Chapter 17: Carbon-Based Lifeforms Cannot Sustain Higher Civilizations

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Lu Xing’s expression nearly changed involuntarily. Such a monumental event—would future historians really not conduct any archaeological research to reconstruct the causes, course, and outcome of the nuclear war? The nuclear war had destroyed heaven and earth, yet historians showed no interest at all? Lu Xing glanced at this abridged world history book, which totaled just over two hundred pages. The history before and after the 21st century was summarized in only three paragraphs.

He composed himself and continued reading expressionlessly.

“After the nuclear war, most ancient creatures’ unstable genes mutated, and people afflicted by nuclear radiation were called mutants at that time. Mutants possessed greater strength, higher intelligence, and better memory... The war soon resumed.”

Perhaps because he was using Jiang Xuannü’s body, Lu Xing read quickly. Within a mere twenty pages, he reviewed the wars, fusions, absorptions, and disappearances involving humans, mutants, beastmen, genetically modified humans, mechanical beings, and heteromorphic humans.

In just a few tens of thousands of words, the content encompassed countless historical events unimaginable to 21st-century humans:

Treating nuclear bombs as conventional weapons; using nuclear radiation as a means to induce mutants; humans assimilating other species’ genes to create tiger-men, lion-men, cat-men, and other war weapons; humans modifying their own bodies, abandoning flesh and blood to ascend mechanically; humans abandoning conventional forms and attempting to shrink their heads.

And so on.

What 21st-century people would find unbearable was commonplace in the post-nuclear war era.

As for organ farms, clone factories, beastman brothels, and other shocking matters, the history book mentioned them as well. By the time genetically modified humans appeared, 21st-century morals had already been cast aside.

Ultimately, this protracted biological war was ended by a virus called the Grim Reaper. It originated in a biological weapons factory, and once released, it spread worldwide within a month, killing the vast majority of humanity. Even the wealthy who fled to space were infected by the virus carried on supplies sent from Earth and died en masse aboard space stations.

“In the face of the Grim Reaper virus, nuclear weapons appear merciful.”

The historian injected some humor here.

Lu Xing laughed out loud.

“The surviving humans returned to caves. The First Epoch ended.”

Lu Xing was momentarily speechless. From this perspective, the nuclear war was indeed not that significant. Humanity had created a virus that violated biological laws, with lethality far exceeding nuclear bombs.

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Lu Xing continued reading. Alien civilizations had yet to appear.

The opening line for the Second Epoch read:

“The only lesson humanity learned from history is that it learned no lessons from history.”

This was a quote from Hegel, but the history book did not cite the source.

“A few hundred years later, the Grim Reaper virus degenerated, and the human population gradually increased. Drawing once more from ancient myths, they rebuilt civilization, creating new languages, new scripts, and new beliefs. Archaeology advanced rapidly, propelling scientific development.”

No problem there—Second Epoch technology relied on archaeology.

“But humanity soon faced an unsolvable problem: beneath Earth’s surface, there were no oil or coal deposits. By the end of the First Epoch, humans had exhausted these vital resources, and the remaining oil and coal were buried too deep underground for their contemporary technology to extract.”

Lu Xing began to understand. The Second Epoch was an era of resource scarcity. Humanity did not undergo a first industrial revolution but instead relied on archaeology to advance technology to the point of using solar energy, wind power, and other clean energies.

Iron ore, plastics, and the like were salvaged from ruins and recycled.

After an indeterminate length of time, a turning point arose when humanity received an electromagnetic signal from within their own star system. Linguists deciphered it to be an ordered text.

Society erupted with excitement. Even Lu Xing couldn’t help but smile. Humanity was finally no longer alone in the universe!

Joyful humans invested vast resources into interstellar exploration, establishing the first lunar base, retrieving Martian soil, and constructing several space stations.

But that was all.

Human technology did not advance further. The exorbitant cost of rocket launches strained society’s capacity, and eventually, after a war, the lunar base was abandoned for the first time.

Growing impatient and pressed for time, Lu Xing skipped the middle sections and focused only on aliens and key events.

Five thousand years later, humanity received another alien transmission.

Another five thousand years passed, and after three rounds of communication, the two civilizations finally confirmed each other’s location within the star system and affectionately referred to one another as “friends of humanity” and “friends of the distant Earth-dwelling Elandoans.”

As exchanges increased, both sides gradually learned each other’s languages and scripts, initiating a dialogue spanning five epochs.

Each question sent required a five-thousand-year wait for an answer.

Consequently, both civilizations sent large quantities of redundant electromagnetic signals to ensure no information was lost across the vast interstellar distances.

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Both sides’ knowledge of each other’s history and technology was frozen at five thousand years prior.

For example, the Second Epoch humans sent messages about building bases on their home planet’s satellites, but by the time the Elandoan civilization learned of it, the lunar base had already been destroyed.

Earthlings spent tens of thousands of years gradually unraveling the Elandoan civilization.

They were also carbon-based lifeforms, experienced a technological explosion, suffered nuclear and biological wars, and faced resource shortages.

The Elandoan planet’s history was longer than Earth’s. Archaeology revealed traces of civilization dating back to Earth’s dinosaur era.

How many cycles of civilization rise and fall they had endured was unknown even to themselves.

“Carbon-based lifeforms cannot sustain higher civilizations.”

Suddenly, the history book contained a phrase that did not seem of human origin—at least, Lu Xing thought so. It was as if an artificial intelligence victor had authored history.

“The Elandoan officialdom did not state this explicitly, but pessimistic messages from their civilian communicators kept arriving on Earth. After the two civilizations achieved smooth communication, the Elandoan civilization sent Earth a complete set of artificial intelligence technologies—three times over.”

“Massive information crossed the vast cosmos and was received by humanity. Professor Li Zhe compiled it and published a work titled ‘On Artificial Intelligence Lifeforms Revisited.’”

The ancient history ended there.

Lu Xing exhaled deeply. Although he was uncertain how much of the content had been altered by artificial intelligence—such as the note stating Earth had not received messages from Elando for three thousand years, implying another civilization collapse with no known timeline for the next exchange—by three thousand years ago, Maria had already appeared, and the records were vague, inevitably raising suspicion.

At least after finishing the history, Lu Xing understood why names like Jiang Xuannü, Chu Caifeng, and Wang Bagua sounded so peculiar.

Chinese characters, English, French, Russian, and others were all forgotten by humanity after the First Epoch. Religions were new, and scientific theorems had to be rediscovered and renamed.

The reason Chinese characters were used now was because, during the Fourth Epoch, humanity’s then-current language had become too cumbersome. After selection, archaeologists excavated and chose Chinese characters as the official language.

As a two-dimensional ideographic script, Chinese characters stood out distinctly among all the languages humans had invented.