"Hello, this is the Parallel Spacetime Mutual Aid Society. We are sending this email from BJ Dungeon No. 1 in No. 3 Spacetime. We have noticed that our recent launch of a rocket carrying out a lunar exploration mission has caused some disturbance in your timeline, and we sincerely apologize for this..."
What kind of rubbish is this?!
After reading only the beginning, Chief Engineer Ji wanted to delete this inexplicable email.
He scrolled down the email, found the delete button, and pressed it.
[Delete this email?]
A prompt appears on the screen.
Chief Engineer Ji was about to select "Yes," but two words in the email caught his attention in the layer below the prompt window—
"The moon, aliens..."
These two words suddenly stirred something within him, and he inexplicably chose "no," then began to carefully read the sentence.
"We have determined that some kind of weapon deployed by extraterrestrials exists on the lunar surface. It has been attempting to penetrate the lunar core for 11 years and has already drilled a hole more than 20 kilometers deep in the Mare Crisium Basin."
The Mare Crisium Basin?
This basin, located on the eastern side of the Moon, is a large basin formed by an impact and is one of the longest and flattest craters on the Moon.
This statement is, in principle, complete nonsense, much like those popular theories claiming the existence of extraterrestrials—purely mere conjecture.
But Ji Feiyu remembered something.
Eleven years ago, a strange thing happened in the Mare Crisium Basin.
Shortly after the Space Shuttle Endeavour disaster, a cloud of smoke suddenly rose from the Mare Crisium Basin, forming a rather large cloud in the lunar sky that lasted for quite some time.
It's important to know that volcanic activity on the moon has long ceased, and there's no air or wind. So what's causing the dust on the lunar surface?
Was some gas ejected from inside the moon?
Or is there some geological activity underground?
This matter was studied and debated for a long time, but ultimately came to nothing.
The reason he remembers it so clearly is because he took it very seriously.
Because Brian said after he landed that he crashed because of aliens.
And aliens...
Although we haven't encountered this situation domestically, there have always been numerous speculations and archives related to it. The mysterious loss of contact of the lunar spacecraft during the Apollo landing has never been fully explained.
In addition, there were some unsubstantiated rumors coming back from North America, so the existence of extraterrestrials has always been considered a possibility in China.
As the chief engineer of multiple aerospace projects, he naturally had the authority to access those files, and his attitude was the same as that of those files.
The existence of extraterrestrial life is suspected, but cannot be confirmed.
That's why he's been paying attention to Brian's situation for eleven years now. Unfortunately, when he tried to contact Brian later, the other party refused to talk about aliens anymore.
This email now connects all the clues gathered over the years.
Ji Feiyu stared at the last paragraph of the email for a long time, until the student gave him a questioning look, then he shook his head.
Aliens and the like are still too incredible.
"Continue calculating the orbit and see if it could have entered orbit from some place we haven't noticed..."
Command Center.
"President, all emails have been sent, but the results are very poor. Most people in the four space agencies in Eurasia, and America deleted them as spam without even opening them."
The team leader of the network technology team reported on his latest work.
Zhang Tianyuan was unsurprised by this outcome. "It's nothing, just a heads-up. We don't expect them to believe us anyway."
Put yourself in their shoes: who would be certain that the moon's orbit would deviate based on just one email?
If this really happens, then you have to wonder if the person receiving the email is a lunatic.
However, this email has left a mark on these people's minds, and when the moon's orbit actually deviates, they will immediately remember that email.
"Should we proceed to the next step?"
"Let's begin. We'll take a look at NASA's internal database."
"Understood." The squad leader immediately got his men to work. Their squad had already conquered multiple timelines and were quite adept at accessing official databases.
In less than half an hour, President Zhang was able to use NASA
The deputy director's account has accessed NASA's internal network.
In addition to the work system, this also contains a large amount of project materials and data.
Zhang Tianyuan immediately ordered someone to search for information about Brian's incident.
It turned out that the information was not true at all; it stated that Brian caused the death of his teammates and destroyed the Endeavour due to a pilot error.
He also said that he suffers from stress-induced mental disorder and is unwilling to face the fact that his operational mistakes caused the death of his teammates, so his brain automatically generated a memory of aliens.
"..."
Zhang Tianyuan felt that, judging from his performance in the movie, Brian might have also believed this nonsense.
Next, he had people look up information and data about the Mare Crisium Basin on the moon.
If we can find that big hole, everything will be much easier.
Disappointingly, NASA's internal database has no record of the deep caves in the Mare Crisium Basin, only a record of a strange dust event that occurred there 11 years ago.
However, the investigation into that incident yielded no results.
In other words, the large hole dug by the Swarm was not found.
What's going on?
Zhang Tianyuan stared at the documents, puzzled.
Is this also classified information?
He genuinely didn't believe NASA hadn't discovered that huge hole in the moon. Were the satellites in lunar orbit just sitting around doing nothing?
At this moment, a nearby aerospace expert offered his opinion:
"Theoretically speaking, this is possible."
As he spoke, he pulled out a photo from the database. "President, look here."
"This is the site of the dust storm; according to you, this is the hole dug by the Swarm." xS12
Zhang Tianyuan shifted his gaze and examined the photo closely. It was taken when the dust storm ended, meaning the Swarm had already traveled quite a distance into the moon, and the dust it had stirred up could no longer escape the burrow.
The photo looks completely dark, and you can't see the hole the Swarm dug.
Aerospace experts explained, "According to calculations, this location is actually a permanently shadowed area, meaning there's a place where sunlight never reaches. Without light, satellites naturally can't photograph the entrance."
President Zhang then suddenly realized what was going on.
The most typical example of a permanently shadowed area is a crater on the moon. Due to the angle of sunlight, no matter how you look at it, the bottom of the crater is always dark and cannot be reached by sunlight.
These permanently shaded areas typically have extremely low temperatures, ranging from -170 to -240 degrees Celsius, and are highly likely to contain frozen water ice.
To explore what these places might hold, artificial intelligence deep learning technology is now being used to process satellite images.
So it's quite possible that NASA never discovered this huge hole!
After all, there are so many shadowy areas on the moon. Although strange events have occurred there, given NASA's cowardly attitude towards aliens, it's clear they won't expend much effort to go to the moon for further exploration.
They might even think that aliens crashed into the Mare Crisium Basin and killed themselves!
The explanation of a permanent shadow area is reasonable.
However, this also means that the Mutual Aid Society's satellites will no longer be able to observe the holes dug by the Swarm.
After discussing with the aerospace team for a while, Zhang Tianyuan decided to prepare several lunar rovers and deploy them for reconnaissance once the lunar satellite arrived.
Moon Spacetime.
North America.
University of California, Irvine.
The fat Houseman, was mopping the floor in the hallway while secretly keeping an eye on his target.
"Beep!" The door to the office in front suddenly opened, and a professor-looking man walked out without paying any attention to the janitor, Houseman. He walked around him and left.
However, what he didn't see was that Houseman, behind him, used a mop to stop the door from closing automatically, and then slipped inside.
Once inside the office, the chubby Houseman felt right at home.
This wasn't his first time here, so he turned on his computer with practiced ease. He even called the staff at the South America monitoring station, pretending to be a professor who had just left, and asked them to send the latest lunar orbit data to his private email address.
After doing all this, he could faintly hear voices outside, so he quickly left again.
As an astronomy enthusiast who firmly believed in the artificiality of the moon, Houseman called himself a doctor, but he had been working odd jobs and living on the fringes of society.
Although they didn't end up as the Wandering Earth...
Han is a man, but in addition to his daily life, he also has to support a mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, so his pressure is also extremely high.
So after satisfying this little hobby of his, he immediately went to his next job, working as a waiter at a hamburger joint...
At the same time.
The staff member who had just received a call from Houseman requesting data is diligently exporting the data.
A long chart appeared on his computer shortly afterward, and the staff sent it directly to the address Houseman had left.
After finishing these tasks, he glanced at the data he had sent out.
That one glance was enough to captivate him, and he couldn't look away.
"Wang Defa?!"
Ten minutes later.
NASA's offices are in an uproar.
The researchers stared at each other, bewildered, at the image of the moon on the large screen.
"What's going on? Should we report this?"
"Why isn't this being reported? This is an unprecedented event! The moon's orbit... has shifted!"
"What if their telescope's network cable isn't plugged in properly?"
Let's confirm it one more time...
NASA is not the only agency to receive data on lunar orbital shifts.
The other three major space agencies all received this sensational news at the same time.
However, the attitudes of various organizations are similar to those of NASA.
Could it be that the telescope's network cable or some other connection cable wasn't plugged in properly, which led to this absurd result?
Everyone instinctively disbelieved that such an absurd thing as a shift in the moon's orbit could happen.
In addition to requesting telescopes in South America to continue verifying the data, various space agencies have also used their own methods to begin measuring the Earth-Moon distance and the Moon's latest orbit.
However, before the results were even available, the South America monitoring station reiterated to the four major agencies that its calculations were correct and that the moon's orbit had indeed shifted!
Shortly thereafter, various space agencies also obtained the same results.
"Holy shit!"
CNSA, NASA, RKA, and the European Space Agency all expressed similar sentiments, albeit in different languages.
It's still early morning in North America.
Fowler, who was already NASA's second-in-command, received a phone call from the on-duty staff and immediately drove to the office.
Then...
Everyone stared blankly at the moon's orbit on the screen.
After a while, people began to talk about the findings of this round of emergency reconnaissance. The most noteworthy discovery was that some gas was being emitted from a certain location in the Mare Crisium Basin.
The staff performed spectral analysis on them...
Fowler listened to what was being said, but suddenly remembered what Brian had said 11 years ago, "It crashed into the Mare Crisium Basin on the near side of the moon!"
Across the ocean.
Ji Feiyu was also staring blankly at the big screen.
The image above also shows the moon's orbit.
"So, it really has shifted?"
His subordinate handed him a calculation result and answered his questions.
It's really off-center.
After reviewing the results, Chief Engineer Ji felt a headache coming on and asked, "Did you find anything suspicious? Given its current orbit, what impact will it have on Earth?"
"There are suspicious points, and the impact of the new orbit is still being calculated, but the outlook is not optimistic."
Chief Engineer Ji nodded. "It's definitely not optimistic. The tidal changes caused by the orbital shift alone are a major disaster."
As they were talking, someone suddenly interrupted:
"Someone from NASA called."
What's going on?
"They said they had warned the monitoring stations in South America, asking them not to leak any more information, and also hoped that we would not spread the word for the time being."
The subordinate paused, then added, "The other two space agencies are in the same boat; they want us to keep it confidential for the time being."
"Let's decide after we report this information."
Chief Engineer Ji waved his hand, not taking the matter to heart.
He quickly reported the lunar orbital deviation to his superiors. While waiting for a reply, he paused, then suddenly remembered something and took out his phone.
Turn on the screen and unlock.
Open your email.
I scrolled down and an email from yesterday appeared before my eyes:
[An explanation of air-launched rockets and a reminder about lunar orbital deviations]
The Moon... orbital shift?!
Chief Engineer Ji jolted awake and gripped his phone tightly.
He was absolutely certain that the lunar orbital shift had occurred only a few hours earlier.
But this email was sent yesterday...