Chapter 393: A New Direction for Civilization

Era of the Divine Vessel, year 2450.

The Divine Vessel continued its voyage through the boundless interstellar journey, four hundred years after the return of the Deep Sea Civilization. The Divine Vessel was now over two hundred light years away from the Solar System.

Perhaps it was the influence of Humanity's Deep Sea Civilization on the Divine Vessel Civilization that ignited an unprecedented fearless belief within every civilization aboard the Divine Vessel. This belief, like brilliant stars, illuminated their path forward and sparked a technological revolution within each civilization, unstoppable like a volcanic eruption.

In this wave of technological revolution, Human Civilization was the first to break through and become a 1.8-level civilization. No one had expected such a rapid advancement to this Civilization Rank, especially since, according to the most optimistic estimates by the Science Advisory Board, it would take over five thousand years of accumulation.

However, under the impact of the belief brought about by the return of the Deep Sea Civilization, Human Civilization seemed to have been endowed with a certain power, achieving this seemingly impossible leap in less than four hundred years.

Now, Human Civilization could definitely be considered as having preliminarily stepped into a Higher Civilization, no longer trembled by fear of the Dark Forest and had acquired some means for self-preservation.

At this moment, although Human Civilization was only at level 1.8, as long as it did not encounter civilizations above level 2.0, this phase of civilization would no longer be an entity easily eradicated.

According to sociological simulations of the universe, the Divine Vessel Civilization now stood tall in the forest of Heisen Civilizations, capable of choosing a starfield for civilization expansion and interstellar warfare.

But it also needed to be noted that the Divine Vessel was still the lowest "Hunter" in the Dark Forest and also a target for higher-end "Hunters."

At this stage, civilizations inevitably challenged higher-end "Hunters" to gain sufficient living space and advance their civilization's technological development.

Looking back, Human Civilization had grown robustly through tumultuous times from a tender level of 0.7 to today's 1.8.

This journey, if not for encounters with civilizations like Trisolaris, Dinosaurs, Mountain, and Mo, we might not have forged this era's splendor under relentless pressure and impact. It was these challenges that forged Humanity's indomitable will and also catalyzed leaps in civilization.

From the endless fear and awe of the Dark Forest in the past to now being able to calmly scrutinize the abyss of the universe with a tranquil mind, this transformative change had spanned merely three thousand years.

Although the path ahead was still cloaked in dark starry skies, Humanity now had ample courage to face it.

However, with the progressing upgrades in technology level, the potential of Dark Energy and vacuum decay was also expected to be exhausted in the not-too-distant future.

Currently, all the technological resources in the macroscopic world seemed only capable of barely supporting Humanity to elevate another 0.2 Civilization Ranks. When Humanity crossed the threshold of level 2.0, the existing theoretical framework might reach its limits, unable to lead us to a farther future.

Therefore, from this moment on, Humanity must also find new directions for the development of civilization technology.

Each upgrade of the Human Civilization Technology Level was accompanied by breakthroughs and innovations in different technological directions, but the constant was the deepening research into the microscopic and high-dimensional levels.

While studying the microscopic material world, Humanity often liked using the probability description of particles, which led to the birth of the standard particle model. However, this description is actually a mathematical tool and not its true state.

Thus, before the Crisis Era, Quantum Field Theory was born, hoping to use a unified approach to describe all known fundamental particles and their interactions.

But this theoretical framework could not incorporate the mechanism of Gravity; people at that time believed that integrating Gravity into the fundamental particle model could give rise to a Theory of Everything.

Thus, in that era of dazzling starfields, string theory, M-theory, loop quantum gravity, causal fermion systems, causal dynamical triangulation... a series of dazzling theories of everything emerged like bamboo shoots after a rain. Each was leading in its own right, attempting to leave its mark on the stage of the universe.

However, none of these theories reached their conclusion, with loop quantum gravity having gone the farthest.

Loop quantum gravity posits that spacetime is composed of "spatial quanta"—Planck-scale units that change as time flows. The so-called loops are solutions to the quantum gravity field equations and are a type of path integral known as "Wilson loops."

It describes gravity as being directly generated by the geometric structure of the "spatial quanta," rather than being mediated through the exchange of gravitons, similar to the depiction in general relativity.

In other words, space is an attribute of the gravitational field, and space itself is composed of these interconnected loops.

The major issue with this theory is its neglect of the vast, intricate micro high-dimensional space, and the influence of dark matter and dark energy on the structure of the universe's space.

Yet, humanity also established the dark circle quantum gravity theory on this basis, introducing concepts of spacetime related to dark matter and the void into quantum field theory. However, the complexity and difficulty of this theory far exceeded the limits of human imagination, as if challenging the cognitive boundaries of intelligent life.

As humanity delved deeper into the micro and high-dimensional research, the fundamental explanation of microscopic materials also became an interaction-capable quantum field that diffused between micro high dimensions and the actual dimensions.

And regarding the fifth fundamental force that had long troubled humanity, it was officially named the dark force.

Originally, humanity thought they had merely nudged open the door to the microscopic world, but little did they expect that this push would open up an entirely new "new universe."

Many theoretical scholars have predicted that this will be the inevitable path of development for civilization technology after humanity steps into a 2.0 civilization level, a never-before-seen technological revolution that is quietly brewing.

Actually, this "new universe" was not unfamiliar to both humanity and the Trisolaran Civilization. Both had encountered it early in the Crisis Era, but this situation had occurred only once in the history of humanity and Trisolaris, or rather, in all the civilizations of the Divine Vessel, and that was the shocking event of the "Demon Eye" Civilization.

In the process of creating Sophons, the Trisolaran Civilization had unfolded a proton into three dimensions, and within this proton, there existed a microscopic universe civilization.

This microscopic universe civilization used the unfolded three-dimensional proton to construct a vast, immeasurable reflective mirror. This mirror, like a giant shield in the universe, focused the sunlight from distant stars onto the surface of the Trisolaris Planet. Where the light converged, everything was instantly consumed by the intense light, turning into incandescent state, with billowing smoke columns soaring like dragons into the sky, a spectacle so magnificent that it was heart-stopping.

The Trisolaran world's space defense forces launched countless nuclear bombs to finally destroy and tear apart the Giant Reflective Mirror, sparing Trisolaris from this catastrophe.

This event undoubtedly revealed to humanity a completely new world. This world, with its complexity and structural levels, had already surpassed human imagination, resembling a miniaturized universe, hidden with endless mysteries and possibilities.

With ongoing research into dark matter, dark energy, and the micro high dimensions, humanity also gradually pried open a tiny crack in the door to the microscopic universe. Though small, this crack was enough to let humanity glimpse the mysterious world hidden deep within the universe.

Moreover, some scholars boldly speculate that the Demon Eye Civilization might not have originated in the narrow world inside the proton. Instead, it may have been a high-dimensional civilization that, during the universe's downscaling, failed to successfully downscale itself and thus chose another path—to miniaturize their entire civilization and hide it within what seems to be an ordinary high-dimensional proton.

However, such a choice also brought about significant disadvantages. They were forever trapped in this tiny proton world.

In the future, when human civilization surpasses the 2.0 level threshold, research into the micro high-dimensional world will undoubtedly become a major direction for humanity in exploring the universe and elevating the civilization rank.

In this universe filled with unknowns and wonders, humanity still has many mysteries to unveil and many possibilities to realize.