Recaps

Four months after the disaster, North America’s rescue effort was ending, and Grant’s government struggled to repay its debt to the Mutual Aid Society amid growing unrest. Zhang Tianyuan and the survey team reached a desert exile site where starving people and vultures fought over food, leaving Amelia shaken by what she saw.

• Grant allowed the rescue teams to search cities for supplies to offset the debt after North America could no longer gather enough supplies itself.
• In a desert valley, a starving person wounded a vulture with a stone, but another starving person seized it and drank its blood before fleeing.
• Zhang Tianyuan and the survey team observed the scene by drone after arriving at an exile site inhabited by at least a hundred thousand starving people.
• Wu Yisi concluded that few people at the site could survive more than two years without food or water and amid possible plague.
• Amelia watched the footage, bit her lip, and trembled.

Amelia and the investigation team witnessed the horrifying conditions of starving people in North America and decided not to approach them without enough supplies. After several days of investigation, they visited Cooper’s family, where Murphy spotted them at the door.

• Amelia watched footage of starving people in the desert and realized the reality was worse than she had imagined.
• Instructor Yin, Wang Lei, Wu Yisi, and Zhang Tianyuan agreed that contacting the starving crowds would be too dangerous without supplies.
• Zhang Tianyuan and the other teams spent two days investigating North American cities and deserts with support from Zhou Kun’s satellite imagery.
• On the fourth day, Zhang Tianyuan’s team used Cooper’s information and a password to enter the agricultural district and head for his family’s house.
• Wang Lei approached Cooper’s door while the sheriff waited nearby, and Murphy saw the visitors through the peephole and asked who they were.

Amelia told Murphy and her family that Cooper had left to help save humanity, while Wu Yisi investigated the ghostly activity in Murphy’s room. Zhang Tianyuan confirmed that the higher-dimensional humans had disappeared after the Mutual Aid Society changed the future, though the blight and Saturn’s black hole remained; he left Cooper’s family with a satellite phone and promised to help.

• Amelia reassured Murphy that Cooper had not abandoned her and explained that he had left to seek a way to save humanity.
• Wu Yisi listened to Murphy describe the ghost pushing books from her shelf and found nothing unusual in the room.
• Zhang Tianyuan learned that Murphy’s ghostly experiences had stopped when the Mutual Aid Society first arrived, confirming that the higher-dimensional humans had disappeared while their changes to the spacetime remained.
• Donald and Tom returned, and Amelia explained Cooper’s decision to them; Donald worried that Cooper had left the family and farm behind.
• Zhang Tianyuan gave Donald a satellite phone and promised to send news of Cooper and help protect his family.

Zhang Tianyuan and the Mutual Aid Society investigated the starving people in Interstellar Spacetime and found that North America had ample food and was producing huge quantities of alcohol while people were left to die. The investigation reports shocked the branches, and the spacetime conference laid bare the scale of the authorities’ cruelty.

• Amelia urged Donald to support the fight for humanity, and Donald let Murphy keep the satellite phone after Zhang Tianyuan and the others departed.
• Zhang Tianyuan returned to the space base and gave Zhou Kun the investigation summary, which he could barely endure reading.
• Yuan Heguang and Professor Brand read the reports and were overwhelmed by the evidence of mass starvation and death.
• Reports from the other branches confirmed that the exiled starving people faced the same desperate conditions, leaving every branch silent.
• An investigation representative told the spacetime conference that North America had enough grain for years and showed footage of a large, active distillery shipping enormous quantities of alcohol.

The Response Bureau unanimously activated the new charter and took over matters concerning No. 7 Spacetime. Zhang Tianyuan chose a level one response, leaving open the possibility of helping starving people take food from their own authorities’ granaries.

• Footage showed North America's upper classes living in luxury and hunting both animals and starving people, prompting the representatives to vote on activating the new charter.
• Professor Brand cast the final vote, and all 27 representatives approved the charter.
• Zhang Tianyuan announced that the Response Bureau would take charge of No. 7 Spacetime.
• Zhang Tianyuan selected a level one response because higher-level measures were either unsuitable or a last resort.
• Zhang Tianyuan refused to provide food directly to tens of millions of starving people and said the Mutual Aid Society could help them enter granaries and reclaim food themselves.
• Amelia realized that level one aid could potentially include giving weapons to the starving people.

Zhang Tianyuan organized a Mutual Aid Society operation to give North America’s starving people food and water, while leaving their response to the authorities up to them. At the desert’s edge, the first supplies drew a desperate crowd toward the convoy.

• Amelia reluctantly accepted that the Mutual Aid Society would feed the starving people but would not decide whether they should rebel or negotiate.
• Zhang Tianyuan authorized a level-one response, and the Society’s branches prepared food, water trucks, weapons, and an armed escort.
• Wang Lei led the convoy to the desert, where the starving people initially watched the arriving soldiers with numb suspicion.
• The soldiers handed out compressed biscuits and water, and Wang Lei ordered the convoy to sound its horns.
• Water trucks sprayed clear streams that formed a rainbow, and the starving people surged toward the convoy.

Wang Lei’s team fed the starving people and offered temporary agreements to those willing to fight for food. The chapter ended as the starving people rushed through the Spacetime Tunnel toward a granary, armed with rifles and bullets.

• Wang Lei learned that about twenty thousand people deep in the desert were too weak to move, and sent squads with food, water, and medicine to help them.
• Wang Lei told the starving people the Mutual Aid Society would provide no more meals, then offered temporary agreements to those willing to seize their chance to eat.
• A convoy of heavy trucks smashed through the granary wall and drove through the Spacetime Tunnel into the desert.
• The trucks dumped rifles and bullets before the starving people, who rushed forward to arm themselves and cross the tunnel toward the grain.

The Mutual Aid Society’s armored truck breached a granary, and a horde of starving people poured through the Spacetime Tunnel, overwhelming the guards. Officials questioned the report and suspected the Mutual Aid Society, but struggled to believe it had opened a wormhole just to raid the granary.

• The fat supervisor sounded the alarm after the Mutual Aid Society’s armored truck smashed through the granary perimeter, while guards fired at it without effect.
• Guards approached the Spacetime Tunnel, and starving people surged out, attacking them with rifles used as clubs.
• Some of the starving people regained control, loaded their rifles, and began shooting, while the guards’ defenses collapsed.
• The fat supervisor fled and reported the granary attack over the radio.
• Officials doubted the account that starving people had appeared inside the perimeter and considered whether the Mutual Aid Society was responsible.
• The officials argued that creating a small wormhole to take just over two hundred thousand tons of grain would make little sense.

After the starving people seized the granary, Zhang Tianyuan arranged for its operators to release grain, and the crowd gorged themselves until they realized they could not carry it all away. Barry warned them that the granary’s owners would try to reclaim it, but a starving person answered defiantly, leaving the crowd ready to face the threat.

• The meeting’s attendees judged the reports of the granary’s fall suspicious and ordered the National Guard to retake it.
• Tens of thousands of starving people overwhelmed the granary’s small guard force, while about thirty guards escaped and more than a thousand people lay dead.
• Wang Lei’s field doctors treated the wounded, and Zhang Tianyuan brought the granary’s equipment operators to open the storage bins.
• The starving people rushed to grab and eat grain as Zhang Tianyuan ordered tank after tank opened, until they grew exhausted and began to cry.
• Barry told the crowd they had escaped the desert but warned that the granary’s owners would take action, and one person shouted, “So fucking what!”

Barry explained that the starving people could survive by holding the granary, whose 200,000 tons of grain would deter an attack, and revealed the Mutual Aid Society’s rescue plan. Zhang Tianyuan and Wang Lei left a team to organize the survivors as the Society prepared to rescue more starving people.

• Barry told the starving people they could either trust the authorities again or hold out beside the granary’s grain.
• The skinny beanpole questioned how long the authorities would tolerate the survivors, and Barry said they only needed to endure for a few years.
• The skinny beanpole asked who Zhang Tianyuan and the others were, and Barry explained the Mutual Aid Society and the double-layered Spacetime Tunnel.
• Barry announced that the Society would rescue other starving people and send them to granaries, using grain from this one to feed them.
• Zhang Tianyuan and Wang Lei left people behind to help the survivors establish a management organization.

After the Mutual Aid Society helped starving people seize a granary, Zhang Tianyuan discussed ways to protect them and publicize their plight. The broadcast stirred public sympathy and alarmed North American leaders, who ended the chapter considering killing all the remaining starving people.

• Zhang Tianyuan told Amelia that the Mutual Aid Society would establish basic defenses and publicize the starving people's situation to protect their moral standing and win support.
• Murphy heard a radio broadcast reporting that starving people had seized a New Jersey granary, and the account of their suffering shocked her and her classmates.
• The Mutual Aid Society's broadcast reached the public, stirring anger and sympathy by revealing the starving people's living conditions.
• North American leaders met to discuss the broadcast and feared that the Spacetime Tunnel made the granaries impossible to defend.
• The leaders rejected appeasing the starving people, and one proposed killing all those who remained.

After starving people seized more granaries, Zhang Tianyuan and the space-base team watched as their spacecraft reached the wormhole near Saturn. Professor Brand proposed using the Endurance as a temporary outpost and moving it to orbit the wormhole.

• A secretary reported that starving people had seized twenty-one granaries in Florida and California, containing 5.73 million tons of corn.
• Zhang Tianyuan and more than a hundred experts watched the spacecraft reach Saturn and orbit the wormhole.
• Zhang Tianyuan outlined plans to establish an outpost and launch exploration spacecraft into the galaxy beyond the wormhole.
• Professor Brand proposed moving the Endurance, already in low Earth orbit, to the wormhole and using it as a temporary space base.

Zhang Tianyuan arranged to use the Endurance as a temporary base, calling aid for starving people its rent, while preparing to protect them from retaliation. Cooper was sent back to the space base to help modify the Endurance, but his promised engineering partner had not appeared by the time the mission equipment was ready.

• Jody explained that NASA could no longer make practical use of the Endurance, and Zhang Tianyuan decided the Mutual Aid Society would take it temporarily and pay rent by saving starving people.
• Zhang Tianyuan arranged surveillance and rescue teams to intercept any attempt by the criminals to attack starving people in the desert.
• Professor Brand told Cooper that he would help modify the Endurance for Plan C and that a space station engineer would be his partner.
• Cooper submitted a request to return, passed through the Spacetime Tunnel, and arrived back at the space base.
• After two days, the rocket and docking module were ready, but Cooper's engineering partner still had not arrived.

Cooper launched alone to dock with the Endurance, while NASA’s locked-down base detected his spacecraft approaching the station and realized Professor Brand’s group intended to take it. The base mobilized its staff to use remote controls to change the Endurance’s orbit and stop the docking.

• Jody told Cooper that his partner would join him aboard the Endurance through the Spacetime Tunnel, and Cooper boarded the spacecraft alone.
• Cooper launched and monitored the spacecraft as it automatically headed toward the Endurance.
• A missile early-warning satellite detected the launch, and staff at the NASA base reported it to their superior.
• After learning that Cooper’s spacecraft was matching the Endurance’s orbit, the base leader consulted a confined aerospace expert, who identified the plan to forcibly dock with the station.
• The base released staff from their confinement and began preparing to remotely change the Endurance’s orbit, while reviewers watched the operations hall.

Cooper used a signal jammer to dock with the Endurance and cut NASA’s control systems, while the inspectors and experts watched helplessly from the ground. After Liu Peiqiang arrived, he and Cooper began preparing to modify the station, leaving Zhang Tianyuan to watch their progress with Zhou Kun.

• NASA’s experts discovered that the Endurance had stopped receiving their commands as Cooper approached it in orbit.
• Cooper jammed the Endurance’s signals, docked with it, and entered the station after it accepted his spacecraft as its partner.
• Cooper followed the manual to sever NASA’s software and hardware access to the Endurance’s systems.
• Liu Peiqiang arrived, introduced himself to Cooper, and agreed to lead the station modifications within a week.
• Cooper and Liu Peiqiang connected the space base’s signal to transmit surveillance footage, which Zhang Tianyuan watched with Zhou Kun.

Liu Peiqiang and Cooper worked together aboard the Endurance as it was transferred to Saturn, where it became an outpost for studying the wormhole. Spacecraft No. 1 passed through the wormhole and reached the new star system, giving humanity hope of finding a habitable planet.

• Liu Peiqiang and Cooper bonded over their families and the hardships of being away from them.
• Zhang Tianyuan opened a Spacetime Tunnel, and Cooper piloted the Endurance from low Earth orbit to Saturn while Liu Peiqiang stood by.
• Zhou Kun and Zhang Tianyuan prepared to send Spacecraft No. 1 through the wormhole, and the control hall watched as it left Saturn's orbit.
• Spacecraft No. 1 traveled through the wormhole as its instruments stopped responding and its camera showed distorted spacetime.
• Spacecraft No. 1 emerged in the new star system, its images and instruments returning to normal as the space base cheered.

Zhang Tianyuan directed the next steps in exploring the star system, including sending spacecraft toward planets No. 1 and No. 3 while the Mutual Aid Society recovered old transmissions. As conditions on Earth improved, Yuan Heguang began preparing to tell other countries about the new planets and humanity’s prospects for migration.

• Zhang Tianyuan sent spacecraft No. 1 toward planet No. 1 to investigate its time distortion and try to reach Miller before another tidal wave struck.
• Spacecraft No. 2 passed through the wormhole, connected to Professor Brand’s communications relay, and sent its stored information to Jody for analysis.
• Amelia watched Jody reconstruct the transmissions, hoping for news of Edmunds, whose messages from planet No. 3 had stopped three years earlier.
• Zhang Tianyuan left Amelia to face her uncertainty and turned to other matters as cooperation with Yuan Heguang improved food distribution and restarted industry.
• Yuan Heguang decided to contact other countries and tell them that Earth had resumed exploring planets and found a cheap way to migrate.

Murphy repaired an old radio and heard broadcasts about starving people attacking granaries and a planned interstellar migration. The broadcast asked surviving organizations to report their circumstances, and Murphy wondered whether the mission involved her astronaut father.

• Murphy modified an old radio to run from an electrical outlet, then tuned it in her room.
• Donald asked why Murphy's school had stopped using its radio, and Tom explained that students had heard a broadcast about starving people raiding a granary in New Jersey.
• Murphy's radio reported that starving people had occupied 57 granaries and repelled attacks, alarming Donald.
• Donald marked the affected states on a map and feared the unrest would reach their farm.
• The broadcast announced that an unmanned spacecraft had reached a new galaxy, identified three potentially habitable planets, and requested reports from organizations receiving the message.
• Murphy wondered whether the migration plan was connected to her father, who had gone to become an astronaut.

The worldwide broadcast revealed humanity’s plans for interstellar exploration and drew replies from countries struggling to survive. Meanwhile, Spacecraft No. 1 entered orbit around Planet No. 1, but the Spacetime Tunnel closed as soon as the spacecraft was affected by the planet’s time dilation.

• The broadcast provoked anger among some people tied to the Lazarus missions, while listeners around the world reported its revelations to their superiors.
• Yuan Heguang’s announcement gave people at home hope that humanity and its civilization would survive, as other countries began sending messages about their conditions.
• Jody explained that Planet No. 1 orbited close to a black hole, where an hour equaled seven years on Earth, and that its immense waves made it unsuitable for human habitation.
• Zhang Tianyuan ordered Spacecraft No. 1 to enter orbit around Planet No. 1.
• The spacecraft entered orbit, and the signal connection was interrupted when the Spacetime Tunnel closed automatically.

Spacecraft No. 1 entered orbit around Planet No. 1 and lost contact with Wandering Spacetime as it began its survey. Eight years after arriving, Miller landed on the water-covered planet, found the ground unusually hard, and received an incoming message.

• Spacecraft No. 1 maneuvered into orbit around Planet No. 1, where extreme time dilation severed its connection to Wandering Spacetime.
• Spacecraft No. 1 began surveying the planet and broadcast a signal to contact Dr. Miller, who had arrived eight years earlier.
• Miller spotted vast surface water and Earth-like air, then sent an excited preliminary report about the planet's apparent habitability.
• Miller landed the Ranger in shallow water and found that the ground was firm and too hard to scrape for a soil sample.
• Miller prepared to investigate elsewhere, but an incoming message sounded through her helmet.

Miller received a warning that a gigantic wave was approaching Planet No. 1, while Zhang Tianyuan discovered that opening the tunnel to her would require enormous energy because of the time difference. Miller started her spaceship as the wave reached her.

• Miller received an unknown message and noticed the distant mountain range moving closer.
• Zhang Tianyuan learned that Spacetime Tunnel No. 24 had closed because of time dilation and saw that reopening it would cost over 600 million energy points per second.
• Zhang Tianyuan realized Planet No. 1's time ratio made the tunnel's energy use extraordinarily high, rather than the system charging a markup.
• Miller read a warning about a thousand-meter wave approaching and hurried to start her spaceship.
• Miller's spaceship engine started as the wave drew near.

Zhang Tianyuan explained that the Spacetime Tunnel to Planet No. 1 had closed because of the extreme time difference and could only be reopened briefly with enormous energy. Scientists from multiple spacetimes prepared an experimental and rescue plan, which Zhang received as a phased draft.

• Zhang Tianyuan told the space base that the tunnel could be reopened but would consume enough energy to remain open for less than an hour, and offered Earth twenty minutes to conduct experiments and rescue Dr. Miller.
• Professor Brand organized a planning team, while Yuan Heguang approved revealing the Mutual Aid Society to the space base and recruiting new members.
• Scientists across the connected spacetimes focused on the planned time experiment, and the Equal Spacetime Physics Society convened a conference in Pacific Rim Spacetime.
• Yi Yehua and his colleagues joined Professor Brand and other delegates at the conference, where scholars from several spacetimes shared their expertise on wormholes and physics.
• After more than ten days of discussion, the scholars completed a phased draft of the experimental plan, which left Zhang Tianyuan dumbfounded.

Zhang Tianyuan and the scholars tested the Spacetime Tunnel and found that time passed at the same rate on both sides while it was open. They arranged for Dr. Miller to rendezvous with the unmanned spaceship, while Miller received new instructions during her escape from the wave.

• Three days after approving the research plan, Zhang Tianyuan opened the tunnel to Planet No. 1 as drones and signal antennas passed through.
• The scholars watched clocks on both sides advance together and confirmed there was no time difference while the tunnel remained open.
• Zhang Tianyuan ordered the team to check Dr. Miller's signal and arranged for her to meet the unmanned spaceship, sign the Mutual Aid Society agreement, and return during later experiments.
• Miller started the Ranger and climbed away from the approaching wave, believing she would reach a safe altitude in time.
• Miller received a message telling her to connect with the unmanned spaceship and approach it before she lost the chance to escape time dilation.

Zhang Tianyuan discussed the Antarctic water plant and plans for distributing its supply across several spacetimes with Yuan Heguang and the other branch presidents. As the week-long sandstorm eased, Aqiu went to fetch water and returned home to find her parents had brought back withered cornstalks.

• Zhang Tianyuan asked Yuan Heguang about the week-long sandstorm, and Yuan described past storms that had lasted far longer.
• Zhang Tianyuan and Yuan Heguang discussed supplying water from the Antarctic plant to Finch Spacetime, Interstellar Spacetime, and Wandering Spacetime, with the other branch presidents joining by conference call.
• When the wind and sand eased, Aqiu's father sent her to fetch water while he and her mother went to check their cornfield.
• Aqiu followed the neighborhood children to a well, where they fought children from another street before lining up to draw water.
• Aqiu carried the heavy bucket home alone and found that her parents had returned with extra water and a bundle of withered cornstalks.

Aqiu's family learned that engineers were preparing to restore groundwater by pumping water into the dry region. Zhang Tianyuan and Yuan Heguang oversaw large-scale construction of infiltration basins, with ice from Antarctica in The Day After Tomorrow Spacetime set to supply them.

• Aqiu's family lamented that the sandstorm had destroyed their corn crop and prepared a meager meal from their rations.
• Zheng Xu's team arrived with excavators, and Zheng Xu told Aqiu's father they would pump water underground to replenish the groundwater.
• Aqiu's father asked where Antarctica was, while Zheng Xu learned that Aqiu had not yet been able to attend school.
• Zhang Tianyuan and Yuan Heguang oversaw excavators digging infiltration basins to store water underground across the country.
• The Mutual Aid Society and engineers identified underground reservoirs, while ice factories in Antarctica prepared ice to be sent over and melted into the basins.