Chapter 251 - The Riddle Of Its Death

Chapter 251: The Riddle Of Its Death
Translator: 
Nyoi-Bo Studio 
 Editor: 
Nyoi-Bo Studio

The meaning of the message sent by Nuwa could be summed up in two words: A breakdown.
That alien spaceship had broken down.
The reactor had stopped working, hence the power stopped too.
The robots had opened the hatch and found an alien corpse in the control room of the spaceship.
The corpse was dressed in a spacesuit and held a Gauss pistol in its hand. A bloody hole was located right in the middle of its forehead. Green colored blood was splattered all over the transparent hood over its head.


Nuwa said,
Based on the position of the corpse, it probably died by suicide.


Suicide?

Chen Jin was filled with questions,
Why did it commit suicide?

The alien spy had finished their mission. Should it not go back happily to receive its reward? Why would it choose to commit suicide?

I don’t know. Master, please give me two days. I’m trying to find a way to recover the power supply of the alien spaceship and search through some of its memory storages. I’ll do my best to get some valuable information.


Ok, investigate the the matter thoroughly. I want to know the entire truth!

…
Two days later.
Chen Jin returned to the Base of Operations and turned on the remote communications device. He contacted Nuwa and enquired about the results of the investigation.
Nuwa said,
Master, even though nothing can be 100% confirmed, I’ve thoroughly investigated the overall situation. Please ask your questions.




All right! Tell me the conclusions from your investigations.

Chen Jin said,
This is what I want to know the most. Why didn’t the spaceship depart from Mars? Why did it stay when it should have left according to logic.


Yes, master. It should have left according to logic, but it quickly returned due to insufficient power, It didn’t even have the power to resist the gravity of Mars.

Nuwa shook her head,
This is puzzling. They actually had insufficient power left on their spaceship to return to their mother planet.

Nuwa further explained the situation. The power system installed on the spaceship was a type of mini reactor. It was actually smaller that 50 cubic centimeters.
But the output of the reactor was on an unimaginable scale as it used a a type blue fuel block.
The fuel block held a massive amount of energy. A fist sized one was equivalent to tens of thousands of tons of coal.
But the fuel blocks on this spaceship had all been used up. The reactor’s control panel had been giving out a reminder to replenish the fuel blocks and showed the empty state of its fuel level.

Why is it like this?

Chen Jin was astonished,
Could it be a one-way spaceship?




Master, your guess is correct.

Nuwa nodded,
Your description is accurate. This is a one-way spaceship. The chip used to store the navigation data located in the control room had been burned; the main engine at the bottom of the spacecraft is seriously damaged. It seemed to have been caused by an internal explosion… The spaceship had activated the procedure for self-destruction.


The purpose was to stop this spaceship from returning.

This……
Chen Jin was stupefied,
What does this mean? They have successfully completed their mission, but they’re not allowed to return?

A phrase popped up in his mind. Getting rid of the pawn that had served its purpose.
This signified….. The tragedy of being a pawn?

Master, I’ve found some video logs taken by the alien who have committed suicide. It seemed extremely agitated in the videos. It was cursing in a loud voice and its expression was one of extreme hopelessness.


I’ve tried to decipher the meaning of its words based on its actions, expressions and eye contact. I’ve deciphered about 60% of its words.


It’s primary expression is one of rage. It is loudly expressing the question ‘why did you deceive me in this manner?’ It is scolding its superiors who have ordered him on this mission ‘you bastards’; ‘I want to kill you all’. Only hopelessness and terror was left in the end. It was muttering to itself ‘I will soon die in this place’….. Finally, it chose to shoot itself after fighting to survive for 3,700 odd days.



Nuwa played the series of video logs as she narrated the situation. The videos depicted the general process of the emotions the alien spy had felt, from its initial rage to its ultimate hopelessness and suicide.

How did he manage to do it? Living for 3,000 plus days, which is more than 10 years… Does this ship have sufficient food and water?


It relied on the water and goods in the immigration base in order to live for such a long time. But the reactor of the spaceship had stopped working and the goods at the base were exhausted. It was facing a lack of oxygen, food and water… In order to reduce its pain, it had no choice but to commit suicide.

Chen Jin nodded. It had to be a master at survival in order to live alone for more than 10 years in Mar’s environment and under conditions where resources were limited.
It reflected the alien spy’s yearning and thirst for survival.
However, he was still helpless to resist the fate that had been decided for him.
Chen Jin still found it difficult to comprehend one thing. Two excellent spies were put on a relatively easy mission. But why were they still relegated to the tragic fate of disposable pawns and abandoned by their civilization?
Would it greatly increase their costs to add a few more fuel blocks on the spaceship to aid their return?
Nuwa shared her speculations.

Master, I think that there are three aspects to this situation that led to their superiors using them as one-time pawns.




The first is to avoid the risk of failure.


Both possibilities of success and failure naturally exist in a spying mission. If they succeeded, everything would be easy. But what if they failed? Wouldn’t the coordinates of their galaxy be instantly exposed? They could be captured and become guides for the enemies. The enemy could then lead a huge fleet to to their homes to take revenge….. Even if the probability of failure is low, they certainly don’t want this result.


The second is to reduce costs.


Let’s assume that their bureaucratic system is very corrupt, that there are serious malpractices. Only half of the fuel blocks is given, and the cost of the other half goes to line the pockets of the corrupt bureaucrats. It may have been reasonable or normal for them. Or perhaps they didn’t want to give the reward for the successful completion of the mission. They wanted to divide the achievements of the meritorious privately amongst themselves… At the same time, the real people who should have been credited with the effort would have no chance to expose them.


The third, their superiors wanted to escape from moral accusation and negative public opinions.


This applies to all kinds of civilization (including Zerg and machine civilization): A civilisation has no possibility of progressing to the interstellar era if it has an evil side. It would have self-destructed long before that. The civilisation must be constrained by kindness and morality. It must have a group of intermediary rationalists occupying the upper level of hierarchy….. Only then can the civilization can develop into a stronger entity.


Hence, most civilisations will not typically do something like destroying another civilisation.


They will be undertaking a huge risk if they commit such a thing, The kinder groups would slam them for their actions and the moderates would be rather vocal about their opinions.


In order to stop the comments from both sides, it would be best to keep things under wraps to prevent public opinion from fomenting and falling into a powerless and passive role.

Hence, we have to be more ruthless when we deal with this.


Master, I’m leaning more towards the first and the third guesses.

Chen Jin could only nod in agreement as he listened to Nuwa’s analysis.
The future belongs to the information era where information flows in massive quantities in a highly developed manner. The voice of a single individual was insignificant. However, if the information released was sufficiently impactful, billions of people would pay attention to it and a storm of public opinion would be created.
Moreover, when it came to human nature, there were good and bad, left and right. An overall balance would prevail in the end. Going to either extreme would result in an unmitigated disaster.
Therefore, it could not be said the the civilisation that the two aliens came from was a 100% evil one. They were merely controlled and led by the evil in their society.
Based on the words in the journals expressing their homesickness, he could tell that monsters could love their hometowns.
Some conceptual differences also existed in the monsters.
Human civilisations were also the same. Human civilisations could attain a very advanced standard of science and technology. After which, they might suddenly discovered that there were several inferior civilizations around them that had the potential to become a threat. They could also become monsters to for the sake of their own interests.
In short, there was no absolute good or evil when it came to the various civilisations in this universe. There were only the strong and the weak.
…

Nuwa, can we get a lock on the coordinates of the galaxy that the alien civilisation is located in based on this spaceship?


It’s not possible for now. Their navigation data was erased when the ship self-destructed. I can also make inferences based on other information. It may be possible to get a lock on the position of their civilisation.


This…

Chen Jin shook his head. Those dastardly aliens actually made such a move.

Master, don’t give up hope. Although the navigation data was lost, we still obtained huge rewards. We can even determine the technological development route for the next hundred years by using the spaceship. We have a physical object with a very high reference value. It is not an exaggeration to say that the value of this alien spacecraft is equivalent to a planet.

Oh~
Chen Jin’s eyes brightened.