Chapter 96. Heading to Crawling Cindy’s Home Planet
Noah slowly turned to Jeffrey. Bai Ze's revelation suddenly made everything clear. And now everything makes sense. The missing motive for these events. For the sake of this weapon, they used to treat it like an accident. Because why would someone send a weapon through time to the past to change its development? But such a change means that you yourself become part of the change. Therefore, all plans for the rest of time also cease to exist, since they never existed in the altered time trajectory.
However, like these crawling Cindy's, if there's a way to exclude themselves from this change, there's a chance they'll gain an advantage. With this advantage, they can, like these lizardmen, seize power. But this is more than just a civilized grip on power. At the same time, it also provides an opportunity to conquer those neighboring ethnic groups and use a huge change to give themselves an advantage over these ethnic groups. This is the motivation for building weapons.
However, not everything goes according to plan. The earth still exists. On the contrary, in this universe, without Vulcan, all the consequences would not exist.
Suddenly, it dawned on Noah. certainly. Why didn't they think of it before. He looked at Jeffrey and knew his logic had just reached the same conclusion. This way they have proof that Cindy was indeed responsible for the destruction of Mars. The destruction of Vulcan was not a natural disaster or an event of war on Vulcan, but an intentionally caused external event. Although Cindy missed their original target, it turned out they were pretty close. Through Mars' destruction, a power vacuum was created that Cindy was able to fill.
"Mr. Jeffrey, what do you think?" Noah wanted to hear the Martian's opinion. If there was something in this story that he missed, Jeffrey would have noticed it.
"It's a very fascinating story," was all Jeffrey said.
"Yes, it is. And a chance to go home," Noah added.
"really."
"It's a trap," Ingmar interjected loudly. "They use this bait to lure us, and then destroy us. If this story is true, then we are the only ones who can stand up to the Sindi. They know it. So they are leading us into a trap."
"Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Ingmar," Noah said casually, without turning to him.
"They will eliminate us because we are a threat to them," Ingmar continued.
"We've heard your side," Noah stressed.
Ingmar turned again to a console. "Yes, sir," he said, still a little dissatisfied. Of course he wanted to go home, but not at all costs. So much is involved. He felt like he had truly experienced what happiness was for the first time. He didn't want to risk losing it. What if this mission fails? What if the ship is destroyed? Then he may only have true happiness for half a year. Or worse, he survived but Shu Ran didn't. He knew he couldn't go on living without her.
"This could be a trap," Noah admitted, continuing to look at Jeffrey. "But every trap is also an opportunity, as long as we know it's a trap. I think we should seize the opportunity."
Jeffrey just nodded and said nothing else.
"Okay, let's do it," Noah decided. "There will be a meeting in an hour. Then I'll report back to Councilor Olet." He walked quickly to the turbolift.
"Captain," Ingmar began, but was immediately interrupted by Noah.
"No more discussion, Mr. Ingmar. This is not a democracy." After he finished speaking, the turbolift door closed.
Noah gathered in a conference room with his leadership team. This should only be a brief discussion. He never wanted it to turn into a long argument. His purpose is first and foremost to hear everyone's opinion. He wanted to make sure he didn't miss anything. Because what Ingmar said is not completely wrong. Traveling to Cindy the Creeper's home planet may carry the risk of traps. But ultimately, every trap is an opportunity.
"We should seize this opportunity," Noah concluded his brief description of the situation.
"Now that we know the Cindy weapons were responsible for the destruction of Mars, can we take action ourselves?" Carol interjected. "Could we restore the timeline without Cindy? For example, by preventing the weapons from being built?"
"Unfortunately, that's not possible," Jeffrey responded to the question. "The weapon that caused the destruction of Mars no longer exists. In this timeline, the weapon never existed, so we cannot destroy the weapon."
"Can we travel through time to find weapons?" Ingmar asked.
"No. As I said, this weapon does not exist in this timeline. Therefore, we cannot go back in time to destroy that weapon," Jeffrey explained calmly.
"If this weapon never existed, Mars should not have been destroyed. And this timeline should not have existed in the first place." Celia interjected.
"Events have proven to us the opposite," Jeffrey said. "We are experiencing a time paradox. The cause, which is the weapon, no longer exists, but the effect remains."
"You mean, it's like the grandson went back in time to kill his grandfather, and then he himself ceased to exist?" Celia understood and represented everyone's thinking. "In our case, that means that through the destruction of Mars, a timeline was created that never had this weapon. Therefore, Mars should never have been destroyed, and then we would be back to a timeline that had this weapon. .So Mars will be destroyed, and then the weapons will no longer exist. And so the cycle continues."
"My head is spinning," Ingmar muttered.
"That's right," Jeffrey confirmed Celia's statement, ignoring Ingmar. "Because such chaos is nearly impossible within the physical laws of the universe, cause and effect are stripped away. However, this is just speculation based on our experience. I have no scientific evidence to support this."
"That means we can't deal with the cause, which is the weapon," Noah concluded. "So we have no choice but to prevent the weapon's energy rays from reaching that planet."
"There are two problems here. First: Mars was destroyed in the past. While we can roughly date it based on the debris, precise time travel is nearly impossible."
"Secondly: even if we managed to travel back to the year of destruction, we haven't found a way to stop an energy ray that would travel through time and destroy an entire planet. We won't be able to make one large enough due to the high energy requirements. Shield. We cannot rely on the technology of this century, nor the technology of the era of the destruction of Mars. Neither of these eras has sufficiently advanced technology."
"Then let's go to the future first, get the technology we need, and then go back to the past," Ingmar suggested simply.
Everyone looked at him as if he had lost his mind. But after a few seconds, the idea no longer seemed so outrageous. Noah looked forward to Jeffrey's opinion. Clearly, he wanted to hear what the Martian had to say.
"Theoretically, it's possible. But our chances are too small and we can't take the risk. We don't know the years in which the required technology exists. Furthermore, we are traveling to the future of this timeline. There, people Definitely not willing to change the timeline like we did here," he reminded Noah of his conversation with General Frigg.
"To ensure that the technology we need actually exists, I estimate we would need to move forward three hundred years. How the universe will develop by then can only be pure speculation. Perhaps this timeline has found its balance and is as peaceful as ours .Or the war between all races will continue. Then our chances of survival will be very small. No matter what the future looks like, almost no one will hand us the technology. Or you will hand the photon torpedo to a medieval time traveler , because he claims it can save the world or the universe?" Jeffrey asked everyone present.
"Of course not," was Ingmar's only reply. "But you can't really compare the two situations. We are much smarter than people in the Middle Ages."
"This is what you think. People in the Middle Ages would also think so about people in the Stone Age. From the perspective of people in the future, we may also be very primitive." Jeffrey nodded and added before Ingmar spoke He said: "Then let's consider traveling to the future as Plan B. What we have to consider now is traveling to the Crawling Cindy Home Planet."
No one raised any objections. While they both realize the risks, any action is better than simply waiting for a miracle to happen.
"Okay," Noah finally said. "I'll notify Congressman Olert that we're leaving."
"I'll inform Flora and Troll of our latest findings," Jeffrey said. "They should know how Mars was destroyed."
After Senator Olert heard the news about Noah, he was not happy at all. For him, the Republic's departure was a serious setback. He had planned to keep the strangers in the colony and gain some protection from Earth's interference. But now those plans have failed. He asked Noah to think about it again. Are these Cindy statements worth the risk Republic takes? Furthermore, the security of the colony was at stake. The Earth is unlikely to miss such an opportunity.
Noah never wanted to hear this again. He was tired of what the lawmakers kept repeating. These are empty phrases and tangles of phrasing. Apparently politicians, no matter what universe they are in, are the same. So he ignored Olert's request and quickly ended his conversation with the senator. He wished Olet's colony well and left quickly. Olert couldn't stop him.
For the colonists, therefore, the departure of the Republic came very suddenly. There was little time to meet all the people I had met again and say goodbye.
Despite this, the atmosphere on board was extremely cheerful. This is mainly because they have something to do again. The crew has another mission to dive into. After all, no crew member joins Starfleet just to get stranded somewhere and live out the rest of their lives there. They are all researchers eager to explore new things. They don't stay in one place for long.
And, there is hope of returning home. After all, many people have almost lost this hope in the past six months.
The Republic completed the journey without encountering problems. Take Wa
At a speed of p 3, they flew towards Crawling Cindy's home planet. After consulting with the chief engineer, Noah decided not to subject the ship to any more stress. Despite some temporary repairs, it was still in terrible condition.
When they entered Cindy's airspace, Noah put the ship on alert. He never wanted to be left unprepared when encountering a hostile vessel. This was bound to happen sooner or later. Noah preferred the earlier occurrence. If the Reptilian Cindy were aware of their presence in this universe, they must have taken steps to prevent the Republic from approaching the Reptilians' home planet. Therefore, Noah did not choose a direct route, but was willing to take a two-day detour. He thought it was safer.
All told, the Republic had been sailing for six days since they left the colony. The journey so far has been uneventful. While on the one hand Noah was okay with this, on the other hand his suspicions deepened and he became more certain about the idea that it might be a trap. Otherwise, why would the Crawling Cindy allow the Republic to pass through their territory without hindrance? Or were they simply unaware the Federation ship was in action and assumed it was still in the colonies? Noah was the least convinced of this possibility. The Lizardmen's intelligence agency would certainly not be inactive, and they would not be ignorant of the Republic's departure.
They are one day away from their goal. As time goes by, the likelihood that they will be tracked increases. In fact, Noah had planned to take a break at the decisive moment and then fully commit when needed. But there was no way to stay quiet now. The tension was too great. So Celia, the doctor, gives him some stimulants to keep him awake for the next few hours or even days. While this is not the most ideal solution, there is no alternative.
While the crew around him was occupied, he sat in his command chair and read reports written by some department heads. It didn't really capture his attention or distract him, but it was the only thing he could do right now. He hated waiting. The kind of time when you can't do anything but wait for an event to happen and then react. Contrary to his hopes, the older he gets, the less patient he becomes.
