Disagreement

The official website of Wasteland Online. The forums were as lively as ever. With the help of a bunch of hilarious netizen trolls, the headstrong Medical Miracle had ultimately managed to dupe the Enlightenment Society's vetting process. Held up as a prime negative example of "a typical guy swindled into crippling foolishness by wastelanders," he had been locked away for display in the underground city museum of Shelter 13. While this turn of events was problematic in every sense of the word, in another sense, it still counted as infiltrating the inner sanctum of the Enlightenment Society. At least that was the stubborn belief Medical Miracle clung to. Just as everyone was noisily offering all sorts of terrible ideas, Ye Shi, five light-years away, suddenly popped up again and stole the trending spotlight before Medical Miracle could even enjoy its warmth. "Brothers! Brother Guang wasn't bluffing—the planet five light-years away has actually been fucking built!" "It's not a skybox texture!" Ye Shi sniped the second floor comment on his own post. The moment the thread refreshed on the forum, it immediately drew a massive crowd of peanut-gallery netizens. Thunder King Professor Yang: "?!" Jieyan: "What's the situation?" Tail: "!! Spill the details!" As usual, Ye Shi was in no hurry to finish his tale. He waited until the thread grew dozens of pages long and the onlookers shifted from eager anticipation to hurling curses before he leisurely unspooled the story. "Here's what happened. You know our starship ran out of fuel, right? While we were worrying about how to get back, we suddenly remembered that the Gemini was still floating five light-years away, so we decided to target it..." Ye Shi started all the way from the preparations he and Jiang Xuezhou had made aboard the missile cruiser Orion for landing on the surface, recounting everything he had seen and experienced since touchdown. That included encountering a fang-bearing lizard, spotting a pterosaur with a crystal crest on its head, stumbling upon a tribe of "green-skinned humanoids" who hailed him as their "Progenitor," the settlement named Doma, and so forth. "A day here is about thirty Earth hours, and a year consists of roughly one hundred and eighty rotational cycles, equivalent to fifty-four hundred Earth hours, or two hundred and twenty-five Earth days." "Surface conditions are very similar to Baiyue Province, though not quite as extreme. In fact, ecosystem evolution has leaned toward the temperate, to the point where sapient life and traces of civilization have emerged. Furthermore, these sapient beings are suspected to be descendants of Human Alliance colonists." "Their anatomical structure closely resembles humans, though their skin is light green, much like mutants... But unlike mutants, their population has distinct males and females, and their society has developed a clear division of labor." "None of that is particularly shocking, though. What really blew my mind is that they might possess some kind of 'psionic power' beyond our understanding! Specifically, through prayer and special rituals, they can make plants grow according to their intent." "They used this method to raise city walls, build treehouses, construct bridges between treehouses, and even accelerate fruit tree growth and domesticate livestock." "At first, I thought they were just a primitive tribe. To my surprise, they live far more abundantly than I imagined, and the reason is precisely this supernatural ability awakened in some among them." "They call them Saqui, which is both a title for such people and their profession... roughly meaning priest." If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Ye Shi felt he probably wouldn't have believed his own words either. Although this game was full of unscientific phenomena, it was the first time he had encountered something quite this unscientific. After promising to help him reclaim the "heavenly relics," the chieftain named Tunnan had invited him to stay in the tribe and arranged lodgings for him near the Sacred Tree. It was a palace formed entirely out of living trees, situated dead center in all of Doma City. Intertwined roots and sprouting branches formed not only spiraling staircases, but even grew naturally into furniture and chairs. It was right there that he had witnessed the miraculous powers displayed by the natives of the Doma tribe. "...I don't know how to describe this 'mind over matter' supernatural ability. It helps them live very comfortably in the jungle. Objectively speaking, however, it has also raised the cost of truly understanding nature." "For example, based on astronomical observations, they invented a calendar, yet they never developed agriculture. Their food still relies primarily on foraging and hunting. Another example is their metallurgy, which is quite backward—or rather, nonexistent. Even their animal husbandry falls far behind their neighbors, the Valley People." "And these so-called 'Valley People' are the 'Sinners' spoken of by the Forest People. According to the latter, those cave-dwelling folk were abandoned by the 'Mother.' They live in caverns and stone houses, use tools, weapons, and armor made of stone or suspected metal, and burn down forests to farm the fields... having chosen total 'corruption.'" "I don't know if 'Mother' can be interpreted as 'Gaia,' nor how to interpret being abandoned. But judging by the Forest People's descriptions, the Valley People's civilization is far more advanced than theirs. That label of 'Sinners' is probably just spiteful cursing." "After all, I have no doubt that if those people truly offended Gaia, she could crush them with the flick of a finger. Otherwise, I can only assume Gaia is either very weak, dead, or our understanding of Gaia is fundamentally flawed." "This is actually what concerns me most. She seems completely indifferent to the human descendants living on her body; her presence is as good as nonexistent." "If she truly is gone, that might actually be a good thing. It would mean my troubles could be solved with just a few precision-guided neutron torpedoes." "Yet my gut keeps telling me that the truth isn't just what meets the eye. In other words, my understanding of this planet is merely the tip of an iceberg floating above the water." Ye Shi updated the thread with as much of the intel he had gathered as possible. That included the deductions he and Jiang Xuezhou had drawn from limited information, as well as his personal insights. Commander Spring: "So... you're currently living inside the Sacred Tree of that Doma City, or Doma Village? (Dumbfounded)" Ye Shi: "Yeah. Common tribesmen usually worship beneath the tree roots, the chieftain and priests live around the trunk's midsection, and the top chamber is used to enshrine the 'Progenitor'... I took a look; it's actually a broken set of power armor, a Dragoon model. That's probably why they mistook me for their ancestor and gave me the room." Jieyan: "Badass..." Brother Edge: "Sleeping in the same room as the offerings. Not bad. (Awkward)" Ye Shi: "Damn it, why does that sound so weird coming from you?" Elaina: "Stellaris Tree of Life origin confirmed. (Funny)" Elven King Fugui: "What Tree of Life! It's clearly Catachan! Can't wait to see Brother Ye Shi get into a fistfight with a tree. (Funny)" Drum Hair Washer: "Did Ah Guang sneak off to rip off references again? The damn sense of déjà vu is way too strong." Jieyan: "Wait, didn't you guys notice... If I heard right, do these folks possess spiritualist powers?! (Dazed)" Escaped Canyon Mole: "It's just controlling plant growth, isn't it? Don't we have a resident genius here who can talk to plants too... Though that skill is pretty useless since plants don't really have anything to say anyway. (Side-eye)" Sisi: "Now that you mention it, that reminds me of Yaya's Void Poison Lock skill. Could it actually work on a similar principle?" Yaya: "Mine is Perception, right? If it's Perception, it shouldn't count. 0.0" Sisi: "No, you just haven't looked into it deeply... Honestly, even explaining it as Perception is pretty ridiculous." Jieyan: "Damn it, this is completely unscientific!" Tail: "Damn it, why doesn't Ah Wei get one! QAQ" Fang Chang: "That depends on how you define science: whether you treat science as a faith, or as a method for understanding the world." Escaped Canyon Mole: "To be fair, I definitely don't treat science like a religion, but mind over matter... can something like that really exist?" Fang Chang: "Hard to say. Leaving aside real-world examples, since this is in-game, let's use in-game examples. For instance, do you think what happened aboard the Orion counts as mind determining matter?" Escaped Canyon Mole: "Uh, I'd say yes, but it still feels a bit far-fetched." Fang Chang: "Different people interpret it differently, and the way I understand mind influencing matter is to a similar degree. In any case, this strange phenomenon is worth looking into. Who knows, maybe those people have mastered a way to communicate directly with Gaia... just like how Brother Luo Yu can understand what Xiao Yu says." Luo Yu: "Is that hard? (Baffled)" Fang Chang: "Have some confidence. For those of us who can't tell the difference between 'ee-woo' and 'ee-woo', it's actually pretty hard. (Side-eye)" Ye Shi: "Sigh, forget idealism versus materialism for a second. What do you guys think I should do now? Keep acting? Swipe the reactor while they're fighting? But my conscience is bothering me a bit. Would that be bad?" Commander Spring: "You're treating the game as more than a game again, aren't you, brat? (Smirk)" Kuang Feng: "He's dating now, after all." Ye Shi: "Cough, what does that have to do with dating..." All right. It did have a little to do with it. On the question of whether to use the Doma tribe to invade the "Sinners," he and Jiang Xuezhou had run into a minor disagreement. Or to put it bluntly, after the meeting outside the wall concluded, the two had gotten into a small spat over the comms. In his view, the optimal solution was naturally to use locals to counter locals: let the little green men rally together to crusade against the "Sinners" dwelling in the valley and seize back the Gemini's wreckage. Jiang Xuezhou, however, felt he was being manipulated by that indigenous chieftain and that the plan was utterly inhumane. She argued it would be better to simply launch a neutron torpedo to purge all the survivors in the valley; at least that would spare them suffering. After all, primitive warfare differed vastly from civilized conflict. Sparing children shorter than a wagon wheel was a concept born much, much later; what would eventually happen was practically a foregone conclusion. Then again, Alpha Centauri was five light-years away, and whether those little green men could even be counted as descendants of the Human Alliance remained uncertain. Ye Shi truly couldn't understand why she was nitpicking over them. Intertribal warfare was the most commonplace occurrence for their stage of civilization. Even without him "staging a divine miracle," they would have eventually battered each other bloody and used their enemies as human sacrifices anyway. His arrival merely accelerated their civilizational timeline. If anything, it might even spare the little green men a few years of hardship. Ye Shi had actually been too embarrassed to tell Jiang Xuezhou that he had genuinely considered using nuclear warheads directly. It was only out of caution toward Gaia's existence that he kept that option as a final trump card. As for being used by that chieftain Tunnan, he had seen right through it, of course; he was simply turning a blind eye. Why wouldn't he turn a blind eye? It was clearly the optimal solution. Ye Shi attached his grievances at the bottom of his reply. Venting them made him feel much better. Lao Bai: "Not bad. I didn't expect Brother Ye Shi to actually use his brain to solve problems. (Grin)" Ye Shi: "Right? She's usually great, but when push comes to shove, she's way too bleeding-heart." Fang Chang: "So what did she suggest?" Ye Shi: "She wants me to talk to the 'Sinners' in the valley to see if we can strike a deal while resolving the local conflict... I think she's living in a fantasy." Sisi: "Ummm... why do I feel like her suggestion makes total sense?" Ye Shi: "Holy crap, how does that make sense? I'm already their Progenitor! How am I supposed to slip over to the other side right under the green skins' noses? Plus, who the hell knows how the other side will treat me?" Sisi: "You might think talk is cheap, but... isn't this the exact time to use your brain? Or have you found a shortcut to solve the problem and gotten lazy? (Side-eye)" Ye Shi: "...Damn it! How did I become the one getting roasted?" Elaina: "Because you really have become a bit too urbanized. (Funny)" Sisi: "That wasn't roasting you... Sigh, kids are so troublesome. Do whatever you want, I'm out." Ye Shi: "???" Lao Bai: "Even if a neutron torpedo is a relatively merciful method, dying still doesn't feel good... In short, do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. I actually hope you keep it as a last resort, assuming you don't just treat this purely as a game and have invested other feelings into it. (Grin)" Kuang Feng: "I'm guessing Lao Bai is trying to say: do fewer things you might regret later?" Lao Bai: "Haha, pretty much." Ye Shi: "What if they're descendants of the Gemini?" Fang Chang: "I think even if they are descendants of the Gemini, if the crew of the Orion were still alive, they definitely wouldn't want to see you setting off neutron torpedoes like firecrackers and becoming the very kind of people they once opposed. (Side-eye)" Ye Shi: "Sigh... Damn it, I really asked for trouble! If I'd known, I wouldn't have acted so cool so soon. Fine, I'll think of another way." WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Good luck. (Smirk)" ... Shelter 404, reading room on Floor B4. Chu Guang had Xiao Qi distill Ye Shi's experiences on planet Gaia into a two-page report and print it out on paper. This was likely the only firsthand information on a world five light-years away possessed by any survivor faction across the entire wasteland. And it was fresh off the press, to boot. Watching Yin Fang stare at the report with deeply furrowed brows, Chu Guang waited for a long time without hearing him utter a word, so he took the initiative to speak. "I want to hear your thoughts." Regarding planet Gaia. And the unusual local situation. Yin Fang adjusted the non-prescription glasses on his nose, an intriguing expression on his face. "...This is simply incredible." Chu Guang raised an eyebrow slightly. "Just incredible?" "Well... from such limited information, I truly can't deduce much. And if I may be so bold as to speak out of turn..." Yin Fang looked at Chu Guang, hesitated for a moment, and ultimately confessed the perplexity in his heart. "The fact that you can obtain information from five light-years away... that alone is shocking enough to me."