Compared with any other galaxy Xiao Yu had previously visited, the Maffei One Galaxy had one obvious characteristic, an abnormally large number of giant stars. This ant that even now, the Maffei One Galaxy still contained a vast amount of gas and dust clouds, and had remained in an active phase all along.
This was obvious. Giant stars have relatively short lifespans. If one wants to maintain a situation where giant stars remain nurous for a long period of ti, then giant stars must continuously form without interruption, and for giant stars to continuously form, there must be enough interstellar dust clouds to support that process.
Activity ans instability, and instability happens to be the natural enemy of intelligent life. Once a civilization’s level reaches a certain height, it gains so ability to resist risk. For example, for primitive humans, a single major earthquake could wipe out a civilization, while for Xiao Yu now, even the destruction of a galaxy could not harm him. Xiao Yu could completely flee before the galaxy was destroyed.
“Perhaps the Maffei One Galaxy may be a dead galaxy after all.” Xiao Yu thought to himself.
The Maffei One Galaxy was only a stopping point along Xiao Yu’s long journey. His next target was the Feiyuan Galaxy, the core of the entire Virgo Supercluster. The Feiyuan Galaxy was too large. Large ant that the civilization base there would be sufficiently nurous. Xiao Yu hoped that there he could encounter enough civilizations and communicate with them, once again raising the level of his technological developnt.
Facing the frequently active stellar phenona, Xiao Yu stepped into this completely unfamiliar galaxy.
“Perhaps it was precisely because of galactic collision that Maffei One ca to possess such a large amount of interstellar dust clouds. Compared with several billion years ago, the intensity of galactic movent in Maffei One has already decreased quite a bit. In the early stage of galactic collision, it may very well have been a starburst galaxy.” Xiao Yu thought silently as he slowly moved toward the center of the galaxy.
As he continued advancing, large numbers of galaxy-class detectors were released. These detectors possessed complete self-repair, self-charging, and self-protection capabilities based on Level 7 Civilization technology. They were Xiao Yu’s eyes. They allowed Xiao Yu’s line of sight to spread across the entire galaxy.
By the ti Xiao Yu’s main fleet arrived at the galactic core, the detection range of those detectors had already spread across half the galaxy. During the previous seven-thousand-year-long journey, because of the technological supplent gained from the microscopic civilization, Xiao Yu’s technology had once again made trendous progress, which was why Xiao Yu now possessed the ability to conduct such a detailed survey of an entire galaxy.
But the results of the survey disappointed Xiao Yu. Under large-scale detection, not to ntion a single intelligent civilization, Xiao Yu did not even discover one ordinary life-bearing planet. The Maffei One Galaxy presented before Xiao Yu, though active, was a barren and dead place. There were no intelligent beings here, only stars continuously cycling through life, death, illusion, and extinction, slowly evolving here according to so unseen natural law.
“The stellar activity here is too intense. The short-lived giant stars spread throughout the galaxy may be the killers of the seeds from which civilizations are born. A single supernova explosion of a giant star can indiscriminately destroy biological seeds within at least several hundred light years. It is like constantly spraying insecticide throughout the Maffei One Galaxy. Even if the budding of life existed, it would long ago have been killed by this high-intensity insecticide.” Xiao Yu thought with so emotion.
The birth of life is truly a highly demanding process of natural selection. In the Earth era, people often questioned scientists’ standards for searching for extraterrestrial life. For example, “Why must extraterrestrial life require water? Earth life needs water, but must extraterrestrial life also need water? Why must life necessarily exist on planets? Earth life needs a suitable temperature to survive, so must extraterrestrial life also need that temperature?”
Judging by this standard, it seed that life was not so demanding of its environnt, and that different environnts should give rise to different life. Just like the Maffei One Galaxy at this mont, there ought to be organisms adapted to its environnt.
But the facts told Xiao Yu that this was wrong.
It was not that extraterrestrial life must need water. Rather, the birth of life has a prerequisite, naly a long-term, stable environnt possessing so form of protection. Newly born life is extrely fragile. There is likely no dispute about this point. Therefore, it must require so protective apparatus that allows it to develop slowly and exchange a long period of ti for a gradually increasing ability to adapt to the environnt.
And the cosmic environnt is extrely dangerous. Leaving aside asteroid impacts, supernova explosions, the high-radiation zones left after stellar death, and so on, these kinds of things are simply everywhere in the universe. Even if none of those threats existed, there would still be the threat of the primary star the planet orbits, because stars are not stable things. While they emit light and heat, they also emit a great amount of harmful radiation. Perhaps these rays should not really be labeled harmful, but they are unstable, and newborn life cannot endure any instability.
Among infrared, X-rays, visible light, gamma rays, and many other types of radiation such as neutrinos and beta decay, only visible light is the most stable. So life evolving to adapt to visible light is inevitable, and once it has adapted to visible light, the other kinds of radiation beco harmful.
This is why water is needed, why an atmosphere is needed, and why a magnetic field is needed to provide protection for life. Why water? Because water is a very common substance in the universe. Hydrogen is common, oxygen is also common, so water is common. That is why water is a commonly used indicator in the search for extraterrestrial life, rather than so other liquid substance, such as thane.
It is not that liquid thane cannot provide protection for life, but thane is more complex, and it is rarer than water. In terms of probability, using water as the search indicator is more reasonable.
Gaseous water is too active and too sparse, while solid water loses its basic fluidity. Therefore, what can support life must necessarily be liquid water. This in turn places a requirent on temperature, because obviously, if a planet’s temperature is too low, water will freeze, and if it is too high, water will evaporate. If there is a requirent for temperature, then there is also a requirent on the planet’s distance from its star, and at the sa ti a requirent on the intensity of stellar activity. For example, a newborn star is too active and its radiation too intense, so the probability of life being born around it is low. For example, an aging red giant is too large and too unstable, so life generally also cannot arise around it.
For example, one must not be in a place with too many asteroids, because asteroid impacts would bring devastating consequences to newborn life. This in turn creates a secondary requirent, preferably there should be several giant gas planets outside the life-bearing planet, because those gas planets can provide complete protection for the inner life-bearing planet. Preferably there should also be a relatively large moon, because while it provides the final layer of protection, it can also generate tides and cause material exchange on the planet…
The condition for the birth of life is actually only one thing, stability. And conditions such as liquid water are the best description of stability.
Therefore, the Maffei One Galaxy presented before Xiao Yu had not evolved life.
“Perhaps before the galaxies collided and rged, there had once been life in the Maffei One Galaxy as well. But that era was simply too remote. That life may long ago have perished. Too much ti has passed, and even ruins could not remain.” Xiao Yu sighed inwardly.
Seas turn to mulberry fields, and ti changes all things. Hundreds of millions and billions of years pass in haste. Once-busy galaxies beco dead. Once-barren galaxies beco prosperous. Newly born stars eventually explode and beco dust, and dust gathers once again to beco the next generation of stars… Everything, all of it, slowly evolves under the manipulation of the invisible great hand called ti.
Carrying this feeling, Xiao Yu’s main fleet arrived here at the galactic core and visited the central black hole of the Maffei One Galaxy. Compared with the Milky Way Galaxy, Maffei One’s central black hole was far less massive, only about three hundred thousand solar masses. Its black hole activity had almost ceased. Although the Maffei One Galaxy possessed a large number of gas and dust clouds, those things had not beco its food.
This was an ancient beast currently asleep.
Xiao Yu did not try to disturb its slumber. His fleet quietly bypassed it and continued forward. But at this mont, Xiao Yu made a new discovery once again.
An astonishing thing appeared before Xiao Yu. It was a palace. Although its appearance was completely unlike any palace Xiao Yu understood, aside from the na palace, Xiao Yu truly did not know what else to call it.
It possessed extrely obvious characteristics of a technological creation, such as a smooth exterior, precise geotric structure, things that were clearly artificial light sources, and those spaceships currently circling around it…
Just after Xiao Yu had concluded that the Maffei One Galaxy was rely a dead galaxy and had beco disappointed in it, this palace appeared before him in such an unexpected manner that Xiao Yu was stunned.
A vast aura of desolation, antiquity, grandeur, imnsity, advancent, and power rushed toward Xiao Yu. It seed that no matter what words of praise were used for this palace, they would still be insufficient to describe its greatness. This was not so empty exaggeration. Just one single aspect of it was enough to make Xiao Yu feel this way.
It was too big, so big that it exceeded imagination. The largest warship Xiao Yu had ever built, a Star-Class battleship, was as tiny as dust before it. Even an enormous star ant nothing in front of it.
The size of this palace had to be asured in light years.
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