59: Mars

While the social reforms of the "knowledge manager" were still in their early stages.

And while the Babel Tower in Earth's synchronous orbit had not yet revealed its magnificent form as a City in the Sky.

The voyager starship, carrying all the dreams of Human Civilization for the stars and the sea, had already crossed tens of millions of kilometers of deep space and arrived at its first destination—Mars.

After a long six-month voyage, this steel behemoth, nearly five kilometers long and resembling a moving mountain, descended slowly onto a vast red wasteland on the Martian surface known as Utopia Planitia with a grace completely at odds with its massive size.

When the dozens of massive bottom thrusters and auxiliary landing engines at the base of the hull touched the ground covered in red dust, an outburst of enthusiastic applause and cheers erupted across the bridge.

"voyager calling Guanghan Palace Base, we have successfully landed on Mars, all systems are operating normally." Captain Li Zhenhua's voice traveled across the vast distance to the command centers on the Moon and Earth.

Because the relative distance between Mars, Earth, and the Moon is not fixed, communication delays vary between 3 and 22 minutes.

Ten minutes later, personnel at the Guanghan Palace Base received the message from Mars.

This moment marked the official evolution of Human Civilization from a "Cradle Civilization" that could only gaze up at the stars into a true "Interplanetary Civilization" capable of leaving its footprints on another planet.

However, just as all the crew members were immersed in the solemnity and excitement of making history, a highly discordant figure was already rushing impatiently toward the main airlock.

"Quick, quick, quick! Open the hatch for me! I want to be the first one!"

Elon, the nominal president of the American Union, was acting like a grade-schooler about to go on a field trip, excitedly urging the command room in charge of the hatch controls.

The latest lightweight spacesuit provided by Paradox Technology that he was wearing hadn't even been fully fastened yet.

"Mr. President, please calm down!" Captain Li Zhenhua, watching his impatient demeanor, said with a wry smile over the internal comms, "According to protocol, we need to perform a final safety check of the external environment and deploy engineering robots to set up an initial safety zone..."

"I can't wait!" Elon's voice was filled with unquestionable wilfulness, "History only remembers the first! Captain Li, if you don't open the door, I will order you to open it in the name of the Union President!"

Facing this "big boy" with his special status, Li Zhenhua could only shake his head helplessly and signal the airlock operator.

"Very well, Mr. President, have fun."

When the heavy alloy hatch slowly opened with a hissing sound of depressurization, a thin, cold red air with a metallic, rusty scent (though he couldn't smell it through his spacesuit) rushed toward him.

Elon didn't even have time to admire the magnificent alien scenery before he rushed down the gangway like an unbridled wild horse.

His feet landed heavily on this red land that had never been trodden by humans before.

But he didn't say any profound, philosophical quotes like Armstrong.

The first thing he did was pull out his mobile phone and start a frantic selfie mode, capturing everything around him.

"Wow! Look at this! Red sky! Red sand! This is so cool!" He excitedly narrated to his phone camera, as if he were recording a Martian edition of a vlog.

"Hey, Siri! Take a picture for me! Make it wide-angle! Get the voyager behind me in the shot too... Damn, there's no signal in this place!"

Because there was no network signal on Mars, he had to take the photos manually, storing these precious photos and videos on his phone, planning to post a hundred updates on his social media platforms once he returned to Earth to show off properly.

After taking the photos, his desire to play grew even stronger.

He saw a six-wheeled manned exploration rover that had been unloaded from the cargo hold of the voyager nearby, and his eyes lit up instantly.

"Guys! Who wants to go for a spin on Mars with me?" he shouted to the other crew members who were gradually walking down the gangway behind him.

His voice rang out in the built-in communicators inside everyone's spacesuits, yet he was met only with the good-natured but helpless laughter of the crowd.

Everyone had their own heavy scientific research tasks and had no time to waste fooling around with the President.

"Fine, you boring scientists." Elon pursed his lips and jumped into the driver's seat of the exploration rover alone.

He fixed his phone to a mount, turned on full-record mode, and prepared to livestream an unprecedented Martian drag race for his fans back on Earth.

"Let's go!"

Accompanied by his excited shout, the exploration rover's tires, made of a special alloy, kicked up a cloud of dust on the red sand and shot out like an arrow from a bow.

However, he clearly overestimated his driving skills on an alien planet and underestimated the complexity of the Martian surface.

Although this exploration rover, designed for scientific research, was powerful, its suspension system was exceptionally soft to adapt to rugged terrain.

Elon was too busy enjoying the thrill of speed to notice an inconspicuous shallow pit on the ground ahead.

By the time he noticed it, it was already too late.

The front wheels of the rover plunged into the pit.

In the low-gravity environment of Mars, which is only one-third of Earth's, the entire vehicle lost its balance like a tripped giant, performing an incredibly comical, slow-motion rollover.

Finally, it ended up lying belly-up in the shallow pit, its six wheels spinning in vain.

"Oh, shit!"

Elon's annoyed curse rang out in everyone's communicators.

And his phone, which was still faithfully recording, perfectly captured this embarrassing scene of "humanity's first Martian traffic accident" in its entirety.

...

Leaving aside Elon, who treated Mars like a playground, the scientific research team on the voyager, composed of hundreds of top scientists and engineers, began their tense and orderly work.

Centering on the voyager's landing site, they launched the most comprehensive and in-depth Martian geological exploration and environmental testing in history, covering an area with a radius of hundreds of kilometers.

Dozens of fully automatic drilling robots provided by Paradox Technology, resembling giant beetles, began working on this red wasteland.

They did not require human operation; they only needed to receive instructions through their link with the voyager's main brain to autonomously find the best drilling spots.

Their ultra-hard drill bits, made of [el-3 composite target material], could easily penetrate Mars' hard rock layers, reaching depths of several kilometers below the surface to collect core samples from different geological eras.

Another team composed of astrobiologists drove exploration rovers equipped with the most advanced life detection instruments to areas believed most likely to contain traces of life—such as ancient riverbed remains and the cliffs of Valles Marineris.

Their detectors were even capable of analyzing trace amounts of organic residues and microbial fossils in the rocks.

Meanwhile, the voyager itself had become a massive planetary environmental monitoring station.

Its massive sensor array collected massive amounts of data 24 hours a day on Martian atmospheric composition, magnetic field strength, radiation levels, meteorological changes, and more.

This data was continuously transmitted back to the joint command center on Earth and the Moon.

With the support of the terrifying computing power of the [Apocalypse] optical quantum supercomputer, humanity began for the first time to understand this red neighbor with unprecedented precision and depth.

After several months of detailed exploration and data analysis, a series of conclusions that overturned all previous human knowledge were presented to everyone.

First, Mars is much richer than we imagined.

The geological exploration team discovered astonishing reserves of basic industrial metals such as iron, titanium, aluminum, nickel, and chromium in the shallow crust of Mars.

Even more surprisingly, they also discovered a massive rare earth mineral vein in the Northern Great Plains of Mars, with reserves that might even exceed the sum of all known rare earth deposits on Earth.

This means that the future Mars colony will be completely capable of achieving industrial self-sufficiency, and could even, in turn, provide valuable resources for construction on Earth and the Moon.

Second, Mars is also much more dangerous than we imagined.

Atmospheric analysis showed that Mars' thin atmosphere contains not only carbon dioxide but also high concentrations of perchlorates.

This highly oxidizing substance is extremely toxic to humans and Earth life.

This means that future colonists must build closed ecological systems completely isolated from the outside world; any idea of attempting to terraform Mars is unrealistic in the short term.

And the discovery that most puzzled and excited the scientists came from deep beneath the Martian surface.

"Captain Li, we have a major discovery!"

On the screen of the voyager's bridge, the chief geologist's image reported excitedly.

"Our deep geological radar has detected a huge, unusually regular cavity about five kilometers beneath the surface of Utopia Planitia!"

He transmitted a 3D geological radar scan to the main screen.

Beneath that red layer of earth, a spherical void with a diameter of over ten kilometers was clearly presented before everyone.

"Naturally formed?" Captain Li Zhenhua asked, frowning.

"Impossible!" the geologist immediately denied, "No known geological activity could form such a regular spherical cavity; this is definitely man-made!"

"Furthermore," he zoomed in on the image further, "at the center of this cavity, we detected a massive, extremely high-density metal object. Its shape is sharp and angular; it is highly likely to be an artificial structure or a spacecraft!"

Everyone's eyes were focused on the blurry outline marked as "high-density anomaly."

Although the details could not be seen clearly, the smooth, non-natural lines all proved that it was a creation of an intelligent civilization.

This was definitely a major discovery capable of shocking the entire world.

Li Zhenhua did not dare to delay and immediately sent this news to the joint command center.