Interstellar Survival: Invasion

Prologue: Planetary War

April 29th, 2070 CE. As war raged across the world, I, the future messiah of the universe, was born in a makeshift underground hospital.

I was named Li Canyue, which meant waning moon. During the invasion, the moon lost a chunk of its body from a violent explosion. To commemorate the once beautiful celestial body orbiting our planet, my parents gave me that name.

The war lasted ten years. Born in the flames of war, I grew up among rubble. During my childhood, I often gazed longingly at the spaceships flying high in the sky, dreaming of possessing my own spaceship one day. Without the pollution of light, the resplendent Milky Way could be clearly seen every single night. The night sky was akin to a magical painting, constantly beckoning me to experience its wonders.

I dreamed of one day commanding a spaceship myself and leaving the Solar System to explore the universe for its true secret.

Year 2090. I was all grown up. A new era, the era of Li Canyue, was coming! Hahaha!

Pa! A slap arrived at the back of my head.

"Canyue, do the dishes." Mother's furious bellow brought me back to reality. "Teacher Chen complained to me today. He told me that you ranked last in six out of seven subjects in the preliminary examinations! You're infuriating me to death!"

To the side, Father chided, "Always wasting your time being unproductive instead of studying properly. When are you going to grow up?"

"What decade are you living in? Knowledge can be easily copied and downloaded into brains nowadays. Why are you insisting that I learn the old-fashioned way?" I retorted loudly. "Look at Zhao Xiaohao. He can't even speak properly, yet he has already become a pilot by relying on downloaded knowledge!"

"I'll beat you to death!" Mother raged. "Piloting knowledge is astronomically expensive to procure. Our family is not that rich. When you reach adulthood, you should be satisfied with downloading a set of dock-work knowledge and taking on the same profession as your father."

"Why can the Gliesens download knowledge for free, while us, Bluelings, can't?" I complained loudly.

"Shut your mouth! Are you tired of living?" Father hurriedly covered my mouth.

In truth, I understood how things were. Father was a law-abiding citizen working as a docker in an interstellar haulage team. His job mainly involved the loading and unloading of goods through machinery. Mother was a common teacher. With their meager income, they could not afford a high-tier knowledge download for their son.

After Gliese conquered Blue, the Gliesens had systematically restricted the Bluelings from high-tier knowledge and high-income jobs to prevent the resistance from gaining more strength.

In fact, 90 percent of Blue natives lived in poverty, earning only enough to feed themselves. Rapid-learning technology such as knowledge download was available, but the exorbitant price forced a majority of Bluelings to continue studying the old-fashioned way. Meanwhile, the Gliesens enjoyed the special right of free education. This societal injustice thus served as a seed of hatred among the people of Blue.

Done with scolding me, Mother went out for a walk with Father. I could only obediently do the dishes while entertaining myself with more grandeur dreams of interstellar exploration. After doing the dishes, I sat before my desk and stealthily took out my long-time collection from the drawer. It was a book I couldn't be more familiar with, the banned book History of Resistance. The sight of the book brought my thoughts back to a time when the flames of war still ravaged the planet.

Everything began with the discovery of Voyager 1.

Radio contact was finally reestablished with the long-lost Voyager 1. Unfortunately, the contact was made not by humans but by aliens. Hawking once cautioned against exposing Blue's existence to any extraterritorial existence. However, not only did humanity outfit Voyager 1 with the Golden Record, but it also contained the exact location of the Solar System within the Milky Way Galaxy. Hawking had warned of the dangers of doing so.

In 1977, Voyager 1 set off from Blue. In 2012, it left the Solar System. In 2025, Blue lost all contact with the probe. Everything that happened after was no longer in Blue's control.

A total of 45 years then passed. It was the year 2070. If Voyager 1 was still traveling through space, it would be almost 100 billion kilometers away from Blue. In terms of light-speed, only about 4 days would have passed to go so far. Meanwhile, the nearest star to the Solar System was about 4.22 light-years away.

On Blue, humanity was still enjoying their peaceful lives while science and technology continued developing in big strides. On April 1st, April Fool's Day, the aliens arrived. War broke out.

While the people of Blue were still completely unprepared, these extraterrestrial beings suddenly appeared outside Blue through sublight speed and wormhole travel. They demanded surrender, their message broadcast using the languages of all countries on Blue. Also accompanying their broadcast was the music of all countries from the 70s.

At first, the United Nations did not know how to react. Soon, their analysts discovered that all the languages and songs broadcast came from Voyager 1. In other words, these extraterrestrial visitors had learned of Blue from Voyager 1 before launching their invasion through a wormhole.

It was not until after a decade of war that humanity finally understood the real reason behind the invasion. The invaders had long developed sublight speed and wormhole travel technology. However, they lacked the Hubble telescope-associated technology. Thus, they were unable to discover suitable planets for occupation.

Through Voyager 1's radio waves, the aliens discovered the probe. They took the probe into their spacecraft, and from there, they started unveiling the secrets of Blue.

These aliens originated from Gliese 581b of the Libra Constellation, about 20.5 light-years away from Blue. To reach Blue, the Gliesen fleet had exhausted a majority of their energy supply traveling through the wormhole. After their arrival, they only had enough energy left for conquest. If they were to return home, they would have to do it after conquering the planet.

Humanity was not one to surrender without a struggle. Thus, after attempts at diplomacy failed, Blue launched the first strike. Utilizing laser-guided missiles, zero-radiation warheads, and stealth technology, humanity launched a surprise attack, dubbed the Athena Plan, against the aliens.

Dozens of stealthed missiles were unleashed upon the Gliesen fleet. The plan seemed to be progressing smoothly as Gliese was completely unprepared for the attack. A dazzling illumination turned night into day as explosions bloomed in the sky. But to the Blueling army's surprise, the Gliesen fleet remained completely undamaged despite their lack of energy shields.

The surprise attack infuriated the Gliesens, and they immediately attacked with their spaceships. Blue welcomed the fight with their latest fighter, Phantom 2000. A fighter aircraft capable of self-piloting, it was also equipped with an energy shield and laser-guided cluster bombs. Each bomb was powerful enough to flatten Mount Qomolangma, the tallest mountain on Blue.

Only when the battle started did the Blueling army discover the core technology of the Gliesen fleet, the morph-shielding technology. Every time Blueling weaponry struck a Gliesen spaceship, the spaceships hull would ripple from the impact of the explosion before returning to normal. The morph-shielding technology was also capable of isolating heat and shockwaves, providing perfect protection to the personnel of each spaceship.

As for Gliesen weaponry, it was rather simple. They were basically using weapons similar to the conventional weapons of 21st-century Blue. The only difference was that all their bullets were outfitted with tracking technology. At the same time, they possessed the ability to unleash hundreds of thousands of bullets at the same time. The swarm of tracking bullets and guided missiles proved too much for Blue's energy shields. The unrelenting bombardment brought one aircraft after another down.

The sky was filled with laser-guided missiles, zero-radiation warheads, and cluster bombs, creating a dazzling spectacle. The Blueling army was ultimately defeated by the Gliesen using weapons Blue had phased out in the early 21st century thanks to Gliese's superior shielding technology.

After losing the fight in the sky, the war reached the ground. The United Nations organized the army of the various countries and resisted the invasion. Without aircraft, a Blueling soldier was incapable of penetrating even the uniform of a Gliesen soldier with their bullets. Meanwhile, the Gliesen bullets were able to cause massive casualties among the Blueling soldiers.

An average Gliesen soldier was two meters in height. Clad in morph-capable uniforms with a tail trailing behind each of them, the Gliesens marched into country after country with their heads held high. Ultimately, the Bluelings could only accept their defeat in sorrow.

During the war, Blue lost about two billion of its elites. At the time, Blue had a population of ten billion. However, the two billion elites they lost proved extremely costly as they had also lost an entire generation of technological advancement.

Almost all the talented individuals with knowledge of high-end spacecraft and weaponry were gone, rendering Blue completely incapable of continuing the war. Submission was their only option. It was at that moment that the seed of hatred was buried deep among the people of Blue.

The United Nations then contacted the Gliesens with their team of diplomats to negotiate the terms of surrender. Taking on the dominant position of victors, the Gliesens started the negotiation with Blue. Eventually, an agreement was reached, and a treaty was signed.

The Gliesen civilization was slightly more advanced than the Blueling civilization, and they ruled their planet through a system of grades. The resource they lacked most was Fe, the element iron. That was also their main goal in invading Blue.

It was rather unbelievable, but Gliese's morph technology relied on an energy they dubbed the iron energy. Even their interstellar sublight speed travel relied on the energy harvested from the iron element. Iron, which Blue had in abundance, was actually as rare as Blue's silver on Gliese. Thus, their supply of iron was far from sufficient to sustain their stellar ambitions.

The first matter in the peace treaty involved the acknowledgment of their respective positions: the conquered and the conqueror. The countries of Blue were allowed to remain, but each country would be assigned a Gliesen noble and be stationed with an army of Gliesen soldiers. Gliese would not interfere with their internal affairs and would only be in charge of supervising the mining of iron.

Each country was required to contribute 60 percent of their iron output to Gliese as tribute. Those who failed to do so would have the management of their country taken over by the newly established Interstellar League.

The president of the Interstellar League was a Gliesen duke. At the same time, Gliese also occupied about 90 percent of the seats in the league. Blue had basically been reduced to an iron-producing colony of Gliese.

That was the start of the Interstellar Colonial Era.