Chapter 1550: Foreshadowing
In the information age, it was impossible to censor one thing.
Especially in the scenario where people were instructed to spread the news. The information was just like the red cloth that covered the bride’s head, which was meant to be removed. Almost at the same time as the Earth Defense Alliance announced a general meeting, news spread about the purpose of this meeting on the Internet.
Based on memory, the previous two general meetings held for the Earth Defense Alliance were because of the threat of the Gliese Galaxy and because of the incident in Finland. Since it was still undetermined whether the stars.h.i.+p found under Europa’s ice cap was a blessing or a curse, many people started to feel nervous.
“I don’t know what those aliens look like. Are they four-legged or two-legged this time?”
“Maybe without legs!”
“It’s reasonable. Since the alien s.h.i.+p went into Europa’s ice cap, it doesn’t make sense it can’t get out. It must be a conspiracy by those aliens. They deliberately wait for us to save them, and then will use this opportunity to conspire with us!”
“You’re eating gutter oil, yet you’re worrying as if you’re the Secretary of the United Nations. Even if the sky collapses, there are still the tall ones holding it up, why do you care so much?”
“…”
It was a rare occurrence where Celestial Trade did not refute any of the rumors, it was as if they had not noticed them at all, and they did not make any public statements. However, it was precisely because of Celestial Trade’s att.i.tude that allowed the event to continue to escalate and the debates began to heat up.
All kinds of discussions were happening around this mysterious stars.h.i.+p. There were rational a.n.a.lyses, groundless speculations, and even pure rumors. However, Celestial Trade and the governments did not seem to mind at all, until a protest happened in Los Santos.
20,000 people took to the streets and protested as they walked towards the Los Santos International Airport. They wore blue headscarves and waved flags. The flags were painted with an azure earth surrounded by olive branches, and they shouted slogans such as “Cancel Borders”, “Universal Love”, and “Towards the Future”.
The reason was that a paper published by a professor at Coro University a.n.a.lyzed the situation from the perspective of civilization. It discussed why the first few contacts between Earth civilization and alien civilization ended in failure, and it subtly hinted at the hidden obstacles of Earth’s development.
In terms of reputation alone, the professor who published this paper was not well-known, but Hawking’s name appeared as one of the authors, which immediately made this paper that should have not been taken seriously more legitimate, and its importance was immediately pushed up.
“When we are in contact with alien civilizations, we are not collectively human beings, but as countries or even enterprises. In the eyes of extraterrestrial civilizations, we are in a state of chaos and disorder, and they cannot even interpret our language, because even we ourselves are unable to have a unified language. In this state, we cannot start a dialogue with extraterrestrial civilizations, and we cannot expect them to understand our ‘chaos’ as ‘political and cultural pluralism’, and not backwardness and weakness.”
“In fact, we are indeed weak enough. In the Mother Nest incident in northern Finland, the Finnish Army and the British Navy launched two rounds of offensives against the nest, but the final result ended tragically. If from the very beginning, we had dealt with threats from extraterrestrial civilization collectively, then the result may be much better than it is now.”
“As time goes by, it is less and less likely we are able to reach a reconciliation, and even in the not-too-distant future, we will split into two or more distinct civilizations due to differences. If a unified political organization cannot be formed, the second level in the Kardashev hierarchy is the ceiling of the civilization on Earth…”
Maybe even this professor didn’t expect that his paper would be reprinted by major media, and it would become the fuse that ignited the voice of globalists.
The parade was carried out in a peaceful atmosphere from the beginning to the end. The Los Santos City Police dispatched helicopters and police cars to accompany them but did not disperse the crowd. Those who were keen recognized that the Rainbow Mansion was surprisingly calm towards this protest.
Two police officers sat in the police car on the outskirt of the protest. They bit into their sandwiches as they watched the protesters closely.
“Globalists? I’ve seen blacks, Indians, and women go to the streets to make trouble, but it’s the first time I have seen these people.”
“It’s quite strange, but I heard that there are certainly troubles. Have you seen the helicopter overhead? SWAT has been dispatched too.”
“Who funded them?”
“Celestial Trade.”
“Is that true?”
“G.o.d knows, I only know one thing. The home of these globalists is in Penglai and they are calling for the establishment of an Earth Federation. The ultimate goal is to eliminate borders. If borders and tariffs are really gone, only these people will benefit. Those companies don’t need to take off the tariff protection. It would be foolish to fund them. ”
A parade of 20,000 people was just a drizzle for a big city like Los Santos. Trump could even proudly say that on the day he took office, there were more than ten times the people that marched on the streets in Los Santos to give him a middle finger.
However, what made this event more interesting was that after Los Santos, many large metropolitans around the world also saw similar events. It seemed that overnight, these idealists that never expressed their political intention turned into unwavering activists.
The most direct movements were parades, but there were also lighting of candles, releasing balloons, organizing marathons on the border, and so on.
Anyone with a slightly international perspective could see that there was an invisible hand behind these movements.
The meeting with Lavrov was already a week ago, and there was only less than a week left before the General Meeting of the Earth Defense Alliance.
During this past week, Jiang Chen met with the foreign ministers of all the different countries, and the issues discussed were nothing more than Europa, the stars.h.i.+p found under Europa’s ice sheet, and the upcoming General Meeting of the Earth Defense Alliance.
After he dealt with these matters, Jiang Chen contacted Golovin again. Still in that holographic conference room, he sent an electronic file of a doc.u.ment or a “script”.
Golovin scanned the doc.u.ment with indifference in his eyes, then he waved his hand, and turned the holographic doc.u.ment into countless 0s and 1s. He looked back at Jiang Chen again.
“Does this make any sense?”
“In order to have more chances of victory against the invasion of Harmony and to avoid our self-destruction due to internal conflicts before the arrival of the enemy,” Jiang Chen smiled, “You were in the same state as us. You should be able to understand the situation we are facing now.”
“I can lend you the Golovin Mental System,” Golovin said.
“We don’t need that kind of thing.” Jiang Chen shook his head.
“Why?”
“If we refuse a.s.similation by accepting another sense of a.s.similation, then what is the point of our resistance? It is better to put down our weapons and embrace the evolution.”
Jiang Chen smiled when he finished the sentence, and left the meeting while Golovin digested the sentence. It was their last meeting before the general meeting of Earth Defense Alliance…