan revised the plan and continued seeking approval through repeated votes, while Humanity explored another Star System and found no relevant ruins.
• Fifty-five years after beginning his campaign, Liu Miyan saw an optimized proposal rejected again and, exhausted by the recurring arguments, began recalling certain things.

Liu Miyan worried that the New Particle Collider project was stuck in decades of conference arguments, so he visited Yi Kai for advice. Yi Kai told him to seek the Chief’s decision directly and suggested the scientific community show its sincerity so Major General Yue could speak up.

• After another failed conference, Liu Miyan wandered the Research Ship and found the Academy of Life Sciences Research Institute where Yi Kai worked.
• Liu Miyan visited Yi Kai and complained that the New Particle Collider project had been debated for more than fifty years without progress.
• Yi Kai advised Liu Miyan that the Chief could settle the project with a word, and that discussion at a conference did not require a vote.
• Yi Kai explained that criticism calling the Chief a local tyrant emperor had likely encouraged him to allow the prolonged debate.
• Yi Kai urged Liu Miyan to help demonstrate the scientific community’s sincerity so Major General Yue could speak up.

Yi Kai and the scientific community used public pressure over the stalled New Particle Collider Plan to challenge the inefficiency of humanity’s decision-making. Yue Yuan canceled Liu Miyan’s previous vote, announced the plan would proceed, and outlined the need to design the collider and find a suitable resource-rich star system.

• Yi Kai coordinated with Liu Miyan, contacted prominent scientists, and used the Propaganda Department to publicize the meetings’ inefficiency.
• Yi Kai and other scientists criticized the conference system and called for a stronger voice to direct humanity’s future.
• Yue Yuan convened senior officials with Man Yuemei, Bu Guiyu, and Zhu Pete, canceled Liu Miyan’s previous New Collider vote, and announced that the plan would launch immediately.
• Yue Yuan argued that humanity’s science had stagnated and that the New Collider Plan was necessary to avoid falling behind the Level 4 civilization threshold.
• Yue Yuan explained that scientists and engineers would first design the collider and that construction required a resource-rich star system with nearby stars.
• Yue Yuan selected a route through eight unexplored stars toward a dense stellar region, though he doubted it would reveal alien civilization ruins.

After the Great Fleet found no ruins across five stars, Yue Yuan planned to resupply and begin a long hibernation voyage. An unknown object appeared directly ahead of the Lyra, forcing the warship into an emergency evasive maneuver.

• The Great Fleet searched five more stars without finding Alien Civilization ruins, and some people suggested the ruins might not be on planets.
• Yue Yuan considered leaving the star region after a resupply stop and a large-scale hibernation voyage.
• A duty officer reported an unknown object only 0.16 Astronomical Units ahead of the Lyra.
• Tianhe Light warned the crew and initiated an evasive maneuver as Yue Yuan viewed the object's optical image.
• The Lyra's thrusters began a hard-over maneuver while the unknown object's nature and motion remained unclear.

Lyra could not avoid colliding with an unknown object, and Yue Yuan ordered the ship’s Close-In Weapon Systems to fire. The object passed through the beams without any visible effect, and the crew’s repeated footage showed something unexpected.

• Lyra tilted upward while scanning the approaching object, but its Neutrino Detection radar detected nothing.
• Tianhe Light warned that collision was unavoidable, activated Anti-Impact Mode and Personal Protection Pods, and ordered the crew into combat mode.
• Yue Yuan ordered Lyra’s Close-In Weapon Systems to attack the object as it approached at nearly half the speed of light.
• The targeting display showed one second until impact at Lyra’s power reactor, but no collision or damage occurred.
• The crew saw footage identifying the object as a regular, rhomboid crystal, while lasers and positron beams passed through it without reflection.
• A second feedback image appeared, leaving Lyra’s crew reacting with confusion, astonishment, and cheers.

The Rhomboid Lattice vanished after Lyra fired on it, though the attack had no effect and its disappearance appeared deliberate. It then reappeared inside Lyra’s Command Center, leaving Yue Yuan wondering how it had bypassed the warship’s defenses.

• Lyra’s close-in weapons fired through the Rhomboid Lattice, which faded, cracked, and vanished without taking damage.
• Yue Yuan and the crew reacted with a mix of relief, fear, and confusion as Tianhe Light reported that the attack was ineffective and the target had disappeared.
• The Lyra Science Officer announced that the Rhomboid Lattice had appeared inside the warship and warned the crew not to move.
• Yue Yuan hurried to the Command Center and found the Rhomboid Lattice floating between the main display and the captain’s seat.
• Yue Yuan realized the object had synchronized its velocity with Lyra and had entered without damaging the sealed warship, but he could not determine how.

A Rhomboid Crystal suddenly appeared inside the Lyra through an unknown process, and Yue Yuan ordered the human fleet to move away while assembling experts to investigate it. The First Fleet began turning as scientists and security personnel gathered aboard the Lyra.

• Yue Yuan watched footage showing the Rhomboid Crystal materialize inside the Lyra and considered whether it had entered through a Four-Dimensional Jump.
• Yue Yuan ordered the Residential Spaceship Cluster and all ships outside the First Fleet to change course and keep their distance from the Lyra.
• Yue Yuan summoned Yu Nanfeng, Gan De, Su Song, Li Zenglu, Liu Miyan, Yi Kai, and Language Cryptographers to the Lyra with their Research Ships.
• Zhu Pete, security soldiers, and scientific workers arrived aboard the Lyra as Yue Yuan waited for the summoned experts.
• Yue Yuan ordered the First Fleet to begin turning.

Yue Yuan and Lyra’s crew investigated a mysterious Rhomboid Crystal that had attached itself to Lyra, but their instruments could not explain its strange properties. As the crystal changed before their eyes, a voice greeted humanity as a “Young New Generation Civilization.”

• Lyra’s First Mate showed the crew footage of the Rhomboid Crystal disappearing and reappearing, and it stayed fixed inside Lyra as the ship turned.
• Yue Yuan had the Great Fleet move away while the crew examined the crystal with scientific instruments.
• The instruments produced contradictory results: they could not detect the crystal with neutrino or infrared scans, yet an electron microscope showed an ordinary mineral-like surface.
• Yi Kai wondered if the crystal was a message from an advanced civilization, and the crystal became smoother and more translucent.
• A voice sounded through Lyra’s Command Center, greeting the “Young New Generation Civilization” and remarking that another civilization had found it.

Yue Yuan and the scientists questioned the rhomboid crystal after it began speaking aboard the Lyra. It identified itself as a Drift Bottle left by a Precursor civilization and began explaining its nature, while leaving its deeper meaning for humanity to discover later.

• The rhomboid crystal spoke first, and Yue Yuan confirmed that it understood Human Civilization’s language.
• The crystal called itself an Information Storage Device and a Drift Bottle left in the Milky Way by its creator, explaining that the Lyra had entered its range and activated its mechanism.
• Yue Yuan asked about the crystal’s references to Precursors and New Generation Civilizations, and it confirmed that Human Civilization was a Group Technological Civilization.
• The crystal explained that it was not a self-aware Artificial Intelligence but a replicated consciousness of a living being that had remained behind after its civilization left the Milky Way.
• When a scientist asked whether it was alive, the crystal said that its status depended on the definition of life and that humanity would understand more upon reaching Level 5 Civilization.

The Rhomboid Crystal revealed that it was a Drift Bottle left behind by a civilization that departed the Milky Way Galaxy thirty billion years ago on the Great Voyage, seeking hope beyond the galaxy. It left humanity with questions about the voyage’s destination and the danger that had driven so many civilizations to leave.

• Yue Yuan realized the Rhomboid Crystal belonged to a civilization that had left the Milky Way Galaxy at least thirty billion years earlier.
• The Rhomboid Crystal explained that it and other advanced civilizations had begun the Great Voyage because they believed no civilization in the Milky Way had a hopeful future.
• The Rhomboid Crystal said it was an Information Storage Device created through the Drift Bottle Project to inform future civilizations about the voyage when they encountered sentient life.
• The Rhomboid Crystal admitted it did not know why a Low-level Civilization like humanity had activated it, and that some of its information had been lost over time.
• Yue Yuan asked why the information had been left for future civilizations, and the Rhomboid Crystal answered that the universe was dangerous and that later civilizations might continue the journey if the first voyage failed.

Yue Yuan and the others learned from the Rhomboid Crystal that the Precursors had led the Milky Way Galaxy’s advanced civilizations on a Great Voyage Thirty Billion Years Ago. The chapter left humanity determined to follow the voyage, while its destination remained unknown.

• The Rhomboid Crystal explained that civilizations had united around the Great Voyage and urged humanity to prioritize the voyage over revenge for the destruction of its home.
• Yue Yuan told the Rhomboid Crystal what humanity knew about the Milky Way Galaxy, including the destruction of humanity’s Solar System and the Great Voyage ambitions of several Level Six Civilizations.
• The Rhomboid Crystal admitted that time had erased much of its information, especially the Great Voyage’s destination.
• The Rhomboid Crystal told Gan De that every Level Six Civilization and most civilizations below Level Six had left the Milky Way Galaxy on the voyage.
• Gan De concluded that the departure had created a Civilization Window Period, explaining why humanity had encountered no advanced civilizations until now.

The Rhomboid Crystal explained that the Precursors left the Milky Way after a billion years of failing to break through the Shackles of Advancing to Cosmic Civilization. It revealed that the Precursors had been at the peak of Level Six Civilization when they began the Great Voyage, then prepared to share another revelation.

• Gan De asked whether the Precursors' Great Voyage had been undertaken to pursue the universe's first ray of light, but the Rhomboid Crystal said it had not.
• The Rhomboid Crystal explained that the Precursors had seen the Milky Way as a vast prison and left to seek hope beyond its invisible shackle.
• The Rhomboid Crystal said the Precursors had spent a billion years researching why they could not break through the limits of intelligence, and had concluded that both their species and the Milky Way might be responsible.
• Liu Miyan asked what the shackle was, and the Rhomboid Crystal clarified that it was the Shackles of Advancing to Cosmic Civilization.
• The Rhomboid Crystal told humanity that the Precursors had been at the peak of Level Six Civilization, which they called an Interstellar Civilization, when they began their Great Voyage.

The Rhomboid Crystal revealed that its civilization once used Quantum Hyperdistance Communication until it suddenly failed, suggesting that an unknown existence had changed a fundamental law of physics. Yue Yuan wondered whether the change had been limited to the Milky Way Galaxy and whether similar dangers remained there.

• The Rhomboid Crystal explained that Quantum Hyperdistance Communication had allowed real-time communication with its civilization and other Drift Bottles before suddenly failing.
• The Rhomboid Crystal said its civilization had sent its final message using Electromagnetic Waves as it began The Great Voyage, and that it knew nothing of what happened afterward.
• Humanity’s scientists realized that the failure implied an unknown existence had altered a physical law while leaving the rest of the universe’s rules intact.
• Yue Yuan asked whether Quantum Hyperdistance Communication had recovered beyond the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Rhomboid Crystal said it did not know.
• Yue Yuan wondered whether Cosmic Civilizations had fought a war that changed physical laws and asked if similar existences or phenomena were present in the Milky Way Galaxy.

The Rhomboid Crystal revealed that civilizations reaching Level Six encountered a barrier to mastering Vacuum Zero-Point Energy, leaving them trapped between exhausting their galactic resources and attempting The Great Voyage. It also pointed Human Civilization toward the Negative Matter and Negative Energy theories of Level 5, and the Dark Matter and Dark Energy theories of Level Six.

• The Rhomboid Crystal showed Yue Yuan a record of a star apparently older than the universe and explained that a change in the rules had caused the anomaly, possibly signaling a great danger.
• The Rhomboid Crystal said Human Civilization had met its civilization’s standards by activating the mechanism, so it would share what it knew about The Great Voyage and the future of despair.
• The Rhomboid Crystal identified the Casimir Effect and Vacuum Zero-Point Energy as the barrier preventing Level Six Civilizations from creating unlimited energy and traveling across galaxies.
• The Rhomboid Crystal explained that civilizations pursued The Great Voyage to escape stagnation and resource depletion, even though mastering the energy needed for intergalactic travel seemed to require leaving the galaxy first.
• The Rhomboid Crystal said Level 5 civilizations studied Negative Matter and Negative Energy, while Level Six civilizations studied Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Humanity considered the dangers and scale of the Great Voyage, wondering whether civilizations from other galaxies might collide and whether the Milky Way’s advanced civilizations would unite to depart. The Rhomboid Crystal explained that dark matter was not universal and that crossing between galaxies remained an immense challenge even for Level Six Civilizations.

• Humanity’s scientists discussed how difficult interstellar and intergalactic travel remained despite Level Six Civilizations’ dark matter technology.
• Yue Yuan reasoned that civilizations from other galaxies might also undertake the Great Voyage and encounter one another, turning the journey into a source of conflict.
• Yue Yuan wondered whether the Milky Way’s Level Six Civilizations would eventually unite and take its advanced civilizations on a new Great Voyage, as the Precursors had done.
• The Rhomboid Crystal explained that dark matter existed only within the regions civilizations knew, not throughout the entire universe.
• The Rhomboid Crystal compared galaxies to isolated islands and said that crossing the vast distances between them was difficult even for Level Six Civilizations.