Recaps

Lü Yongchang and the command center weather a global storm on Dawn Star while developing genetic enhancements and gaining approval for human trials. A long-delayed call from Proxima Centauri reveals that Ren Feng’s reforms failed, ending with civil conflict between naturally born and communally raised people.

• Hong Fan and Andrew found hematite and elemental iron beneath Dawn Star’s surface, then escaped a worsening storm by taking shelter in a cave.
• Fang Xu ordered rescue missions as a global storm spread, and Lü Yongchang’s satellite network eventually calmed most of Dawn Star.
• Lü Yongchang and Mao Zhengzhi tested Magna genes and hormones on mice, finding that the visceral reticulum improved gravity tolerance while the physical enhancement hormone caused serious problems.
• Lü Yongchang won Parliament’s approval for voluntary adult genetic modification under rules that banned hereditary changes and required reproductive-cell preservation.
• Lü Yongchang reconnected with Ren Feng and Zhang Zhengqing, who revealed that Proxima Centauri’s reforms had failed and its population had fallen to one million.
• Zhuang Wenxing faced discrimination while seeking work, and Zhou Sheng explained how competition between naturally born and communally raised people had intensified.
• Ren Feng told Lü Yongchang that his ban on natural childbirth split the groups into separate cities, and City Three ultimately declared independence and war on naturally born people.

Lü Yongchang advanced humanity’s defenses and began transforming Dawn Star, while Hope settled into life on the planet. The Cleaners discovered evidence of [Hua]’s dimensional ascension and destroyed Ross 154 as they searched for him.

• Zhuang Wenxing and Gong Shanshan faced the outbreak of war as the naturally raised and communally raised populations devastated the cities, leaving City Four as the only normally functioning city.
• Lü Yongchang and the researchers developed magnetic field and plasma shields, then tested the Battering Ram’s Plasma Cannon, which destroyed the Golden Crow in one shot.
• Hope arrived on Dawn Star, reunited with Hansent, and went prospecting before learning that planetary terraforming might replace plans for more surface cities.
• Lü Yongchang began human enhancement trials, and Freeman cooperated with gravity tests after Lü threatened to eject him into space.
• Lü Yongchang proposed capturing Comet Nero for its ice and using modified cyanobacteria and hematite to help transform Dawn Star’s atmosphere.
• Sweeper 9527 discovered evidence of dimensional ascension near the black dwarf, concluded that [Hua] had died, and ordered Ross 154 torn apart to search for his escape route.
• Hope learned that Nero had been captured and watched as the supply ships towed it toward Dawn Star, while Lü Yongchang sealed the cities and began the Noah’s Ark plan.
• Lü Yongchang ordered hydrogen bombs detonated inside Nero, breaking the comet into fragments that scattered across Dawn Star’s sky as Hope and Hansent watched.

Lü Yongchang led Dawn Star through terraforming and launched the Human Enhancement Project while preparing a mission to an ice giant. Hope and Hansent descended into its liquid ammonia ocean, where they found evidence of unfamiliar life and encountered a huge creature.

• Lü Yongchang used the climate-control satellites to break up the dangerous fragments and slow their fall, but the resulting rain flooded Dawn Star’s lowlands and surrounded all six surface cities.
• Hope and Hansent watched drones reveal that the reshaped planet’s coastlines and continents resembled Earth, while the storms had carved rivers and exposed mineral deposits.
• Lü Yongchang began the atmosphere-terraforming phase, then halted starship manufacturing when simulations showed that current materials could not support his planned ten-thousand-meter flagship.
• Lü Yongchang’s work in the Technology Tree left him unconscious, and Doctor Wen discovered accelerating changes in his brain and sealed the examination results.
• Hope and Hansent volunteered to explore the ice giant, underwent human enhancement, and trained for the mission aboard the prospecting ship [Poseidon].
• Lü Yongchang became the first participant in the Human Enhancement Project as [Poseidon] departed with Hope and Hansent, who survived the ice giant’s violent atmosphere and entered its liquid ammonia sea.
• At a depth of 261.3 kilometers, Hope and Hansent collected samples that Lü Yongchang and Mao Zhengzhi found contained unfamiliar, protein-like amide structures.
• Hope and Hansent detected a huge creature circling [Poseidon], and Lü Yongchang ordered them to ascend slowly after the sonar data suggested it was over two hundred meters long.

Hope and Hansent explored the Ice Giant, befriended a giant fish, and helped locate star gold while researchers studied its language. Back on Dawn Star, Lü Yongchang launched a social child-rearing trial to address the Federation’s declining birth rate, and its first children began adult life on the planet.

• Hope and Hansent encountered the giant fish in the liquid-ammonia ocean, escaped in a separated cockpit, and brought back a skin sample as Meng Lu began deciphering the fish’s ultrasonic language.
• Meng Lu identified the fish’s speech patterns, while Lü Yongchang’s team discovered that the fish attached armor from the abandoned Poseidon to their bodies with mucus.
• Hope and Hansent returned in a Poseidon Type II, used the translation program and chemical bait to gain the leader’s trust, and followed it to a star gold vein.
• Hope and Hansent surveyed the star gold deposits, and Lü Yongchang and Cao Liangcai discussed using the material to strengthen ships and support future construction.
• Zero warned Lü Yongchang that births and deaths would intersect within three hundred years, and the Academy of Sciences’ infant Medical Pod proposal failed to ease the burden of raising children.
• Lü Yongchang persuaded Hong Qiming to approve a trial of artificial wombs and social proxy-rearing, and Xu Ting and Qi Yang applied to have their child raised at a Human Federation Child-Rearing Center.
• The trial’s 10,000 slots filled in just over two hours, and Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to oversee the centers and keep the process transparent.
• Ten years later, Qi Yang and Xu Ting visited their daughter Qi Mengshu, who later joined her companions on a public starship to begin adult life on Dawn Star.