5010. The Great Severing
The evening'' of the second day finally rolled in. The residents of Davute VII actually had to wait untilte in the night before the Big Two broadcasted their historic announcement. The local time of the was not precisely synchronized to standard time.
In any case, a lot of humans in Davute and elsewhere had stopped what they were doing'' in order to witness the MTA and CFA''s first public address since the gctic discement event.
They were bound to reveal a lot of shocking and explosive information!
Ves already had a good idea on the topics that the Big Two nned to mention this time, but most people including his wife should still remain in the dark.
The unrest across human space in the new frontier had subsided to a remarkable degree. This was the power the Big Two had over contemporary human society.
From the poorest third-raters to the most powerful Terran or Rubarthan, each of them had to respect the MTA and the CFA''s hegemony over the human race!
This condition did not change after the gctic discement event. Whether it would remain so in the future was anyone''s guess, but for now the Big Two still remained in charge!
"Papa-"
Ves smiled indulgently at Aurelia as he put her on hisp. "Are you feeling well, my dear?"
His oldest daughter nodded. "I feel stronger than yesterday! I have grown more hungry as well."
"That is good." He replied. "That means your body is adapting more to the change in environment than many other people."
Andraste looked even more enthused. "I''ll be an even stronger warrior after 1 absorb the new gxy''s rays!"
Ves coughed. "It''s not that simple. Not everything thates from M87 is necessarily safe or benign. Besides, everyone will get stronger, not just you, pumpkin. You still need to work hard if you want to stay on top of everyone."
He continued to chat with his kids until the time of the announcement had finallye.
Arge projection came to life in the underground living room.
It first disyed the two familiar emblems of the Big Two. The mere sight of them was enough to reassure a lot of humans!
After that, the projection switched to disying a simple metal chamber that was typically used to hold press conferences.
The chairs in front of the podium remained empty. No journalists or other guests had been invited at this time.
The air shimmered for a moment before two new figures teleported into ce.
Gloriana gasped first. "That is the Lord of Thermodynamics! He is one of our oldest Star Designers, and one of the first to emerge!"
"Ohhh." Marvaine looked fascinated. "How old is he, mama?"
"His Excellency Hendrick Polt is over 450 years old! He was born at the end of the Age of Conquest. He is one of the great pioneers of mech technology alive today. His work on increasing the performance of power reactors is arge reason why most mechs but especially first-ss ones have be so strong!"
It took great aplishments in order to gain such an impressive title!
"Who is the other guy?" Andraste asked.
"I know him. He should be Fleet Admiral Stanley Argile." Ves replied. "He is the man in charge of the CFA Second Main Fleet. It is the strongest whole fleet that the CFA has transferred to the Red Ocean."
"Is he just as old as the Star Designer?"
"No. He should be around 330 years old ording to the record. He''s rtively young."
While the MTA and CFA did not believe in centralization, they had chosen their representatives well.
Both the Lord of Thermodynamics and Fleet Admiral Argile possessed enough power and prestige to speak on behalf of their respective
organizations.
Ves was not surprised that the MTA did not put forth a god pilot. A figure like that would be so overpowering that no one would pay any attention
to the poor CFA fleet admiral!
The Star Designer spoke first at this time. Though old, his voice held a gentle and reassuring quality that inspired a lot of stability in people''s
minds.
"Humans of the Red Ocean. Our lives have changed forever. Yesterday, a pan-racial indigenous organization called the ''Red Cabal'' implemented a
radical n to counter our invasion and save their native civilizations from extinction. A group of powerful ancient phase whales have presided<novelsnext></novelsnext>
over a grand working that borrowed the strength of all of the phasewater in the Red Ocean to teleport nearly the entire dwarf gxy away from
the Milky Way Gxy. The aliens have seeded in their aims."
"The Red Ocean and everyone inside it havended over 50 million light-years away." Fleet Admiral Argile continued in a more severe and forceful
It is no secret that our dwarf gxy hasnded over several hundred thousand light-years away from the supergiant gxy known to us as
Messier 87. This is a location that is far beyond the reach of humans in the Milky Way. They do not have the means to send a starship to our new
location or establish a connection to our greater beyonder gate. At the same time, we do not have the technology or the resources to establish a
transportation channel that can bring us back to the Milky Way."
Ves and many other people already suspected that this was the case, but to hear it was another matter!
The Lord of Thermodynamics projected a diagram that showed two dense clusters of lines.
"The event that we have designated as ''the Great Severing''1 has destroyed most, but not all of our intergcticmunication lines between our- human brothers and sisters that we have left behind. The Comm Consortium''s intergctic quantummunication nodes may have lost connection to their paired nodes in the Milky Way, but this is not our sole means of FTLmunication across the stars."
That was big news! The Star Designer''s words encouraged a lot of people. They were not alone!
Remaining connected to the Milky Way not only gave them a chance to keep in touch with their distant family and friends, but also gave them ess to other forms of support!
The fleet admiral spoke up again. "We are still able to maintain limited contact with humanity in the Milky Way. I should emphasize that we are only able to transmit data, not goods or people over these remainingmunication lines. The bandwidth that we have left is only a fraction of what we have before. For the time being, intergcticmunications shall remain closed to the general public. The Common Fleet Alliance and the Mech Trade Association must fully reserve the bandwidth that we have left to facilitate essential technological data exchanges. We may consider the possibility of offering private individuals the ability to transmit and receive short messages to the Milky Way in exchange for CFA merits or MTA merits."
Ves sighed in relief. His connection with Veronica was not the only means for the people of the Red Ocean to remain in touch with the main human civilization in the Milky Way.
He had thought about exposing this capability to the Survivalists if it turned out that the Red Ocean waspletely cut off from the Milky Way.
It may have been important for him to hide his trump cards, but when the survival of everyone in the new frontier was at stake, he was obligated to step up and offer his services!
Now that they addressed their remaining connections to the Milky Way, the two powerful leaders finally turned to their current circumstances in their new cosmic neighborhood.
The Lord of Thermodynamics projected a map that depicted all of the nearby gxies.
"This is the region of space that astronomers have called the Virgo Cluster since ancient times. It is much more densely popted by gxies and matter than the Local Group that the Milky Way belongs to. Messier 87 may appear to be located in a rtively calmer region, but that is because it is a cosmic superpredator that has already cleared many of its neighboring gxies."
The projection changed to a depiction of a smaller gxy that slowly becamerger and messier after ''colliding'' and merging with a chain of other- gxies!
"The reason why Messier 87 not only contains many more stars but has also acquired an elongated ball shape is because it has merged with multiple gxies. This has caused it to produce many differencespared to a more conventional gxy such as our Milky Way. The most impactful change to us is that it contains far greater resources and energy than we previously came in touch with. M87 may not look that muchrger than the Milky Way, but do not overlook the former''srge quantity of stars located ''up'' and ''down'' the gctic ne. The new gxy is over 200 times as massive as the old gxy. Its dense gasses and energies are so concentrated that we are still affected by them in our new position."
The Star Designer dumbed down his exnation to a huge degree in order to make his exnation digestible to the general public. There was no way the legendary Lord of Thermodynamics talked like this when he was engaged in his work!
That was fine. Ves was sure that the Big Two would publish a more detailed and scientific report on their virtual portals after the conclusion of this announcement.
The projection zoomed into the center of M87 to depict its famous ck hole.
This was the first supermassive ck hole that humans visually imaged!
"You may not have a good understanding of what it means for us to be located so close to such a dense and massive gxy." Fleet Admiral Argile said. "This is Powehi, the Embellished Dark Source of Unending Creation. It is one of the most massive supermassive ck holes that our civilization has detected. It has devoured an unknown amount of other supermassive ck holes to the point where it has be a cosmic behemoth. Not only is it massive enough to capture our Red Ocean in an orbit around M87, but it is also firing two powerful jets of matter and energy."
The projection changed to show how the ck hole was sucking up a lot of surrounding matter while also ejecting it from its ''top'' and ''bottom''!
"The Dark Source is discharging arge amount of matter and energy in two directions at rtivistic speeds." Hendrick Polt exined. "One of the jets is pointed away from our Red Ocean is less visible. The other is pointed in a direction that is much closer to our new position. We are far from intersecting this jet, but if you can see closer, the matter and energy that eventually dispersed at the end continues to disperse and drift outwards until it engulfed the satellite gxies that happen to orbit in this general region in this cosmic period. This epasses the Red Ocean''s new coordinates."
Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine all looked confused.
"What does that mean, papa?" Their youngest asked.
"The Red Ocean is constantly getting sted by M87''s gigantic exhaust smoke." Ves sinctly exined. "At least we didn''t end up in the middle of its engine plume. That would have killed us all in an instant."
The Lord of Thermodynamics adopted a severe expression as he faced his audience.
"The jet of matter generated by the Dark Source pointed closest to our dwarf gxy will be the cause of untold dangers and hardship, but it is also our greatest opportunity to rise again as a race and a civilization. This is because the jet effectively delivers a small proportion of the exotic energies and particles that are abundantly present in Messier 87. If we harness these new resources correctly, we can advance our technology by leaps and bounds and greatly strengthen our forces! There is no need for us to surrender our dignity as a dominant species!"
Those were encouraging words! The Star Designer essentially stoked everyone''s hope by telling them that their situation was notpletely hopeless.
With the help of M87''s ''exhaust smoke'', humanity of the Red Ocean still had a chance to survive any potential hostile contacts with the new gxy''s powerful aliens!