Memory of the Empire Chapter 2 (Machine Translated)

 

The gates of the Poly-City closed little by little.

 

The scarred heavy van was being pulled by an armored car and drove into the street of the gathering city with difficulty. Those ragged beggars consciously gave way, holding various water bottles and other containers in their hands, squinting their eyes, looking at the armored car glowing with the heat under the dazzling sun, cursing something under their breath.

 

The days on earth are as usual: hot, dirty, and barren.

 

Several infantrymen in white armor sat wearily on the armored vehicles and trucks, some drinking water and some smoking cigarettes. No one spoke, probably because of the loud engine noise of the armored vehicle.

 

Two of them were dressed in black and wore something like a mechanical exoskeleton on the outside of their clothes.

 

Although the shell of the armored vehicle is covered with dense bullet holes and scratches, you can still see a line of four characters: ISNA

 

Those letters could be found on the soldiers' clothes, on their weapons, and on their helmets.

 

"What a fucking wonderful day," said one of the soldiers in black.

 

The other, turning his head to look at him, made no sound.

 

The armored car left the dirt road with the van in tow and slowly drove into the lane leading to the city center. In fact, the so-called lane is only a relatively flat, gravel road with iron fences. In the foul air, the dust and gravel brought up by vehicles flying by is nothing.

 

"What do you think could be in the van? Headquarters is in such a hurry." The same man as before, disliked the one next to him with his elbow, "Ron, don't act like a mute."

 

"My name is Rohns, damn it." The man said in a raspy voice, "You better put the safety on your ion rifle before it goes off and burns your ass."

 

"Fuck, you really don't know what you're talking about." The man replied with a grin, scratching his hair with his hand, "I've never experienced what it feels like to be hit by an ion beam."

 

"Molin, sooner or later, your boy is going to get his head blown off." Rohns said, gazing ahead with both eyes.

 

Rohns was a strong Russian with a beard and arms covered with sweat and muscles. Only now, his right arm was bandaged and glistening with a trace of blood.

 

Molin didn't seem to pay any attention to his right arm that was shot. Of course, he didn't say anything to Molin's injured shoulder.

 

Molin had a steel nail in his left shoulder and pierced it through his back.

 

It's like a knight with an arrow in ancient times.

 

For that steel nail, Molin knew that it was a crude self-made weapon. He didn't pull out the steel nail because it was densely covered with pits-if it was pulled hard, it might be ripped out along with the flesh.

 

They sat calmly in the armored car, as if their day-to-day lives had never changed.

 

...All of this on the earth starts with the "ecological collapse" a few centuries ago.

 

At the end of the 21st century:

 

In order to obtain more clean energy with less damage to the environment, a global energy alliance called GCE came into view - the members of the alliance believed that mankind should turn its eyes away from Earth and that the universe might have what they were looking for.

 

That vision was spot on.

 

GCE quickly found a way to obtain energy on Europa-building a nuclear fusion power station on ice. In order to ensure the quality and cost of the mission, they used a miniaturized rocket and trained a group of genetically modified highly intelligent parrots as rocket pilots - because of the parrot's tiny size, each rocket could thus carry less supplies and more equipment than a conventional manned spacecraft. These human-communicating parrots have subsequently brought GCE huge revenues and an almost inexhaustible supply of energy.

 

Within a decade, GCE was among the largest energy associations in the world, with enough energy to supply half the planet for 1.2 years.

 

However, the major powers soon became dissatisfied and fearful of the GCE's monopolization of global energy. In response, a number of countries secretly launched military campaigns against GCE energy reserves, plunging a large area from Europe to North America into war for several years - just like the previous oil disputes in the Middle East.

 

In response to the world's strong-arm tactics, the GCE Global Coalition for Energy made the irrational decision to use its own genetically modified parrot technology to create an "army of parrots" that could rival the world's armies. This plan, which the GCE has dubbed "Operation Deception".

 

For this reason, GCE biologists have bred a batch of genetically modified high-IQ macaws, which have larger body size, higher IQ, and more lethal aggression than conventional genetically modified parrots.

 

Together with the weapon modules implanted in them by GCE, these parrots, known as "ghosts", move quickly and covertly, becoming extremely fearsome killing machines in the battlefield ... They are invincible and unbeatable, earning GCE an absolute international advantage and gradually deviating from their original goal.

 

Gradually, these parrots soaked in blood and killing all day, mission operations began to become unstable - coupled with GCE negligence in their management and control, fatal problems soon occurred:.

 

One of the parrots, awakened during a failed mission - they found themselves under the control of humans all along, being used as machines to do the work of humans and die for them.

 

As if in response to nature's call, they suddenly rebelled en masse, first blowing up the collection stations on Europa, and then beginning a massive assault on humans -

 

The 11-year-long "War of the Shadows" broke out.

 

To save humanity, the United Nations in its 10th year authorized the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of destruction to protect civilians. Two years of total nuclear bombardment and bio-chemical cleansing led to a tragic victory for humanity. Lives were saved, but the entire Earth's ecosystem collapsed.

 

There were nearly 8 billion people on the planet at the time, and after the war, only 4.4 billion remained.

 

During the war, the GCE Global Coalition for Energy was dismantled.

 

The Earth's environment began to deteriorate: the surface suffered from massive pollution, and the atmosphere was severely overloaded with carbon dioxide and micro-particulate matter - all as a result of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Or rather, the consequences of GCE's "Operation Deception".

 

The above-mentioned is the massive collapse of the ecosystem.

 

With so many new technologies, it was not enough for mankind to live on the energy of the sun.

 

In addition, the level of human technology is regressing, people desperately need to find a new way of life to adapt to the harsh environment, energy scarcity of the era.

 

In order to fight against such an unsuitable ecological environment, human beings have adopted a large number of social groups-no longer based on the country as a unit, but on the continent as a unit. Asian cities, American cities, European cities, African cities...Each of these "mega cities" occupies at least several thousand square kilometers, and the city boundaries are built into the clouds, with wind-conducting, huge walls made of special materials, in order to completely isolate the outside environment. Some "megacities" also build defensive works to defend against those mutant creatures.

 

People call such "super castles" as "Poly-Cities".

 

As for the energy problem, many people proposed "retroism" - that is, no longer developing high-energy products for civilian use, and completely discontinue them, replacing them with simple equipment from decades ago. Although many people expressed their discontent at one point, no body responded to their *demonstrations.

 

But in addition, no country in the Poly-Cities would willingly restore its military power back to its old days - for reasons that I believe are clear to everyone.

 

So, human life has been set back a century. The only ones who continue to enjoy high technology are the soldiers in the army.

 

The world has lost its former home. The children born in this era are unfortunate. But this misfortune is also the price that mankind must pay - the price paid for reckless decisions. Only, this price is borne by people who should not have to bear it.

 

Rebuilding homes and regaining new energy sources became a global topic of conversation.

 

After the 22nd century.

 

The United Nations soon set up a department for the purpose of reviving human civilization - ISNA, known as the "Interplanetary Search Network Agency". This was a smaller UN research department, whose daily work consisted mainly of laboratory construction and scientific research. These researchers tried to use the resources of outer space to develop some useful technological products to help mankind under the conditions of harsh environment and material scarcity.

At that time, the progress of human science and technology was almost entirely dependent on ISNA's research work.

 

ISNA did not let anyone down. Under the direction of its first director, they worked on "alien materials" and provided a powerful development of human technology - until one day ISNA announced that they would establish a research station on a distant planet that harbored life and energy station, attempting to use the unique resources there to research space warp engines as a way to get all of humanity off of the ecologically hostile Earth - they called it, "Operation Dawn".

 

The world seemed to see hope - all governments were strongly in favor of ISNA's approach. In response to the public, the United Nations had to approve ISNA's project application - an interplanetary travel mission that would take hundreds of years, and would require several generations of human beings to survive the nuclear winter on Earth before the "dawn" that ISNA promised would come.

 

After a magnetically bound antimatter propulsion spacecraft called "Nonaar's Ark" embarked on its 826 years, 7 months, and 21 days sailing mission, ISNA will no longer disclose any news in this regard to the media. The topic of "alien technology" also disappeared from public view during that time. Everyone began to set their sights on the super cities on all continents under construction-Poly-City. Countless workers looked at the huge wall that was so high in the plan that it was almost impossible to complete, and they had to lament under the gray sky.

 

 

After an unknown number of centuries, the Poly-City on each continents have long been completed, and people's living standards have been fully restored many years ago.

 

Until suddenly one day, on a very normal Friday, ISNA made a low-key announcement to the media about Operation Dawn: they had succeeded. ISNA produced a drawing sent from 620 light years away - a complete Akuberi warp engine was clearly outlined on it. That day, humanity officially entered the era of sublight interstellar navigation. Almost one step away from the development of sublight spacecraft, humanity could finally be free from Earth and no longer subject to any constraints ......

 

Operation Dawn was the only thing that people remembered ISNA for, it signified hope. So much so that ISNA changed their logo to a top view of the Nonaar Ark on that day as well.

 

...... Even more so, any subsequent approvals ISNA presented to the United Nations is no longer binding. The United Nations considers that any act that prevents ISNA research projects is equivalent to crimes against humanity.

 

Soon after, ISNA developed a military missile system called GSDS. It was originally said that it was only used to assist cruise missiles to accurately strike terrorists, but in fact its function is far more than that-or rather, it was not developed for this purpose at all.

 

During the same period, a brain-controlled AI called "Jensen" went live in the ISNA central control system. This AI will assist Richard, the main director, in managing the entire ISNA - from global business matters to the exploitation of resources on Earth-like planets. However, there was a lot of confusion about the origin of the brain samples in the AI - and a lot of curiosity about the relationship between this "Jensen" and GSDS.

 

At once, doubts resurfaced from the mouths of national defense spokesmen.

 

"GSDS is currently only available for missile guidance." Richard Alauer, the second and current head of ISNA, held a press conference after ending his hibernation in the hibernation chamber, saying, "Just give us a few more years before its capabilities, its mission, are fully demonstrated."

 

Just 3.5 years later, indeed, as Richard said, ISNA made the existence of GSDS a breaking news story - they built a ring of defensive space stations in Earth's near-Earth orbit, a space station carrying hundreds of laser turrets and other classified weapons systems, and with a wide range of positional shields that could be switched to more powerful energy shields if necessary.

 

Who knows how ISNA managed to complete such a huge project in such a short period of time. But according to ISNA, such a dangerous space station is the vehicle that embodies the function of GSDS - GSDS is its unmanned control system.

 

The full name of the GSDS was also soon announced: Global Strategic Defense System.

 

One of the points that caught people's attention was: why would ISNA want to build a defense mechanism for the entire planet? Could there be an alien attack?

 

ISNA's answer was: just in case.

 

The answer was so chilling that there were protests among the masses: they needed to understand what ISNA was up to, because if ISNA was playing with fire, it would probably burn down all of humanity - just like the GCE Global Coalition for Energy did.

 

But the UN ignored it - because its priority is to revive human civilization, so what does it care what means are used? The civilians were just stunned ...... For this reason, the protesting masses were chased away by the guards with tear gas.

 

Soon, though, things got serious.

 

A group of organized extremists emerged in the Netherlands and quickly grew in size. These people consisted mainly of radicals who were strongly opposed to ISNA, and they posed a considerable threat to many countries that use ISNA products. After the group began attacking a number of countries, it acquired its own acronym: BOCE, which is pronounced "Boss ".

 

They attacked ISNA's research institutes in various countries and destroyed ISNA's assets in order to prevent ISNA from continuing its dangerous research on extraterrestrial technology. With one terrorist attack after another, they are becoming closer and closer to bandits with no sense of reason, under the banner of "protecting the future of humanity".

 

In order to maintain peace, the UN had no choice but to let ISNA out of its own hands and develop military products to sell to war-torn countries.

 

After separating from the UN, ISNA soon researched a large number of new concepts of strategic weapons and unmanned technological products, even subverting the way of warfare. Orders from major powers began to increase dramatically as many countries sought to counter the BOCE threat at home, allowing ISNA to begin to grow - and even, it began to build up its military forces.

 

 

ISNA recruited the best soldiers from the world's major military schools with ease. And, as its strength grew, ISNA began to divide its soldiers into categories: peacekeeping forces and commissioner forces. Peacekeepers, who carry white equipment, receive more rigorous and innovative training than ordinary soldiers, allowing them to use the ISNA's powerful weaponry. Commissioner units, on the other hand, are not usually troops - they are simply called "commissioners" and usually wear black clothing during missions. Because of their small numbers and the fact that they are trained in a single type of training - warfare, information, and engineering - they are not all soldiers. Therefore, these Commissioners are usually world-class talents. In fact, the technology level of both types of troops is very high, mainly because of the different levels of training.

 

Besides, these warmen composed of world talents can basically be regarded as the crystallization of ISNA technology-they are the most efficient war elites in the world. These commissioners have as many nanomechanical bugs in their bodies as blood cells, and are able to repair damaged organisms at any time, remove foreign poisons, and even modify organ functions, generate energy shields in the epidermis, suppress emotions, etc. The most important thing is that their spinal nerves are connected to an artificial intelligence unit implant called AIU, which is responsible for collecting commands from the brain and sending them to the nanomachine bugs inside the body or to external electronic systems - the port protruding from the back of the implant is the module connection port. In addition, the AIU has an internal remote connection to the GSDS system of Jensen - it is equivalent to the commissioners having two brains, one is their own; the other is a cloud platform that can share information with all ISNA assets.

 

Then, ISNA began to build military bases in those uninhabited areas to protect nearby cities and states.

 

As it grew in size and power, ISNA became the most powerful military force in the world - and the United Nations soon became one of the pawns in ISNA's global monopoly.

 

This is all so similar to the GCE Global Coalition for Energy

 

In order to avoid repeating the same mistakes-or media opinion, ISNA did not invest all its arms in the annihilation of BOCE, but focused on the arms business-due to the tight borders of countries and the chaotic public order in the wasteland world, the T series armed mechs produced by ISNA made a lot of money in all the major countries.

 

Turning back to the topic, the van had been delivered to a base of ISNA located in the northern part of Asia.

 

This base is General Pilander's territory, called Snow Arrow Squadron, or Snow Arrow Base. It was still slightly smaller than the Starburst base near the Sahara Desert. But it's big enough - it's built on the flat of a snow-capped mountain range and covers an area the size of four New York Central Parks.

 

Moreover, it contains two airport runways and a space launch silo.

 

The van was sent straight to the bio-lab in C-2 - I wonder what was inside that was so classified and of such interest to ISNA - which usually only sends commissioners on missions that are not allowed to fail.