Chapter 272 - Black Goo

Upon hearing Chen Chen’s analysis, Little X remarked thoughtfully, “Which means that a nuclear war between mankind and cyborgs did break out. According to the details provided in Alien 4, mankind only managed to achieve a pyrrhic victory, even losing the ability to restore the Earth’s condition in the process?”

“Yes, but now I suspect that mankind might have gone extinct.”

Chen Chen replied.

“Why, didn’t mankind emerge victorious? Or was it that mankind was unable to survive in the aftermath of a post-nuclear world?”

Little X was slightly confused.

“This speculation isn’t related to the Alien dimension, it has to do with the USB drive…”

Chen Chen shot a glance at the USB drive plugged into the computer and expressed with a frown, “Alright, there’s no point making all these assumptions, the most important thing now is to continue exploring. In this case, Little X, dispatch four Black Knights to head into the world and explore it and rendezvous in seventy-two hours. In this seventy-two-hour, collect as much information on the dimension as possible while prioritizing on safety.”

“Understood.”

Following Little X’s response, four fully suited Black Knights immediately got up. They filed into the passage one after the other, vanishing into the computer display…

This time around, Chen Chen had expected the Black Knights to return empty-handed or potentially face their demise on the other end. Surprisingly, they returned to the rendezvous point at the seventy-two-hour mark, all four of them unscathed.

On top of that, the Black Knights brought back information concerning the environmental holographic simulator as well as titbits of cyborg technology and nuclear power technology similar to the ones in Elysium.

The Black Knights also returned with reports of the dimension on the other end of the passage. They had verified that human civilization in the dimension had perished.

Nuclear war was the cause for their extinction, but that was not the sole reason…

At this moment, Chen Chen was fiddling with a Rubik’s cube in his hand.

This was a regular 3 by 3 Rubik’s cube. However, anyone acquainted with Prometheus would know that this was also a form of mini holographic device. The only difference was that the functionality of these portable devices was not as complete as the large environmental holographic simulators.

In the opening sequence of the movie, Professor Halloway, the one who was drugged by David, had used this exact device to project the star pattern in the murals.

This magic cube device was found among the ruins by one of the Black Knights.

After being disinfected and thoroughly inspected to ensure it was harmless, it was delivered to Chen Chen’s hands.

Following the sequence as shown in the movie, Chen Chen tried to click several buttons before clicking the play button on its center. The magic cube activated instantly, transforming Chen Chen’s current surroundings into a room covered in rusted spots.

At the same time, a red-haired young lady wearing futuristic high-tech clothing appeared out of thin air before Chen Chen.

Her clothing was immediately distinguishable as high-tech wear because the suit managed to fuse its exoskeleton coverings with the fitting blue tights underneath. Despite it being tattered and full of stains, Chen Chen could tell it was something extraordinary at first glance.

“This is a holographic image!”

Little X marveled. “It’s strikingly similar to the environmental holographic simulator. It also utilizes a form of light scribing technology in conjunction with the principle of refraction to restore previously recorded footage. In truth, your surrounding environment is still the same.”

“I understand.”

Chen Chen nodded and looked around him. He saw that the room projected by the hologram device was covered in rusted spots. Apart from a sealed door, there were no windows to be seen in the room while a dim yellow light source hung overhead.

This simulated environment filled Chen Chen with an overwhelming sense of dread.

The young woman standing before Chen Chen blended in very well with the surrounding environment. Her cheeks were sunken and dry, her expression haggard. Due to her hair not being washed for an extended period, they stuck together in unordered clumps.

Needless to be said, she was not doing very well here.

Chen Chen only surveyed his surroundings briefly before directing his full attention to this lady. At the same time, the lady began speaking.

“Today is day 875. Ever since Fusafa’s death, I haven’t been able to find any similar species, only strange monsters everywhere.”

Her voice was unbearably hoarse and without any trace of emotion like a completely indifferent robot. It was only Chen Chen who was able to sense great despair underneath this monotone voice.

The voice continued. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. A year or a month, maybe I won’t even be able to last another week. I can only hide in the safehouse and await Death itself to come…

“Last night, a monster almost noticed me. Fortunately, I activated the emergency broadcast in time and distracted the monster with a noise in the distance. Otherwise, I may find myself in the underground nest of the monster upon waking up…

“Also, the food from the last forage was finished today. I have to head outside and forage again, I hope I get to record again, if at all…”

What came after were just regular ramblings. This lady seemed to be using this as an outlet to vent the pent-up pressure she was feeling. Without doing this, any other person would crumble under the pressure of having to survive alone in a post-apocalyptic world with monsters hunting them down.

According to Chen Chen’s understanding, this device was found in the ruins. This suggested that it was extremely likely that the person shown in the holographic display had met her demise after heading out, otherwise, she would not have left the device behind.

“She may have referred to them as monsters, but what she’s saying suggests that there are still aliens on Earth…”

Chen Chen expressed gravely as he turned to face Little X. “Are you sure the Black Knights didn’t encounter aliens?”

“None at all.”

Little X responded, “Everything the Black Knights saw was recorded in the chip. I’ve gone through the databank in the chip and didn’t find anything concerning aliens.”

“This means that the aliens have entered hibernation.”

Chen Chen suddenly jolted and seemed to have realized something.

In the second installation of the Alien series, it was mentioned that humans had migrated to a planet called LV-223 and that there were alien life forms on that planet.

Initially, the colonizers did not encounter anything at all. As they began to build the migration camps and started to thrive on the planet, they awakened the alien that had been asleep underground for years. In the end, the entire migration base turned into a vessel for the aliens to reproduce.

“With no food available to them, the aliens entered a state of hibernation just like how cold-blooded animals hibernate during the winter. The only difference was that they could hibernate for far longer, up to several hundreds of thousands of years at a time.”

Little X began explaining, “But what I’m more curious about is how these aliens made it to Earth. Is there a chance that your speculation was false? That the Earth was in ruins because of a major battle between mankind and the aliens?”

“Impossible!”

Chen Chen abruptly interjected, “The timeline in the Prometheus universe says everything you need to know. In 2091, humans were already capable of migrating to space. It’d be natural to assume that three-hundred years later in the Alien dimension, mankind would be more capable of doing so with far more advanced technology. By that point, mankind must have plenty of colonies in outer space. Aliens couldn’t possibly completely eradicate human civilization.

“In that vein, as long as mankind wasn’t completely wiped out, there was a small chance of Earth, the first home of civilization being simply abandoned. It’s even more unlikely that Earth would be left in complete ruins. This is why I’m sure that the humans in the Alien dimension have been completely wiped out, including the colonies in other planets.

“Therefore, only the cyborgs who were tightly integrated into human society and potentially understood humans even more than humans themselves could’ve incited the nuclear war. Since the cyborgs had the same control over the internet network as humans did, the first thing they would do once they began rebelling was to launch nuclear missiles to destroy mankind’s civilization. After that, they could assume control. This was the only chance the cyborgs had at emerging victorious!”

“Then how does this explain the hologram suggesting that there are aliens on Earth?”

The puzzled Little X asked.

“It has to be the work of the cyborgs.”

Chen Chen sneered. “Isn’t everything explained clearly in Alien: Covenant? David successfully blended into human society in the end. After the war between mankind and cyborgs where the cyborgs were wiped out, the humans suffered heavy losses as well. David, who was bitter about the defeat, sent the black goo to Earth as well as all the planets populated by humans.

“By this point, Earth had become a wasteland. Also, since all of the cyborg population was in the rebellion, none of the colonized planets was spared. Hundreds of years of human industrial development were left in ruins overnight and while they were the most vulnerable, an alien life form began to surface on Earth. What do you think happens after this?”

Little X was still somewhat doubtful. “Then why didn’t David use the black goo right away? Judging by his fervent research on the black goo in the movie, wouldn’t it be easier to wipe out mankind with the black goo than to resort to nuclear options?”

Chen Chen went on explaining, “There wasn’t a lot of black goo. Besides, society wasn’t as underdeveloped as the Engineers race civilization depicted in the movie to be so easily overcome by mere black goo. Even if black goo were to be used to create aliens, do you think they could pose a substantial threat to human civilization, regardless of how powerful they were?

“Forget about the future set several centuries from now, let’s take our current age for example. Suppose that an alien egg appeared in one of the cities in North America and it successfully kills a human to give birth to an alien. After several months of growth, the alien evolves into an alien queen on its own and begins laying eggs, creating more alien eggs…

“Maybe within a short time, the alien population explodes into the range of hundreds or even thousands, but what happens after that?”

Chen Chen raised the question. “A large number of the population goes missing along with an even greater number of witnesses. These abnormal activities will surely alert the government. What comes after that is that the army will be mobilized with battle tanks and helicopters and the city locked down for them to rain hellfire on the aliens. Suppose that by that point, the alien population has grown to ten thousand, so what?

“Suppose that a handful manages to escape and sneak into neighboring villages or cities, so what? Worst comes to worst, the exact scenario is repeated with another city, which by this point the government will become far more alert. The moment they notice something amiss, they take the appropriate measures. The aliens that escape wouldn’t have any time at all to repopulate.

“Suppose that there’s a measly one-percent chance that the North American Continent suffers a devastating defeat in their first major battle with the aliens. What will the other continents do? Will the Earth Federation remain idle?

“All this is to say that the aliens may only prove to be a major challenge, but not enough to threaten the very existence of civilization. Especially if we’re talking about modern civilization several centuries from here on.”

“That’s true, if this was in the ancient times or medieval ages, the aliens may be able to wipe out humans. However, this wouldn’t be possible in modern times.” Little X agreed.

“Therefore, nuclear missiles are still the best option for eradicating mankind. The black goo was only released when the cyborg realized they had been utterly defeated. In the end, the black goo became the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Chen Chen concluded. “This is my speculation on the devastation of mankind in the Alien universe.”

“I see…” Little X suddenly understood.

“Of course, there’s no telling if this was what happened yet.”

Chen Chen considered briefly before picking up the silver-white magic cube from the ground again. “Crack it. Chart a complete report of all the footage recorded by this woman, perhaps all of the answers we need are inside them.”

“Understood!”

After Little X gave its word, Chen Chen returned to the computer where he shut off the passage.

Since he managed to acquire what he needed relatively easy on this attempt, Chen Chen decided to stop exploring for now. Just as he was about to unplug the USB drive, his hand suddenly paused mid-motion.

“Black goo…”

Chen Chen muttered to himself, “The functionalities of the black goo were clearly defined in the movies Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. It’s a form of bioenergy in which a small amount of infection may cause genetic restructuring while infection in large doses may dehydrate and carbonize the body. Upon coming in contact with water after the carbonization, new DNA will be formed, thus giving birth to a new life form.

“The reason the Engineers race developed the black goo was to solve their struggles with continued reproduction.”

Based on the movie narration, the Engineers race had an extremely long lifespan up to 330,000 years. However, their lifespan proved to be detrimental to them as somewhere along the lines, the Engineers race had lost the ability to reproduce.

So, they began searching for their “God”, which was the alien-like life form shown in the murals in Prometheus. In truth, they were not aliens. Among the Engineers race, the alien-like God was referred to as “Deacon”. By drinking the blood of Deacon, the Engineers may find hope for the continued reproduction of their race.

There was a good reason behind the Engineers worshipping Deacon and even believing that the Deacon’s blood may restore their ability to reproduce.

In the extended cut of the movie, it was very subtly hinted that Deacon was the being that created the Engineers race. Later on, to restore their ability to reproduce, the Engineers began drinking the blood of Deacon. This was shown in the opening sequence of the movie.

In a ceremony resembling a sacrificial ritual, an Engineer having consumed the blood of Deacon was put to death, which the genetic of the dead was restructured to give birth to a new life form – humans.

The black goo shown in the later stages of the movie was merely artificial Deacon blood. After all, natural Deacon blood was scarce. Despite being an artificial product, it was still capable of restructuring genetics, its potential was unlimited…

The idea suddenly occurred to Chen Chen like a brilliant spark. Chen Chen narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Can it create new life?

“The only question is, will I be able to do it better than David did in the movie?”

Chen Chen murmured as the corner of his lips turned up into a faint smirk. He suddenly opened the USB drive again, slowly reaching into the display with his left hand…