90: Chapter 10 Ripples 90: Chapter 10 Ripples Due to NASA’s “Shock!

This asteroid is actually…” “major discovery” occurrences being so frequent, the news from two years ago didn’t cause much of a stir.

Moreover, for a considerable period, only people in the southern hemisphere and low latitudes of the northern hemisphere could observe “Argon”, and since the southern hemisphere has far lower population density and per capita income than the northern hemisphere, even among astronomy enthusiasts there wasn’t much discussion about this matter.

“Because of its highly irregular shape, NASA indeed became interested in it,” David Klein continued, “NASA thinks its shape is confusing, not resembling anything naturally formed.

Hence in June of ’26, the European Southern Observatory’s VLT (Very Large Telescope) SPHERE (high-resolution spectro-polarimetric exoplanet search instrument) targeted this area and obtained the first clear images of ‘Argon’.”

In that photograph, the appearance of “Argon” became clearly visible.

It looked like a piece of cast metal, worn and rusted.

Yes, it must have originally had a silver surface.

But due to the friction of interstellar material, cosmic dust, and collisions with various small celestial bodies, its surface gradually wore down.

Like a metal surface that has been sanded with emery.

Xiang Shan swallowed his saliva.

He indeed heard the sound of himself swallowing.

At first, no one was surprised when a type of reflection was observed on the surface of Argon.

It’s too common for small celestial bodies to have reflective substances like ice crystals.

But now, no one could deny that it was an artificial object.

“Argon” is an artificial object.

Humanity had found an artifact not made by humans themselves.

Xiang Shan heard many sounds of people swallowing saliva.

Klein stopped for about a minute, seemingly waiting for everyone to digest the news.

Then, he continued, “Because the higher-ups determined that the news of ‘human discovery of extraterrestrial civilization’ would cause unpredictable shocks in society, they didn’t disclose it immediately but secretly established a special committee, hoping to handle the matter in the most cautious way.”

“At the same time, note one thing.

‘Argon’ currently has no power.

It’s been traveling in space by inertia for who knows how long.

NASA believes that even if Argon is an alien spaceship, it might have exhausted all its fuel for some reason or already crashed.”

“In July of the same year, the Federation urgently established a space force.

This was at one time considered a signal that the arms race had restarted internationally.

Simultaneously, NASA also launched a large number of projects related to Argon.”

“NASA’s mission at that time included ‘establishing contact with Argon’ and ‘capturing Argon’.

But ‘Argon’ had no response to almost all electromagnetic wave frequencies and also never actively emitted any electromagnetic waves.”

“The next year—January ’27, NASA believed that ‘Argon’ had entered the realm of human astronautical technology’s limits, so they prematurely launched the SLS-9 rocket, ready to send the capture system to ‘Argon’.”

“And it was also at this stage that the Russians became involved in the ‘Argon’ incident—after they got the news, they blamed the Federation for trying to monopolize ‘Argon’ and tried to interfere with NASA’s capture plan.”

“The trivial struggle between the Federation and the Northern Russian Federation lasted for quite a long time.

Several months ago, the Republic also got involved.

Due to certain geopolitical relationships, NASA’s capturer did not bring ‘Argon’ to the North Atlantic but brought it here instead.”

“The subsequent conflicts can be seen in the news, so I won’t go into more details.

In short, after a series of complex events, the United Nations Project Services urgently formed the ‘Rama Special Project’—by the way, this name comes from Sir Arthur C.

Clarke’s ‘Rendezvous with Rama’.”

The subsequent events David Klein talked about probably refer to…

the South Sea Fleet and the Seventh Fleet confronting each other nearby.

The Northern Russian Federation also made a high-profile entrance.

Even though “Argon” had not been activated yet, it had already profoundly changed the world’s situation.

At this time, Xiang Shan slightly furrowed his brow.

“Were the Indonesian riots premeditated?”

After the financial crisis of 2021, Indonesia had entered into another round of turmoil, even worse than the financial crisis of the nineties.

Xiang Shan vaguely remembered, was there news last month…

or was it mentioned by his parents at dinner?

About Indonesia’s situation.

There were also reports of anti-government militants killing civilians.

But now, the riots in Indonesia had given the United Nations an excuse to dispatch its peacekeeping forces.

This inevitably made one wonder if a major power was behind these riots.

Simultaneously, Xiang Shan realized the unusual nature of the so-called welcoming troops at the airport.

They were not “a peacekeeping force” at all, but a military force monitoring each other.

Perhaps the turmoil nearby in Indonesia was real, and there were genuine peacekeeping troops.

However, the group that appeared at the airport was not a peacekeeping force dispatched by any country.

Although peacekeeping forces were often criticized for their complex membership, cumbersome management systems, weak force, and inadequate responsive capabilities in emergency situations and humanitarian disasters, they would never show such mutual wariness and estrangement within a small team.

It was just like the South Sea Fleet and the Seventh Fleet’s behavior abroad.

This “defense force” was not defending anything.

They were merely “monitoring each other.”

This was simply several major powers forming a temporary organization, and then appending their security forces under the name of the peacekeeping troops.

Additionally, since the Republic entered the scene late in this incident, they didn’t have much time to assemble a team of scientists.

They needed to select those “who might be useful” from scholars nationwide and ensure these scholars were “absolutely trustworthy and would not leak information easily.”

It was for this reason that Xiang Shan had joined this massive project based solely on Liu Zhenghui’s request.

At that moment, the car had driven into a brand-new park.

Soldiers wearing blue steel helmets guarded the area rigorously.

Within the walls was a large lawn.

Many engineering machines were moving rapidly.

At the same time, several simple yet imposing buildings had been erected.

At the edge of the lawn was a row of trees.

Behind these tropical arbors was a gigantic white building—it looked like several tents joined together, somewhat reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House.

According to David Klein’s introduction, the material making up this “building” was originally the “parachutes” used to land and secure “Argon.”

“Argon” was a kilometer long, with a maximum radius close to one hundred meters, and weighed hundreds of thousands of tons.

Such a terrifying mass, if allowed to free fall, would be akin to a natural disaster—the most important aspect was that it could not withstand such a terrifying impact itself.

Therefore, humans devised numerous giant parachutes to add to this object.

The cords securing these parachutes were the strongest carbon fibers, developed by the Republic’s Academy of Engineering with the “Space Elevator” as the target technology.

It’s been said that the production of these materials spared no expense in the labs.

Most of the parachute fabric, however, came from the Federation.

NASA did everything possible to ensure “Argon’s” landing site was restricted to the Shallow Sea.

This way, the force of the descent could be maximally cushioned without allowing such a huge object to fall into the sea and become unrecoverable.

It was said that on the night “Argon” fell, steam and torrential rains covered the area.

Even the distant Indonesians could hear the Behemoth’s roar.

A small portion of the parachutes dislodged during “Argon’s” descent, but most remained intact.

Thus, the United Nations Development Programme’s urgently established “Rama Special Project” committee utilized the parachutes’ material to construct this “tent”-like building, preventing the prying eyes of unrelated personnel.

And this park was the working area of the “Rama Special Project.”

Upon arriving at the park, David Klein immediately left to return to his original work, while the other staff guided the Republic’s numerous scholars to register.

Since the park was still under construction, the scholars could only reside in the temporarily erected dormitories for the time being.

As per the introduction by the United Nations staff, the large apartment buildings prepared for them were also under construction, expected to be inhabitable next month.

Moreover, a database and conference center were also due to be completed within a few days.

Each scholar received a set of keys.

After completing registration, they officially became members of the United Nations “Rama Special Project.”

Secretary Hu appeared once thereafter.

He gathered the scholars, re-emphasized the discipline concerning confidentiality, and particularly stressed that before receiving approval, the scholars were not allowed to make any unauthorized external contact.

Since the countries had still been negotiating the ownership issues of “Argon” a few days ago, the framework for the “Rama Special Project” had not yet been established; therefore, the project team could not assign tasks to the scholars immediately.

At least for the remainder of the day, the scholars could freely move around the project park.

“Everyone can interact more with peers from abroad and make more friends,” Secretary Hu said with a smile.

“This may not be a short-term project.

Within the project area, everyone should promote the spirit of the Republic—’equality and mutual benefit, peaceful coexistence’—and together with colleagues from around the world, uncover the secrets of ‘Argon’ and contribute to the advancement of human science!”