Recaps

Hao Ren and his companions examined the drone probes’ reports at the Crystal Core Research Station, discovering a discontinuous spatial boundary and mysterious high-energy aggregates in an unexplored region. With the region roughly mapped, Hao Ren considered visiting it.

• Hao Ren gathered his companions at the Crystal Core Research Station and asked the drone swarm to explain what happened to the probes.
• The drone swarm reported that Probe One had gone missing during its jump, while Probes Two and Three reached the target system and recorded a boundary where the observed positions of stars abruptly changed.
• The drone swarm explained that space was discontinuous across the boundary, making nearby observations correspond to locations millions of light-years apart.
• Hao Ren used a cut-and-rejoined sheet of paper to explain the spatial displacement, while the Data Terminal joked about his non-explosive methods.
• The drone swarm showed Hao Ren images of disk-shaped high-energy aggregates scattered across the target region and reported that it had mapped the galaxy roughly.
• Hao Ren said the region looked worth visiting.

Hao Ren questioned the giants about the Red Moon’s connection to the Founding Star and learned that the Creation Goddess had brought the strange seabed crystals there. The clues suggested the Red Moon was a composite of the Founding Star across different eras, so Hao Ren decided Vivian should not summon it casually while the Lord of Madness remained a threat.

• Hao Ren told the giants that the Creation Engine’s blueprint might have been tampered with and asked whether Lockmadon had a lair on the Founding Star.
• Gorton confirmed that the Creation Goddess had made Lockmadon a lair on the Founding Star, while Locken said the strange crystals had not originally been there.
• Siv recalled seeing the Creation Goddess return from a long journey and cast similar crystals into the Sea of Origin.
• Hao Ren explained how Vivian’s Red Moon revealed the crystal clusters, and Vivian proposed that the Red Moon was a composite of the Founding Star across different eras.
• Hao Ren warned that Vivian should not summon the Red Moon casually because its connection to the Founding Star could provoke unpredictable consequences.

Hao Ren and his companions traveled to X Sector to investigate the unknown region and followed the star map left by the Creation Goddess. They crossed into X Sector safely, but an incoming high-energy attack struck just as they began heading for a drone outpost.

• Hao Ren decided to explore X Sector and brought his companions, including Vivian, while leaving Little Weakling in Nangong's parents' care.
• Hao Ren explained that he would wait to tell the Guardian Giants about the Creation Goddess until he confirmed her condition.
• Nolan established a direct link to the drone swarm, and Hao Ren ordered the ship to jump to X Sector.
• The ship crossed the discontinuous spatial boundary and arrived safely in X Sector's dark-purple starfield.
• As Nolan began navigating toward a drone outpost, the ship detected an offensive high-energy reaction and warned that the first impact was imminent.

Hao Ren and the crew were trapped by a vast energy storm as they approached the X Sector, and the Giant Turtle Rock Platform suffered severe damage while fighting to escape. With retreat and a precise jump impossible, Hao Ren ordered an emergency blind jump toward any gravitational source and summoned the drones to repair the ship and produce troops.

• Nolan raised the Giant Turtle Rock Platform’s shields and weapons when glowing energy branches attacked from every direction.
• Hao Ren ordered Nolan to fire on the branches’ energy nodes and accelerate toward an opening in the encirclement.
• The energy tendrils pursued the ship, and a powerful beam damaged the rear shield generators, hyperspace stabilizer, and gravity generator.
• Nolan reported that the attack carried divine power, while the storm grew too large for the ship to outrun or return through.
• Hao Ren ordered a blind jump toward any gravitational source and sent an emergency recall order to the drone swarm to repair the fortress and produce troops.

Hao Ren and his companions crash-landed on an abandoned planet after escaping a divine-power storm, leaving Nolan badly damaged but repairable. They confirmed the surface was safe and spotted overgrown city ruins, so Hao Ren planned an expedition.

• A damaged spaceship burst from distorted space and crashed on a wasteland outside a forest-swallowed city.
• Hao Ren and the others recovered on the bridge, and Nolan reported that her engines, jump system, shields, and other systems were damaged.
• Nolan said the ship could be repaired but would need at least a week before it could fly again.
• Nolan scanned the planet and found a comfortable, oxygen-rich environment with no threatening energy sources.
• Lily pointed out city ruins they had passed during the fall, and Nolan showed images of the vegetation-covered structures.
• Hao Ren decided to organize an expedition to explore the ruins.

Hao Ren led Vivian, Lily, and Nangong May into the alien jungle at night to scout ruins near the crash site while the Giant Turtle Rock Platform repaired itself. The group found a collapsed metal tower overgrown with vines, evidence that a civilization had once existed on the planet.

• Nolan recommended a route through the jungle, and Hao Ren assigned the rest of the group to remain aboard the ship while it repaired itself.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, Lily, and Nangong May left the Giant Turtle Rock Platform to inspect ruins northwest of the crash site.
• Hao Ren and the others observed the crash damage as the ship began visibly restoring its hull and replacing ruined components.
• Lily noticed two moons in the sky, while Vivian sent shadow bats ahead to scout the jungle.
• Hao Ren's group encountered a collapsed metal tower covered in vines and moss, marking the remains of an ancient civilization.

Hao Ren's group explored the overgrown ruins of an ancient metropolis while investigating the deliberate divine-power attack that had stranded them on the planet. The Data Terminal revealed that the strange mountain range beside the city was actually an enormous tentacle reaching up from underground.

• Hao Ren, Vivian, Lily, and the Data Terminal examined a durable relic and discussed how the planet's civilization might have fallen.
• Hao Ren and Lily considered who might have engineered the attack in space, but Hao Ren held off on deciding until they understood the divine-power storm.
• Hao Ren's group reached the city ruins and saw a vast, collapsed metropolis overrun by forest, while Vivian sent bats to search it and the Data Terminal scanned for energy traces.
• Hao Ren noticed a barren area where the forest had not reclaimed the land and wondered what had destroyed it.
• The Data Terminal showed the group footage of a smooth, dark formation beside the city, and Hao Ren recognized it as an enormous tentacle rising from underground.

Hao Ren discovered an active Firstborn tentacle on the planet and ordered the Lullaby system and engine repairs prioritized. He watched local aircraft bomb the tentacle and learned from their intercepted communication that they were returning to a base called Zenith Seat.

• Hao Ren recognized that the forest had grown around an active Firstborn tentacle and ordered Nolan to activate Lullaby and prioritize engine repairs.
• Six iron-gray aircraft flew over the ruins and attacked the Firstborn tentacle with missiles, gunfire, and specialized bombs.
• The Firstborn's force field destroyed four aircraft, while the surviving two completed their bombing run and continued toward their base.
• The Data Terminal intercepted the aircraft's communication and identified their base as Zenith Seat.

Hao Ren and his companions explored the ruins after discovering that survivors were still fighting the planet’s Firstborn. They entered a large, well-preserved building and found a hall filled with sculptures that might preserve the ancient civilization’s history.

• Hao Ren learned that the planet’s survivors were fighting the Firstborn and agreed with Nolan to gather intelligence while repairing the Giant Turtle Rock Platform.
• Hao Ren led Lily, Vivian, and Nangong May deeper into the ruins to search for records of the ancient civilization.
• The group reached a massive pyramid-shaped building and entered through a crack in its damaged exterior.
• Nangong May spotted a broken statue resembling a human, and Hao Ren concluded that the planet’s intelligent life had a familiar form.
• Vivian noticed a hall filled with sculptures and reliefs, which Hao Ren hoped had been made to preserve a message for future generations.

Hao Ren and his companions explored the ruined city and discovered reliefs depicting the Firstborn’s destruction of the planet’s civilization and its people’s attempted escape into space. After returning to Nolan, they debated what happened after the reliefs ended and questioned whether the aircraft they encountered belonged to descendants who stayed behind or people who had fled the planet.

• Hao Ren and his companions used the Data Terminal to restore damaged reliefs depicting the Firstborn destroying the native civilization and survivors launching spacecraft into space.
• Vivian pointed out that the reliefs ended with the spacecraft launches, leaving the fate of those who escaped unknown.
• Hao Ren’s group found sealed chambers containing the remains of city defenders who had died by suicide, along with ruined engines and reactors.
• Hao Ren and the others returned to Nolan by Spatial Teleportation after exploring the city and finding no further major clues.
• Hao Ren and the crew discussed the reliefs and concluded that the Firstborn’s destruction may have stopped after the native population died out.
• Hao Ren asked whether the aircraft they had encountered belonged to descendants who remained on the planet or to people launched into space.

Hao Ren’s group investigated the planet’s ruins and survivor attacks, then set out to recover data from crashed aircraft near a Firstborn tentacle. Lily detected a burnt smell as they reached the wreckage area.

• Hao Ren ordered Nolan to scan the planet and prepare armed Autonomous Mechanical Units for an expedition to the aircraft wrecks.
• Nolan scanned the continent overnight, finding extensive ruins, sluggish Firstborn tentacles, and signs of recent survivor bombardments but no survivor base.
• After breakfast, Hao Ren, Lily, Vivian, and May traveled to the forest boundary to search for the aircraft wreckage.
• The group entered the Firstborn tentacle’s sensory range, and the Data Terminal reported that nearby plants had detected them while the Firstborn had not reacted.
• Lily smelled something burnt and pointed toward its source.

Hao Ren and his companions searched the crash sites for aircraft wreckage and survivors, finding evidence of the attackers’ advanced weapons and industrial strength. Lily discovered a badly damaged robot woman who had shot her, leaving the group with a possible survivor to investigate.

• Hao Ren examined a wrecked radar compartment beside a neural offshoot of the Firstborn and concluded that the creature had stopped the aircraft abruptly.
• Lily led Hao Ren’s group to a weapons module, where the Data Terminal identified the remains of a railgun.
• Hao Ren and Vivian inferred that the attackers needed a substantial industrial system and population to sustain their war against the Firstborn.
• Hao Ren directed the Autonomous Mechanical Units to collect the wreckage for Nolan to study.
• Lily was shot while searching the forest, but May healed her superficial wound.
• Hao Ren’s group found a severely damaged robot woman in a burned-out crash site, and Vivian confirmed that Lily’s supposed injured person was a robot.

Hao Ren’s group recovered a badly damaged robot First Officer from the wreckage of four crashed craft and found no other survivors. He brought her back to the Giant Turtle Rock Platform, where Nolan began analyzing her parts to determine whether she could be repaired.

• The Data Terminal determined that Lily’s approach had triggered the robot’s defense system, causing a short circuit and system crash, and said her logic circuits and memory might still be intact.
• Hao Ren had the Autonomous Mechanical Units carefully cut the robot free and stored her remains, then searched the surrounding area and found no other survivors or intact pilots.
• Hao Ren led the group back to the Giant Turtle Rock Platform after retrieving Lily from the woods, where she had been picking fruit.
• Elizabeth volunteered to repair the robot, but Hao Ren forbade her from entering the laboratory and instructed Nolan to examine the wreckage instead.
• Nolan floated the robot’s remains above an engineering workbench and began dismantling and scanning the components while Lily ate fruit that Nangong May had checked for poison.

Hao Ren waited for the robot First Officer to be repaired while discussing the planet’s strange Firstborn with Vivian. Nolan then discovered a massive space structure in orbit, and Hao Ren suspected it was the giant spaceship shown in the relief.

• The analysis mainframe estimated that repairing the robot First Officer would take forty-eight hours and restore her to seventy percent functionality, so Hao Ren left the work to the laboratory.
• Hao Ren joined the crew in the ship’s bar, where they ate, played cards, and discussed the planet’s unusually inactive Firstborn.
• Vivian and Hao Ren noted that the Firstborn had barely reacted to the Lullaby System and had not shown the expected signs of nervous-system shutdown.
• Nolan repaired an optical observation module and showed the crew a massive egg-shaped space structure in orbit.
• Hao Ren guessed that the structure was the giant spaceship depicted in the relief as having launched into space.

Hao Ren discovered that the survivor resistance forces operated from a lunar industrial base and an orbital fortress, the Zenith Seat, and ordered Nolan to gather information and prepare for peaceful contact. Nolan also reported that the planet’s Firstborn had suffered brain death, leaving its tentacles with only basic reflexes.

• Nolan confirmed that the orbital Space Station was the Zenith Seat, the former escape ship, and that survivor spacecraft launched from it to attack the planet.
• Nolan revealed that the resistance army mined the moon for raw materials and manufactured War Weapons there, while the Zenith Seat served as its command center and frontline fortress.
• Hao Ren ordered Nolan to intercept the survivors’ communications and develop a contact plan while repairing the mothership’s engines, weapons, and shields.
• Hao Ren directed the drone swarms to build bases and a physical communications chain toward the mothership’s planetary system despite interference in the X Sector.
• Nolan reported that the planet’s adult Firstborn had abnormally sluggish neural activity and had suffered brain death.

Hao Ren and his companions concluded that the planet’s Firstborn had been incapacitated by something beyond the Survivor resistance army’s attacks, and that something was preventing it from regenerating. They chose to investigate the people in space first, while the resistance army continued its costly campaign against the Firstborn.

• Nolan argued that the planet’s Firstborn might be suffering a form of brain death, though she could not confirm the cause without examining its brain core.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, and Nangong Sanba reasoned that the Survivor resistance army could not have caused the Firstborn’s condition and that some force must be blocking its recovery.
• Hao Ren decided to seek information from the resistance army before attempting to reach the Firstborn deep underground.
• Nolan intercepted communications suggesting that a capable Survivor society operated from the Giant Space Station and the Moon surface base and that its forces acted rationally.
• The resistance army’s bombers attacked the Firstborn’s forest tentacle again, destroying it at the cost of half the formation, while Nolan detected the Firstborn’s activity declining further.
• Vivian questioned the purpose of the resistance army’s continuing war, and Hao Ren replied that reclaiming their home planet might matter deeply to them.

Hao Ren and his companions learned more about the Firstborn’s dormant state and the survivors’ futile campaign while repairing Nolan. After the ship prepared to fly, they awakened the rebuilt robot First Officer, N-6.

• Nolan’s scans confirmed that the Firstborn had lost unified control, while the space-based survivors continued attacking its tentacles without lasting success.
• Nolan repaired her communications and part of her weapons, then successfully tested her main engine and said she expected to fly the next day.
• Hao Ren wondered why the Moon base and Space Station Zenith Seat had ignored Nolan’s crash, but Nolan interrupted him to announce that the robot girl had been repaired.
• Nolan explained that the laboratory had rebuilt much of the robot First Officer with substitute parts, and Hao Ren ordered her started.
• The robot girl opened her eyes as Vivian asked her name, and she looked around at the people gathered nearby.

Hao Ren and his companions repaired the combat agent N-6, who mistook them for mutated human survivors and told them about the Zenith Seat and a recovery signal. As N-6 began adjusting to her new body, Nolan detected an armed unit approaching the ship.

• N-6 woke in the laboratory and cautiously observed Nolan, Hao Ren, and the others, concluding they were human survivors on the mother planet.
• Hao Ren confirmed N-6's identity and let her believe his group were surface-dwelling humans; she urged them to seek refuge at the Zenith Seat and said she could summon a recovery unit.
• Nolan explained that N-6's new limbs were controlled by a driver program, and N-6 successfully sat up and tested her powerful replacement body.
• N-6 thanked Hao Ren for saving her, mistook the data cable connected to her neck for a charging cable, and learned that her energy system had been upgraded.
• Nolan reported that two transport aircraft had landed twelve kilometers away and an armed unit was approaching.

Hao Ren’s group discovered an armed Zenith Seat team approaching, and N-6 prepared to make contact with them. At the crash site, N-4’s team saw the living ship regenerate and mistook the altered N-6 for an alien parasite, preparing to fight.

• Nolan reported that eighteen armed personnel had landed nearby and destroyed their radar equipment with a pulse.
• N-6 said she had not sent a recovery signal, and Hao Ren’s group brought her to the ship’s exit to meet the newcomers.
• N-4 led her team to the crash crater and found the spacecraft nearly repaired despite earlier intelligence showing it badly damaged.
• N-4’s team watched the ship regenerate its armor and concluded that it was alive and hostile.
• N-4 recognized N-6’s identification signal but detected alien code and unusual energy within her, then ordered her team to prepare for battle.

Hao Ren and Vivian tried to make contact with N-6’s fellow robots, but the soldiers attacked, forcing Vivian to knock them out and bring them aboard the Giant Turtle Rock Platform. N-4 woke as their prisoner and remained wary of Hao Ren, leaving the attempt to establish trust unresolved.

• N-6’s former teammates, led by N-4, opened fire on the Giant Turtle Rock Platform, and its shields protected everyone inside.
• Hao Ren and Vivian went out to stop the attack, but Vivian accidentally struck N-4 with a ball of lightning while trying to scare the soldiers into listening.
• Vivian knocked out the remaining attackers with electromagnetic blasts, and Hao Ren’s group took them aboard for questioning.
• The captured soldiers proved to be robots like N-6, and the Data Terminal’s Autonomous Mechanical Units revived them after their logic circuits triggered emergency protection.
• N-4 woke restrained in front of Hao Ren and Vivian, and she remained silent while Hao Ren apologized for capturing her.

Hao Ren and his companions cleared up the misunderstanding that led N-4 to attack them and convinced her that N-6’s personality had not been altered. N-4 then explained why N-6 and most of the resistance forces did not know about Nolan’s landing, leaving Hao Ren ready to speak with her as a friend.

• N-4 accused N-6 of running unauthorized code, while Hao Ren and his companions explained that they had only repaired her.
• N-4 revealed that she had mistaken Nolan’s headlights for an attack on her radar, and Nolan explained that she had only been responding to their scan.
• N-4 verified N-6’s base-layer data and confirmed that her personality had not been contaminated.
• N-4 told N-6 that Hao Ren and his companions were outsiders whose spacecraft had landed on the homeworld, and Hao Ren apologized for allowing N-6 to assume otherwise.
• N-4 explained that Nolan’s landing went largely unnoticed because an energy shockwave destroyed Zenith Seat’s observation satellites and information about the spacecraft was sealed.
• Hao Ren released N-4’s restraints and sat down to speak with her as a friend.

Hao Ren explained his off-world mission to N-4 and cleared up her mistaken belief that Lily’s portrait was a war totem. He learned that humanity still survived in a heavily protected stronghold on the Moon, though the Planet Devourer kept them from approaching their home planet.

• Hao Ren and Vivian told N-4 that they came from beyond the star system to investigate ancient traces and preserve the relics of civilizations.
• Lily described Hao Ren as a collector of dead civilizations, and N-4 accepted that the group were pacifists after comparing their work with the agents’ recovery missions.
• N-4 mistook Lily’s portrait on the ship for a predator totem, so Hao Ren showed her Lily’s different forms and Izax explained that many of them could transform.
• Hao Ren asked why N-4’s operatives were robots and whether humanity had gone extinct.
• N-4 and N-6 said that humans lived in the Moon base’s Fortress, guarded by the Titan Guard and the main brain, but could not approach their home planet while the Planet Devourer occupied it.

Hao Ren learned how the Moon-based survivors were organized and discovered that their war against the Eldest Son had changed after a meteor shower struck it three thousand years ago. N-4’s account left the group questioning whether the impact had caused the Eldest Son’s diminished activity.

• N-4 and N-6 explained that the Zenith Seat was a forward fortress while the Moon surface base housed the survivors’ factories, military production, and Fortress capital.
• N-4 described the Fortress, its Main Brain and Titan Guard Legion, and the humans who remained inside the Palace of the End.
• N-6 and N-4 said humans traditionally occupied the pilot seats while Agents fought beside them as copilots.
• Hao Ren learned that the Planet Devourer had once driven the survivors to near annihilation, forcing the Zenith Seat into five centuries of exile.
• N-4 recounted that a meteor shower struck the Planet Devourer three thousand years earlier, after which earthquakes and the creature’s loss of strength changed the war.

Hao Ren learned that a mysterious meteor shower had bypassed the Planet Devourer’s defenses and may have driven it mad. N-4 revealed that the central processor had become chaotic years earlier and had secretly ordered her and N-6 to find the crashed alien spacecraft, while forbidding others from searching.

• Hao Ren questioned how the meteor shower had damaged the Planet Devourer despite its powerful defenses, and N-4 recited records describing the fragments appearing amid distorted light.
• Hao Ren and Vivian concluded that the supposed meteorites had arrived through superdimensional space, and Vivian proposed searching for them inside the Planet Devourer.
• Hao Ren asked N-4 about the information blockade, and N-4 disclosed that the central processor had shown signs of chaos for several years.
• N-4 explained that the central processor had issued contradictory and wasteful orders, but seven of its thirteen servers had withdrawn them before they reached the Agents.
• N-4 revealed that the central processor had directly sent her and N-6 its system logs and ordered them to find the crashed alien spacecraft without explaining what to do afterward.
• N-4 confirmed that the central processor had forbidden others from searching the home planet for the unidentified spacecraft.

After recovering from a week of damage, Nolan piloted Giant Turtle Rock Platform back into space while Hao Ren learned how the planet’s central computer had gradually developed contradictory orders and hidden its errors. The ship approached Zenith Seat, where Hao Ren prepared to investigate.

• The silvery-white ship lifted out of the forest crater, and the small beasts whose tree hollow it had destroyed decided to move elsewhere.
• Nolan celebrated her return to flight and reported that the ship’s systems were functioning well, though the main cannon still needed a few hours to recover.
• Giant Turtle Rock Platform left the atmosphere using stealth systems and headed toward Zenith Seat with N-4, N-6, and the other Agents aboard.
• N-4 explained that the central computer had concealed increasingly frequent errors, then issued contradictory orders about investigating Hao Ren’s spacecraft.
• Hao Ren questioned why N-4 had obeyed the disordered mission instead of reporting it to the maintainers, but N-4 and N-6 insisted that the computer’s orders had to be carried out.
• Giant Turtle Rock Platform approached Zenith Seat, and Hao Ren told Nolan to prepare the tractor beam.