Chapter 5: Human Civilization on the Brink of Peril
Chapter 5: Human Civilization on the Brink of Peril
The year 2026 of the Common Era.
This year was the first year the Absolute Immortal Qin Yu chose to start from biotechnology to change the world and alter human civilization.
On the whole Blue Star, the human world seemed relatively peaceful.
Viewed from a big picture level, the working human society was like a messy and complex system.
Any tiny upset inside it might, under the spare capacity of the whole system, calm down after the chain of effects moved a few steps.
Or it could also, in a way like the ‘butterfly effect’, cause a total shock to the entire human society.
People in it could not guess what would happen next moment.
…
The Arctic.
On the Lager Glacier, a polar science team of over fifty people, who had entered the Arctic area on a polar research ship, was walking on the Lager Glacier.
They were mostly made up of scientists from Huaxia Nation, North Bear Nation, and Moon Nation, three big nations, along with some other researchers from different fields in smaller nations.
This was a rare international polar science project in recent years, with research people from many countries taking part together.
It was done in the name of the International Polar Science Group under the ‘Human Alliance’.
Its main job was to explore and study the poles, like the Antarctic and Arctic areas, on things like land, weather, living things, and tiny life forms.
At that moment, a Professor from North Bear Nation, wearing a winter coat and glasses, leaned on his walking stick and looked up at the view of the whole Lager Glacier while the team stopped for a short rest.
‘It has melted a lot more.’
Compared to when he first came here, the old Lager Glacier had shrunk much.
Under the effect of human civilization’s many industrial activities in the last hundred years,
and the end of a small Ice Age on Earth,
the ice sheets in the Antarctic and the glaciers in the Arctic were clearly pulling back.
Of course, the main reason for this was the end of that small Ice Age.
By itself, human civilization still could not cause such a big change to Blue Star.
For the ice at the two poles, in the near future, whether much of it would melt, raising the sea levels worldwide,
the scientists themselves could not be completely sure about that.
Or,
this was also one problem they were studying through their science work, needing long watching and research.
‘It has indeed melted a lot.’
Huaxia Nation’s lead Professor also leaned on his walking stick and glanced.
Even though the Lager Glacier was clearly getting smaller,
as one of the old, well-known glaciers in the Arctic,
when people were on it, it still felt big and grand.
This place was like the real meaning of the words ‘ice and snow covered land’.
Solid ice was topped with rough snow bits, and glaciers far away looked like strange rocks and hills, in all sorts of shapes.
The whole sky and land seemed to have only the bright sun’s light giving a bit of different color.
It made glaciers very far off shine back.
The lead Professor from Huaxia Nation had a brief dazed look in his eyes.
‘Everyone, once rested, let’s keep moving forward. In about two hours, we need to go back to the ship from the sample spot.’
After looking at the time and at the sun hanging in the sky, Huaxia Nation’s Professor spoke again.
The other team members in the science crew had no other thoughts.
For where their task spot was, their time was quite tight this time.
The main jobs, besides gathering data on the glacier and polar weather,
were also to get samples from deep in the ice to help later research.
About an hour later,
the science team reached the planned spot.
They started collecting samples.
The crew put a special tool into a crack in the glacier.
Cracks like that often held pools of deep blue, clear water.
Looking down, it seemed deep and bottomless, giving a secretive feeling.
When moving on the glacier, such cracks were mostly a danger to the science people.
If a crack was big enough and someone fell in, under polar conditions, rescue was nearly impossible.
The crack, looking pretty with blue glacier water inside,
could be just a few meters deep at the shallow end or tens of meters deep; no one could tell about inside.
But during science work, cracks like this were also good spots to get samples.
Using a crack, they could easily, without big machines, collect samples from deep down, maybe millions of years old or older.
Deep in the glaciers, ancient tiny life forms were often hidden.
For studying life from long ago, such as ancient tiny life, they could help a lot.
‘…Teacher, do you think we might get an ancient virus, one our bodies’ defense system can’t recognize?’
A Doctor student who came with his teacher watched as the crew gathered deep glacier samples.
He suddenly said that.
‘Those words sound scary. If you’re worried, perhaps say a prayer now that it won’t happen. Or it could mean the end for people.’
His Professor was Moon Nation’s lead, staring at the samples being taken while saying casually.
A student with Huaxia Nation’s Professor heard their talk and nudged his mentor.
‘Prof… is there really a chance of that?’
‘On paper, it could happen… Remember, a few years back, there were talks that glacier melt might release ancient viruses?’
‘Teacher, it gives me the creeps…’
…
In North American State,
an observatory led by many college teams.
It adjusted the chance that a space rock they had watched might hit Earth later,
from the original 0.4 per ten thousand to 16 per thousand.
This was because some force in space might have pushed the rock onto a slightly different path.
Inside the astronomical observatory,
they had just finished tracking observations of the small planet named Asteroid 2025S01.
Astronomer Kevin and his colleague chatted while walking to the cafeteria.
“If that asteroid could really collide with our planet, based on its current distance and speed towards Earth, it would be the end of humanity in about six years.”
“25S01 is two times wider than the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, with an even bigger mass. Once it hits Earth… boom! Everything would disappear.”
“Buddy, I know you’ve got heavy workload lately, but that doesn’t mean you have to wish for everyone to go down with you.”
“I’m only stating the possibility.”
At the cafeteria, Kevin and his colleague saw a reporter interviewing the head of the observatory in a corner.
They looked at each other, then silently picked up some food and sat behind the reporter’s camera.
But even at that distance, they could still hear what the head and reporter said.
“…Yes, based on current observation data, the chance of Asteroid 25S01 hitting Earth has gone up a lot.”
“0.016 is not a small probability for something that involves the survival of Human Civilization.”
The reporter was chasing this news for work,
and just then, the observatory needed such coverage to attract more funding.
“The reporter asked, ‘What should we do about it?'”
“‘Sadly, at this distance and with 25S01’s huge size, we don’t have any good ideas right now.'”
“‘But we shouldn’t worry too much. Uranus and Neptune, dozens of Astronomical Unit (AU) from Earth, act as natural shields for the Solar System. In the past, many asteroids that entered the Solar System got stopped by them. Also, even if they don’t block it, the Sun’s gravity can change the asteroid’s path once it comes inside the Solar System, so it probably won’t hit Earth directly.'”
“‘We, and other observation platforms worldwide, will keep watching this dangerous asteroid closely. That way, we can act quickly if needed. This is our job and purpose, isn’t it?'”
“After that, the head mostly talked about asking for more money.”
The reporter seemed bored with the rest and quickly ended the interview.
“…Other things may not be certain, but our head was right about one thing, wasn’t he, Kevin? An outsider asteroid hitting Earth isn’t so easy.”
Kevin’s colleague leaned in and spoke softly to Kevin.
“Similar things that threaten Human Civilization probably happen every day. But Human Civilization has lasted tens of thousands of years on this planet. It shows that destruction isn’t so easy.”
“You’re right, but since such events keep happening, even if they never caused the worst outcome before, it’ll eventually happen one day… Why couldn’t that be now, or next time?”
“……”
“Kevin, I can’t answer that… What’s wrong?”
“…Sorry, my father died in a car crash yesterday. Before it happened, I thought it could never come close to my life…”
“So sorry for asking, Kevin. I shouldn’t have…”
“No, it’s not your fault.”
…
That day, media that covered the observatory put news about Asteroid 25S01 online.
It got shared by many media outlets worldwide.
But beneath those reports, comments only reached a few hundred.
On social media across different countries, no trending topics appeared about it.
For most people who understood a little,
they noticed that every so often, some new asteroid might hit Earth,
then the news died out without further mention.
Unless an asteroid had a really high chance of colliding,
most people would see the story, feel mild curiosity for a day, and forget it in a few days.
Around the same time,
climate-related topics ranked high on many countries’ social media trends.
“El Niño Phenomenon”
This term topped popular lists on Huaxia Nation’s platforms.
Looking deeper, it was all about that year’s unusual weather.
In recent years, global warming made El Niño occur more often,
causing stronger and more frequent typhoons in coastal areas,
and strange weather patterns worldwide.
On the Pacific Ocean’s eastern shore, many ocean fish died due to changes.
Several deserts saw floods more than once, which was rare.
In North America, huge rains led to bad floods.
But,
with this type of news,
people had grown used to it in recent years.
There was talk here and there, but daily life continued without major effects.
…
In that same year,
from Afrika Continent to the area west of Nine Provinces, huge zones felt like war was growing worse.
On Blue Star at that time,
there were over a hundred countries,
with three big nations as the main powers.
Huaxia Nation occupied Nine Provinces, with its influence spreading near Nine Provinces and into Afrika Continent.
North Bear Nation covered areas north of Nine Provinces to eastern Europa Continent, influencing its own land and a small part of Europa Continent.
Then Moon Nation controlled North America, reaching across North and South American Continent.
Of course,
these groups weren’t neatly separated—they overlapped messily.
Each big nation had close smaller allies,
while these smaller nations also formed a loose alliance on their own, though it was weak compared to the big three.
Overall, Blue Star was in a state like three kingdoms balancing against each other.
Officially,
with these three big nations at the core, Human Civilization created a ‘Human Civilization Coalition’ or ‘Human Coalition’,
shortened as HCC.
But unlike in sci-fi stories, it wasn’t tightly linked;
it was just a place for talks, arguments, and deals among the three. HCC had no power to control other countries.
At this time,
North Bear Nation and Moon Nation were wrestling fiercely with each other in eastern Europa Continent, near western Nine Provinces.
That winter,
at a HCC meeting, the heads of North Bear Nation and Moon Nation argued openly.
They said they would fight planet-wide wars to protect their own interests.
And if one side lost, Human Civilization and the world shouldn’t exist anymore—they’d make sure to drag everyone down with them.
News on that came out the same day.
It made people think about the future of Human Civilization with a bit of worry.
…
That same year,
in a secret lab in South American Continent,
an assistant researcher was doing work he found exciting.
He had found a strange virus in a natural wild cat, and he took a sample from it.
He saw that infected people could lose their minds;
the virus attacked the body’s nerve system and brain, easily passing the brain’s defenses.
It sounded crazy,
but he thought this virus might turn into zombie-like viruses from movies.
So, he focused his studies on making it act like the movie monsters.
He didn’t know why he was doing this research,
but he felt curious and held onto that to do the boring, repetitive tasks.
But maybe luckily for him, or not,
his progress stayed stuck, not changing for a long while.
…
That same year,
while doing his own things during breaks, Qin Yu also kept an eye on world news.
He noticed that having very high intelligence isn’t always good.
At least, his strong imagination
made him see news stories that showed Human Civilization as a shaky kid,
jumping back and forth on an unstable firepot.
It could fall in at any moment.