"Where... where is this?" Jody stammered. The holographic image from the Pacific Rim Spacetime was truly shocking to him; such a flashy thing was completely out of place with the atmosphere outside.
A staff member passing by glanced at Jody, seemingly curious about where this country bumpkin came from.
Amelia also noticed that the man's work clothes had that strange symbol from the rocket.
Zhou Kun chuckled, "This is our work area. The details of the wormhole exploration plan, including our plan to save humanity, are all formulated here."
He was in high spirits, having already become deeply involved, and gestured for Amelia and Jody to put on the translation headsets for the Wandering Spacetime project before walking over to Zhang Tianyuan.
Amelia hesitated for a moment, then walked over as well.
The four of them, along with aerospace experts, gathered around a holographic image of the Solar System.
Zhang Tianyuan fiddled with his finger next to the holographic wormhole, then turned to Amelia: "Director Zhou mentioned before that you wanted to crack the gravitational equations to modify gravity and enable all of humanity to migrate through space?"
"This is our Plan A. If this plan fails, we will immediately switch to Plan B."
As Amelia spoke, she kept a close eye on Zhang Tianyuan. Although this young man looked younger than her, his status was clearly extraordinary.
Perhaps a single sentence from this person could help me achieve my goal...
"It's that Population Bomb," Zhou Kun added from the side.
Zhang Tianyuan nodded slightly, then asked a seemingly unrelated question, "Director Zhou also said that you currently lack experienced astronauts?"
Jody replied, "Yes, sir."
"Don't you have any other backup plans, such as reusing previously retired astronauts?"
"Those people have been away from NASA for far too long, at least a decade or more."
After a moment's thought, Zhang Tianyuan realized that Cooper, the protagonist who had once been an astronaut, was not even on their radar.
In the original story, Cooper was chosen because he received the coordinates of a secret NASA base from " Ghost." Dr. Brand believed that the entity that sent him the coordinates via gravity was likely one of the "people" who placed the wormhole near Saturn, which is why he invited him to join the project.
Cooper
It belongs to the category of "when one person attains enlightenment, even their chickens and dogs ascend to heaven"—meaning that when one person achieves enlightenment, even their chickens and dogs benefit from it.
Now, the winds he stirred up in Asia have clearly reached North America, and have stirred up all sorts of trouble there, so Cooper naturally can't get the base's coordinates anymore.
However, just to be on the safe side, Zhang Tianyuan still asked if anyone had recently broken into the NASA base.
Amelia answered no, while emphasizing the top-secret nature of the NASA base, stating that absolutely no one could break in and there was no possibility of leaks.
She thought Zhang Tianyuan was worried about a potential leak of information from their side.
However, the next second, Zhang Tianyuan changed the subject again. Xxs-2
"In that case, your Plan A is doomed to fail."
A thought flashed through Amelia's mind, and to her surprise, she felt little anger. Her father had worked on Plan A for decades; to deny Plan A was tantamount to denying her father's efforts, and also the efforts of everyone else over the past decades...
"Why?" she asked calmly.
Zhang Tianyuan looked into her eyes. "Because 'they' no longer exist."
"Them!" Amelia's heart leaped into her throat. "You've made contact with 'them'?"
"Did they place the wormhole near Saturn?"
"Who exactly are they? Why did they help us... and why are they no longer here?"
An excited Amelia had many questions.
They had long suspected that wormholes did not appear naturally around Saturn, but were deliberately placed there by some entity.
As for the purpose of this existence, it should be to help them escape Earth and find a new home. Otherwise, it is hard to explain why the other side of the wormhole is a New Star, and a star system with habitable planets.
However, there has been ongoing debate within NASA regarding "their" identity. While the general consensus is that they are extraterrestrials, some rather outlandish theories exist. For instance, some within NASA believe that God actually placed the wormhole next to Saturn...
If she could get the answer here, then this pointless argument could end.
Amelia was unaware that, influenced by the atmosphere around her, she had unknowingly come to believe that Zhang Tianyuan knew the ins and outs of wormholes.
"Calm down a bit, Dr. Amelia."
Zhang Tianyuan comforted her, "That's all I can tell you. They've disappeared and can no longer help you. Naturally, your gravitational equations can no longer be solved."
In the original story, the gravitational equations could be solved because Cooper sacrificed himself and deliberately fell into the black hole. The higher-dimensional humans then created a hypercube to protect Cooper and the robot TARS inside the black hole.
Thus, Cooper could also transmit the quantum data that TARS collected inside the black hole to his daughter within the hypercube, by influencing the watch hands with gravity through their emotional connection.
This is precisely the data that Professor Brand is missing.
Without this data, the gravitational equations cannot be solved.
These data can only be observed inside a black hole, or rather, under the protection of higher-dimensional beings.
The key to all of this lies in the hypercube created by higher-dimensional humans, which is the place where Cooper can see his daughter at various ages and experiences at the end of the movie.
Only a hypercube can protect someone entering a black hole and allow them to use emotional connections to transmit data out of the black hole.
Without the crucial hypercube, no one could enter the black hole alive, and naturally, it would be impossible to transmit data out.
Amelia opened her mouth but didn't refute Zhang Tianyuan's seemingly arbitrary judgment, because deep down she didn't really believe in Plan A either.
Her father, Dr. Brand, spent 40 years working on the equations of gravity, and NASA's base took 25 years to build, but Plan A remained like a distant star, always out of reach.
Especially when her father strongly supported Plan B, which she spearheaded, and even demanded that she send the Population Bomb over here, she knew even more that her father's confidence in Plan A was also wavering...
Amelia's face betrayed her disappointment.
Is Plan B our only way out?
"Are there any other options we can use?"
"You guys have other methods, right?"
"If there is no hope, you cannot continue with the wormhole project!"
As she spoke, a fire rekindled in Amelia's eyes. She grabbed Zhang Tianyuan beside her, hoping to get good news...