Chapter 154: Alien Food

“It seems the Food Research Institute recently came up with a new dish? Called stir-fried ‘Kachiku,’ and I heard the ingredient is from the Stuo Civilization?”

“I tried it. Not bad, really. Kachiku has this chewy texture… But their other new dish, ‘Skah stewed with Lannat,’ couldn’t they take out those ‘little stones’? Just because Stuo individuals can digest small amounts of rock doesn’t mean we can!”

“I had Kachiku in the cafeteria today too. Honestly, some people might like the taste, but if you’re like me and can’t get used to it, it just feels weird.”

“It’s not about taste. When you put it in your mouth, you just don’t feel like it’s food… It looks like a plant, but it has this meaty stringiness. Gives you a strange sense of disconnect.”

“Maybe because it’s from another planet, another civilization. We have no experience with plants or creatures from the Stuo ecosystem. So it feels off…”

The technological exchange between Human Civilization and Stuo Civilization, naturally, wasn’t just confined to major fields.

By now, the technical and informational exchange between the two civilizations was incredibly thorough.

With mutual agreement, starting about a year or two ago, exchanges expanded into areas like biotechnology.

Human Civilization provided the Stuo Civilization with samples of plants and animals from Earth’s ecosystem.

Similarly, the Stuo Civilization provided Human Civilization with plants and animals entirely unlike Earth’s.

Most of these samples were cultivated for research,

primarily used by research teams like those at the Negentropy Research Institute 011 Lab.

But there were some… unconventional uses.

For instance… trying to figure out if the alien plants and animals provided by Stuo Civilization were edible.

The sentient species of the Stuo Civilization didn’t possess highly developed taste systems.

While they also consumed food for energy,

for them, it was purely functional eating.

Stuffing digestible plants, animals, or minerals into their bodies was simply the end of it.

They lacked the culinary culture driven by pleasuring the taste buds, like in Human Civilization.

However, that didn’t mean the alien plants, animals, or materials provided by the Stuo Civilization were entirely tasteless to humanity.

After cultivating enough research samples of these alien organisms,

indeed, some of these samples ended up with Human Civilization’s Food Research Institute.

This kind of research, of course, didn’t have huge importance for overall technological advancement,

but it was still an essential part of society running smoothly.

First, after identifying which samples had no toxic effects on humans,

the Food Research Institute began ‘edibility research’ on these plants and animals.

Perhaps because the human body truly had never encountered such alien life before,

most of these exotic plants tasted intensely bitter to the human palate.

Even some plants without direct toxicity could cause severe allergic reactions in eaters.

But thanks to the persistent efforts of the Food Research Institute and other teams,

they finally managed to identify a number of edible alien plants and animals.

These were then prepared using Human Civilization’s cooking methods into new dishes.

Currently,

sections within the smart vertical farms on Earth, the Lunar Surface, Mars, and elsewhere, are designated for cultivating these usable alien species.

The new dishes made with alien ingredients have already made it onto the menus of smart restaurants in cities within human settlements on Earth, Luna, and Mars.

They’re available for adventurous folks to try something new.

Among these, ‘Kachiku’ was a staple crop for the Stuo Civilization early on, during their time on Jupiter.

By Human Civilization standards, Kachiku is a tree.

Both the early Stuo people and humans now use its branches and leaves as food.

Of course, the Stuo Civilization, at its current stage, has streamlined eating mostly down to a nutritional supplement.

Meanwhile, another dish in Human Civilization using alien ingredients, ‘Skah stewed with Lannat’.

‘Skah’ is an ore containing various minerals, originally a product of the Stuo home world.

What people are eating now is synthesized by the Food Research Institute to match the mineral composition of Skah.

It’s said melting a bit on the tongue gives a tingling sensation similar to eating Sichuan peppercorns, but the flavor is completely different.

‘Lannat’ isn’t naturally from the Stuo home world’s ecosystem.

Instead, the Stuo acquired it earlier during an encounter and exchange with another civilization.

Visually, it resembles a thick vine.

As a food crop, its yield per acre is quite high.

It has a texture somewhere between a vegetable and raw fish.

Some find it weird, others find it fascinating.

Of course,

these two dishes are far from the only alien additions appearing on human tables.

At the Food Research Institute, an organization practically born for the pleasure of human dining,

numerous researchers in the field are still enthusiastically exploring whether and how other alien plants, animals, and materials from Stuo Civilization can be eaten.

Furthermore,

building on earlier knowledge of the Stuo Civilization’s appreciation for diverse liquids – their ‘water culture’, analogous to humanity’s love for fine food –

researchers within Human Civilization requested samples of some mainstream Stuo liquids.

After filtering out those obviously toxic to humans, they identified safe ones and formulated them into various beverages.

Flavor-wise,

most of these were quite strange.

But for many humans, they provided novel and thrilling experiences.

Remarkably, these beverage products enjoyed surprising popularity within Human Civilization, selling quite well over a short period of time.

During this time,

as interaction deepened between the two civilizations,

changes became noticeable not just on the macro scale, but also in the specifics and details of everyday life.

Ordinary people could feel the varied transformations and influences sparked by these exchanges.

Conversely,

the situation within Stuo Civilization was not entirely different.

At least, from what Human Civilization knows,

even though individual Stuo lack sophisticated taste systems like humans,

researchers in the Civilization Exchange Zone expressed curiosity over the past year or two, wanting to sample Human Civilization’s cuisine.

Naturally, even after trying human food,

the fundamental biological differences meaned Stuo individuals couldn’t truly enjoy it as humans do.

But as sentient beings, they too experience curiosity and novelty when encountering the unknown.

Similarly, while humans sampled diverse ‘water culture’ liquids from Stuo Civilization,

through the exchange process, Stuo individuals naturally also acquired water and other beverages consumed by humans… to sense.

Soaking themselves in seawater from the cradle of Human Civilization had become a surprisingly novel pleasure for the individuals of the Stuo Civilization in recent years.

Because of the inherent physical differences between the two civilizations,

neither group could truly fully understand the other in this regard.

Just as Stuo Civilization individuals couldn’t truly grasp how humans savored foods with different flavors,

Human Civilization individuals couldn’t comprehend how the Stuo Civilization enjoyed the varying pleasures brought by different liquids.

However, this didn’t really cause any problems.

And it could be expected that if Human Civilization encountered another Extraterrestrial Civilization later,

the ways those civilizations found enjoyment would likely be even more different.

…

Year 73 of the Human United Era (HUE).

A considerable amount of time had passed since Human Civilization discovered the Stuo Civilization’s Interstellar Fleet parked at the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt.

The exchange between Human Civilization and Stuo Civilization, spanning from theoretical understanding to practical technology, hadn’t ended as time went on.

Instead, it continued deepening into even more specialized areas.

On the Human Civilization side, it was no longer just Researchers from the various institutes of the Negentropy Research Institute participating in exchanges with Stuo Researchers.

When specific, narrow problems arose, Researchers not affiliated with the Negentropy Research Institute—individuals who might have spent their entire careers studying that one issue—now also had the opportunity to discuss that problem indirectly or directly with the Stuo Researcher working on the same thing.

The theoretical exchange between the two civilizations began as a game of “spot the difference”: identifying problems solved or proven by the other side yet unresolved on their own, discovering fields the other civilization recognized but theirs hadn’t yet explored or developed, and mutually filling in each other’s gaps with acquired knowledge.

Then they progressed to using their own unique intellectual strengths and research advantages to build upon the other side’s work, pushing further into the same issues.

Now, they collaborated even more comprehensively, jointly tackling unresolved questions using their two distinct thought processes.

Sometimes a problem seemingly intractable to one civilization was blindingly obvious to the other.

Through this increasingly deep exchange, even leading to collaborative research,

both civilizations were reaping significant benefits from the interaction between two different, yet equally Stellar Civilizations.

During this period,

Human Civilization and Stuo Civilization saw rapid advancement in both theoretical understanding and technological application.

Crucial breakthroughs in theoretical fields regularly occurred, constantly reshaping the understanding of Researchers in related areas.

This acceleration in civilizational progress was palpable to every single individual within the civilizations.

For Human Civilization,

the exchange and cooperation with the Stuo Civilization essentially ushered in a great era of theoretical and technological explosion.

Back when the Stuo Civilization first arrived, pressured by their presence,

Human Civilization was, by Stuo standards, just stepping over the threshold of being a Stellar Civilization.

By Human Civilization’s own scale, it was considered newly minted as a Type II Civilization.

But now, Human Civilization could be said to be leaping forward within the Type II category,

perhaps already reaching levels like 2.3 or 2.4.

Given its current pace, this likely saved Human Civilization centuries, or even more, in its development timeline.

Living in that era,

living amidst that great explosion of human theory and technology,

it was almost impossible not to feel frequent surges of excitement.

“I remember, many years ago, traveling from Earth to the Mars settlement zone took more than half a month. I wanted to move to Mars back then, but the journey time was just too long; that’s why I didn’t settle there.”

“Now things are better. Has it been thirty years? Getting to Mars only seems to take four or five days now… and even that’s only because Mars is really close and the ship can’t accelerate for long enough… The time Earth-to-Mars used to take is enough to reach the Kuiper Belt now…”

“…Moving now still is an option. Actually, I think moving to Jupiter’s Moon would be pretty good, though the gravity environment there seems a bit off.”

“It isn’t ideal, no. But we’ve used Gravity Protective Fluid since birth, so it’s not too bad to adapt to. It offers a completely different life experience from Earth, actually.”

The networks within Human Civilization remained perpetually lively.

…

Year 74 of the Human United Era (HUE).

Human Civilization and Stuo Civilization launched another major cooperative research program.

“Joint Research on New Communication Technology and Computing Power Technology”.

These sounded like two separate fields, but fundamentally, it was research into a single domain: the ‘quantum realm’.

‘Quantum Communication’ and ‘Quantum Computer’.

Currently, both Stuo Civilization and Human Civilization had some research results in Quantum Computers.

The problem was that current Quantum Computers couldn’t replace traditional computing devices,

failing to achieve a new breakthrough in Computing Power Technology for either civilization.

And Computing Power Technology was a crucial field, one still desperately needing further development for both civilizations.

The Human-Stuo cooperation aimed to delve deeper specifically into advancing Quantum Computers.

Similarly, Quantum Communication Technology

represented another major bottleneck in both civilizations’ current progress.

One reason the Stuo Civilization chose migration as a whole, instead of leaving some behind on their homeworld while others ventured out,

was most likely communication—a significant problem among others.

All communication methods currently used by both civilizations were limited to the speed of light.

But measured against the vastness of space, light-speed communication just wasn’t fast enough.

Even with the Stuo Interstellar Fleet currently parked in the Solar System’s Kuiper Belt—

practically right on Human Civilization’s doorstep in cosmic terms—

a single round-trip exchange of information still took the better part of a day.

This communication lag posed a massive obstacle for exchanges both within each civilization and between them,

a constraint that would ultimately limit the ceiling of their development.

Considering a civilization’s territory,

Human Civilization currently confined within the Solar System still managed adequately.

But if two parts of a civilization were spread across different star systems,

separated by light-years of distance, a single communication round-trip could take over ten years.

With Human Civilization’s current understanding,

it was hard to imagine how such two halves could possibly remain a fully unified civilization.

Human Civilization and the Stuo Civilization both had a pressing need for FTL Communication technology.

In pursuing FTL Communication research,

they tentatively chose to focus their collaborative efforts on Quantum Communication as the way forward.

…

That same year,

as Human Civilization and Stuo Civilization kicked off this important new collaborative project,

both civilizations also announced something else internally at the same time.

Both sides decided to open up, to a certain extent, public travel between their two civilizations.

For the people within the HCC,

this joint decision by the two civilizations translated most clearly into this:

Human Civilization and Stuo Civilization agreed to offer each other’s citizens ‘tourism’ access to specific regions within their domains.

People from Human Civilization gained the chance to visit the Stuo Civilization!