Hawking sat quietly in his wheelchair, his head drooping as his mind sank into a storm of logic.
He was a theoretical physicist who loved cosmology and enjoyed imagining aliens and humanity's future.
Hawking had no way to refute Huang Ji's claims, but as a scientist, he instinctively kept questioning them in his heart.
Scientists were perhaps the profession most in need of contrarians.
Hawking had challenged the hypotheses of many colleagues in the scientific community, and was usually proven wrong soon afterward, but he enjoyed it.
"If alien interference has made humanity insufficiently wild, then why protect humanity to any extent at all?" Hawking pressed.
Huang Ji looked at him and said, "You possess your own traits, your own culture, and the budding seeds of your own civilization. You are indeed progressing and have the potential to enter Interstellar Civilization, which is why you are protected. The Great Silence is one of those protective measures. You should believe that, from the perspective of the entire Star Alliance, we still hope you will make it out."
"But if that's the case, why don't novelty-seeking aliens simply descend upon Earth, seize the population, and trample the law at will? The punishment isn't that severe anyway."
"At least from what I have seen, they hid it from us and secretly abducted Earth's population."
"They would rather pay fines for eating people than violate the law of 'protecting Earth Civilization from outside influence.' Why is that?"
Hawking's words made some sense. Why were they so timid when abducting people, yet so open when eating them?
Although there had indeed been some UFO sightings on Earth, they had always been concealed, furtive, and vague.
If a massive spaceship descended over a city in broad daylight, all humanity would have exploded into uproar long ago!