mtl008 Chapter 4401 Project Farstar (9)
Chapter 4401 Project Farstar (9)
Chapter 4401 Project Far Star (19)
"Should we go up and take a look?" Diana asked.
"Don't rush," Bruce said, turning to Victor. "Do you still have the strength?"
Victor gave him an OK sign. Bruce said, "Hack all the electronic devices around here. Don't let anyone know we're on the ship."
Victor nodded, a glint in his eyes. He was quite adept at this kind of thing. As a result, all electronic devices within a radius of several kilometers were disconnected, making even filming impossible.
Several members of the Justice League boarded the spaceship. The spaceship was much larger than it appeared, its overall shape resembling a hemispherical spindle, somewhat like a grain of rice cut vertically. Bruce noticed numerous anchor points on the spaceship's underside, indicating it was a multi-purpose vessel capable of landing directly on the ground and connecting to it to become a base.
The spaceship's style is completely different from Earth's. Most of the hull is dark metal with almost no decoration, but because the equipment itself has a very futuristic aesthetic, it looks quite good.
Diana turned her head left and right, looking around at everything inside the spaceship, and then said, "You want to use this spaceship? But what if Darkseid tampers with it?"
Bruce shook his head and said, "The moment I enter the spaceship, Darkseid will abandon all his arrangements here to prevent Apokolips from being destroyed along with the spaceship."
Diana opened her mouth, as if to say something, but found that she didn't seem to have anything to say. This reminded her of what her sisters in the fighting world thought of Batman. They had told her that if anything fell into Batman's hands, you'd better not think about getting it back, otherwise you'd find tons of nano-cameras in your house during the year-end cleaning.
Darkseid certainly didn't want the spaceship to fall into Batman's hands, but he was even more afraid to take it back, not even to remotely control it—who knew what Batman might put on the spaceship? Hadn't he learned his lesson from the multiverse war?
Of course, even so, Bruce still checked the spaceship inside and out, and had Victor scan it with the Mother Box. Only after confirming that there were no problems did he start the spaceship.
“Where are we going?” Diana asked.
“Mars,” Bruce replied.
The massive spaceship took off again, and shortly after leaving Earth, it landed above Mars. The place was now desolate, and guided by Ron, they found the abandoned Martian city from years ago.
Although everyone inside was dead, they hadn't died from an external attack, and the entire city was remarkably well-preserved. Rong En stood inside the spaceship, looking at them, and said, "You guys go down and take a look. Bring back anything you can use. I won't go."
Bruce nodded and led the others down. But after a while, he returned empty-handed. Ron looked at him with some confusion. Bruce said, "The situation in the city below is much better than I expected. I hope this can become the Justice League's base. What do you think?"
Ron hesitated. It wasn't that he was reluctant to leave, but he didn't want to stay here for long; it would bring back many unpleasant memories. At that moment, Bruce spoke up: "Don't you Martians have any gene preservation plans?"
"what?"
"Civilizations that have reached this level of development usually try to preserve their genetic resources to cope with various unforeseen natural disasters. At least humans have gene banks and seed banks. Don't Martians have those?"
“I…I’m not sure,” Ron said. “I’m a Mars hunter, which means I’m a police officer on Mars. I’m not a scientist, and I’ve never done any research. I don’t know anything about genetics. But if what you’re saying is true, then maybe it is.”
Rong En said somewhat dejectedly, "Even if they did, it probably wouldn't be of much use. Martians can only reproduce naturally, and the Martians who are still alive now are probably all males, who are incapable of getting pregnant."
“There’s no rush,” Bruce said. “Although humans can only rely on natural reproduction, as long as civilization exists, technology will always develop. Maybe it won’t be long before we have independent embryo culture technology.”
Ron thought Bruce was trying to comfort him, so he just forced a smile: "I hope so. Since there's no one here anymore, you can use it if you want. But we can't leave Earth unattended, so I'll head back first."
“Wait a minute.” Bruce stopped him again and said, “Tell me about Martian civilization. I just visited your city, and I think it’s a fairly advanced and prosperous civilization. I’m quite interested in it, and it would be even better if you could tell me more about it.”
Ron was reluctant to bring up painful memories, but if it were Batman, he probably would have to, since he would still be working for him in the future and couldn't keep refusing his boss.
Not only him, but the others' mindsets had also changed. Before, they only saw Bruce Wayne as a benefactor, but now it was different; he was the undisputed number one in the Justice League, their leader. Some things that were optional were better left undone.
Ron sighed, sat down in a seat in the spaceship's lobby, and began to speak. Bruce recorded the conversation while taking notes, occasionally scribbling and drawing. He also drew a map of the Martian city below, having Ron mark some important locations, and occasionally asking questions. The questions covered a wide range of topics, such as the Martian education system, the Martian economy, and the Martian natural scenery…
There were some questions Ron couldn't answer. Although he had been a hero on Mars before, he wasn't a ruler, and he didn't know how or why many policies were formulated.
Fortunately, the Justice League brainstormed, and everyone could deduce the answers to some questions through guesswork; for those who were truly unsure, they could also conduct on-site investigations. Since the Martians were wiped out by a virus, much of the data was well-preserved and could be easily retrieved.
Bruce then spent most of the day playing a puzzle game with the Justice League. Everyone was hoarse from talking and completely baffled, wondering why Bruce had suddenly become interested in studying Martian civilization.
Only Victor, who had discussed the space station design with Bruce, seemed to have a suspicion. When the intermission was announced and everyone else prepared to go to sleep, Victor was the last to leave. He sat at the table, watching Bruce go to make coffee, and said, "Are you planning to do something with Martian civilization?"
“Do you remember what I said?” Bruce turned to look at him.
"...To create a new Cold War?"
Bruce nodded and said, "Given the current state of human technology, reaching Mars is still extremely difficult. At most, we can only launch a few rovers, and our operational range is very limited. So far, we haven't discovered any Martian cities, and we have no idea what's going on inside."
Victor's mouth gradually widened. He said, "You mean..."
"Whether Martian civilization truly exists is not important. What is important is that Earthlings—especially the US government—must know that the extraterrestrials they are searching for are both far away and very close at hand. On this planet, which is practically Earth's twin, there exists a civilization far more advanced than humanity's, and they are sharpening their knives at Earth."
“I knew it,” Victor said. “This space station you built is completely different from anything I’ve done before, and it doesn’t look like the kind of space station you would design.”
When Victor was building the model, he discovered that the space station Bruce designed was completely different from any space station humanity had ever built before. Or rather, it deliberately avoided all the forms of the original space stations. Both its shape and its working principle were very strange, as if... it was designed so that people could immediately tell that it was an alien creation.
If it weren't for this, the initial model wouldn't have had to be revised so many times. To achieve both an unusual shape and practicality naturally presents a greater challenge than usual; and because it's different from previous space stations, there were few reference materials available, so they could only sculpt it slowly based on intuition.
"But how do you convince them that there are people on Mars?"
“There are people on Mars, aren’t there? We’re here, aren’t we?” Bruce handed him his coffee and said, “The few of us are enough to simulate a civilization.”
"A pipe dream," Victor exclaimed.
"There may be many great civilizations in the universe, but civilization itself is not something great or unattainable. Without the ability to uncover the truth, it is not difficult to fabricate stories out of thin air. Because many things in human society seem illogical at first glance, even if some parts are fabricated in a bizarre way, as long as there is enough solid evidence, people will believe them."
"But……"
Do you think the people in the Capitol are real?
"what?"
"If you were to design a game, would you write the villain like this? Creating homeless people, driving scientists to their deaths, and starting wars everywhere. Superpowered beings and monsters have been fighting for three hundred rounds, and the earth will be destroyed if they are not careful, but the topic they argue about every day is still whether or not to hold a new vote."
“They are unrealistically stupid,” Victor said. “If I made them the villains of the game, it would be like I spent a lot of time getting into the gameplay and art, then polished the plot for three days before release, and finally left two hours to write the characters—just to pin all the bad things on them.”
"That's just how the world is. Darkness is never 'profound.' The worst villains are always outwardly evil, not only without concealment but also without shame, even boasting about it, and even devising a system to turn black into white and whitewash the truth. Those game characters who seem very bad but have their own hardships, or who have some profound philosophical ideas behind their evil deeds, basically only appear in games. Their excessive artistry makes them seem somewhat fake. That's why it's never difficult to create a fictional story. To gain people's trust, you need to create decisive evidence that aligns with the fictional story."
Victor looked down at the model in his hands and said, "I'll go down and take a look around, see if I can get any inspiration."
“Go ahead.” Bruce nodded to him.
Hal was the first to wake up. He was just mentally exhausted, and after a short nap in bed, he was full of energy again. He went to the hall and saw Bruce working. He glanced at the Hellbat armor that Bruce had placed next to him, and then hesitantly moved to the opposite side of Bruce.
“We can’t go back anytime soon, right?” Hal’s question was clever; he didn’t directly ask Bruce about his plans, but rather probed indirectly. Then he added, “I just wanted to call my girlfriend and reassure her.”
“Victor has already set up the communication equipment,” Bruce said, pointing to the device next to him. Hal immediately went over and made a call.
He didn't reveal that he was on Mars, only saying that the Justice League was busy and he might not be able to reply to messages promptly for a few days. Carol naturally understood, but still pressed him, "How's the space station construction going?"
Hal glanced back at Bruce, who nodded at him. Hal then said, "No problem, it should be done soon."