Chapter 370 Daling-5 "Paradox

Era of the Divine Vessel, year 595.

The Divine Vessel Civilization set sail once again, only this time the Divine Vessel Civilization slightly changed its navigational direction, heading towards the Perseus constellation.

The Milky Way Galaxy, this vast sea of stars, harbors endless wonders and unknown dangers in its every nook, and each step in interstellar space could come with great peril.

One primary reason for initially heading towards Wang Liang One was that, in humanity's observations, no significant dangers were anticipated along this route.

Interstellar dust there was neither so dense as to obscure visibility like fog, making it difficult to discern the path ahead, nor so sparse as to cause concern, fearing the encounter with "Sweepers" lurking in the shadows of that emptiness.

Dense dust could obscure view, making the traces of meteorites and asteroids elusive, adding countless variables to the civilization's voyage; whereas in a too-empty universe, it's like a quiet hunting ground where any slight movement could hide a lethal crisis.

Now, the Divine Vessel Civilization had acquired a certain self-protective capability against most cosmic disasters, and with the increasingly perfect galactic "weather" forecasting system, barring unprecedented extreme conditions, this long journey could almost ensure absolute safety.

Even the commonly seen meteorites and asteroids could hardly pose a real threat to the starships of the Divine Vessel Civilization.

As time went by, the blink of an eye.

The calendar of the Era of the Divine Vessel had turned over more than five hundred pages, coming to the chapters of the year 1107.

The Divine Vessel gradually moved away from the familiar starfields, and the surrounding starry sky also subtly changed. The position and brightness of the stars began to deviate from Earth's observational records, a sign that humanity had truly stepped into the unknown starfields.

In the journey through this sea of stars, the Divine Vessel was like a diligent astrophysical painter, delicately outlining the contour of every scene.

Along the way, the Divine Vessel observed many stars, each being a unique chapter in the cosmic history book, with humanity's study on stellar evolution being quite comprehensive.

In comparison, the life of a star, its evolutionary trajectory, seems more straightforward than the mysteries of the mantle and planet core buried deep underground, easier to capture.

Perhaps, what is buried underground is what's truly secret; that which is in the heavens often appears straightforward.

Just as the mysteries underground are often sealed by the thick dust of history, the stars above display their moments—from the glory of nuclear fusion to the magnificent curtain call of supernova explosions—in an almost grandly candid manner.

It's just that the vast expanse of the stars makes the path of exploration appear a little brighter.

*

At this moment, the Divine Vessel Civilization had arrived near Daling-5, a famous bright cluster in the Perseus constellation, commonly known as the "Demon Star," which had always attracted numerous explorers with its characteristic periodic changes in luminosity.

Daling-5 is also a triple star system, consisting of Daling-5 Aa1, Aa2, and Ab. The brightest is the hotter and larger primary star Aa1, but the colder and dimmer Aa2 regularly passes in front of Aa1, each time causing an eclipse and reducing the brightness to form an eclipsing binary star.

The distance between this pair of eclipsing binary stars is only 0.062 astronomical units. The third star (Daling-5 AB) has an average distance of 2.69 astronomical units from this pair.

There is a peculiar phenomenon that although the more massive Aa1 is still in the main sequence star phase, the less massive Aa2 has already evolved into a subgiant phase. This scenario is difficult to explain with traditional stellar evolution theory and is known as the "Daling-5 Paradox."

Humanity later discovered the reason; they were too close to each other, even experiencing the transfer of mass between stars. When the more massive star expands to fill its Roche lobe, a vast amount of material is transferred to the smaller companion star, thus changing their mass ratio and evolutionary trajectory.

Daling-5 has no rocky planets, but there is a vast belt of icy bodies 100 astronomical units away, and outside the icy belt lies a thick cloud of dust. This dense cloud forms a steady-state equilibrium under the influence of gravity from the three stars and the solar wind.

The entire Daling-5 star system, like a hot fireball tightly wrapped by a thick dust cloud, has an internal environment more hostile than one can imagine.

In the vast interstellar space of this stellar system, filled with a large amount of stellar material, they rage like a torrent of plasma heat waves, mercilessly baking every corner of the star system.

What kind of civilization could possibly emerge strong in such a harsh environment? This is an absolute life forbidden zone.

The star system environment of Daling-5 was a hundred times more treacherous than that of the Trisolaran Star System. In the Trisolaran Star System, the three suns were relatively far apart, whereas here in Daling-5, two of the suns were almost touching each other, continuously shedding massive amounts of stellar matter under the pull of each other's gravity.

That the Trisolaran Star System could give birth to the Trisolaran Civilization was already a miracle that inspired awe. In the even more dangerous and complex starfields of Daling-5, if a civilization could indeed emerge and thrive, it would undoubtedly be a legend surpassing all myths.

*

The Divine Vessel Civilization had originally planned to make a brief stop in this starfield for essential rest and resupply. However, an unexpected discovery struck like a bolt from the blue, radically altering their plans. They were astonished to find that surrounding Daling-5, there existed a vast expanse of Sophon Blind Zones, like a dark mist tightly enveloping the starfield.

The appearance of such a large number of Sophon Blind Zones around the periphery of a star system was undoubtedly a puzzling mystery.

Humanity was more inclined to believe that Sophon Blind Zones occurred naturally, or that, a long time ago, a civilization from elsewhere stumbled upon this place and a fierce battle ensued, leaving behind this indelible trace.

There was even the possibility that Daling-5 had simply wandered into a large area of Sophon Blind Zones, after all, such zones were quite common in the universe.

All the civilizations within the Divine Vessel firmly believed that this star system could not possibly harbor any indigenous life forms, and that alien civilizations would also likely not choose to enter such a hostile system.

For thousands of years, the Divine Vessel had employed various advanced methods to observe and analyze, yet still had not detected any signs of life on any star.

It was unclear whether the civilizations that were born were very good at hiding themselves, or if the stellar systems capable of birthing life were extremely rare, like bats in a Dark Forest, elusive to find.

After discussions and consultations among the decision-making bodies of the Divine Vessel Civilization,

the Trisolaran Civilization advocated not to set foot in this star system full of unknowns, as they were accustomed to maintaining vigilance about everything.

Human Civilization had no clear preference; the technological development of Human Civilization had already reached a new milestone. The scientific team proposed to conduct some theoretical verifications but needed to build a large dark matter collider to unveil the deeper secrets of higher-dimensional materials.

Thus this stellar system seemed neither entirely tempting nor entirely unworthy of attention.

However, in this critical moment, the Dinosaur Civilization, uncharacteristically, voiced their opposition.

The Dinosaur King stated directly, "We are against entering. This stellar system doesn't feel right to us; the sooner we leave it, the better.

"I don't have any concrete evidence of danger here, but this is the intuition built from our sixty million years of interstellar wandering. I trust such intuition."

The words of the Dinosaur King indeed surprised everyone. Even after humanity had entered into interstellar space for a millennium, reason had taken an absolute upper hand, and the word 'intuition' hardly ever appeared in the language of the high command.

The higher the level of civilization, the more difficult it is for the voice of an individual to represent the will of the whole, and decisions are not for any one person to make. They are merely representatives of the civilization, not representatives of the whole civilization.

But the statement from the Dinosaur Civilization still gave the other civilizations a strong psychological suggestion. Now, looking at Daling-5, they felt it to be even more enigmatic and mysterious, as if hiding some unspeakable danger.

In this moment of diverse opinions and disagreements, the Head of the Mountain Civilization, looking towards the distant Daling-5, uttered a sentence that surprised everyone: "I want to go in and take a look."

Hearing this, the Trisolaran Leader asked, "May I ask why?

"We are inclined not to go. Once a civilization becomes a Level 1 civilization, their first action should be to conceal themselves, not to massively transform their stellar environment.

"If a situation like that of Daling-5 with an abundance of Sophon Blind Zones outside the star system occurred, there are only two possibilities, one is that the Sophon Blind Zones are a natural phenomenon, the other is that a war has erupted here.

"We are inclined to believe that a war has taken place here, and although the probability is extremely low, we don't need to take that risk."

The Head of the Mountain Civilization's eyes sparkled with a resolute desire to explore the unknown: "You analyzed it correctly, but that is also the reason I want to go in and take a look."

At this moment, Lin Sen also stood up to express his support for the Mountain Civilization.