65 Million Years Ago, Venus
Nikola Tesla, Abbott, and Colonel Feynman stepped out of the space elevator and onto the outdoor platform of Power Station No. 1, located on Venus’s equator.
“Is this Tower Island, the site I chose back then for the superluminal-wave power station?” Tesla asked Abbott.
“Yes. This is Tower Island, on the equator of Venus,” Abbott replied gravely.
“The old Tower Island was only fifty meters above sea level, and it was very small. Now this whole place has become land. Has the sea receded? Or have the mountains risen?”
“The superluminal-wave power station caused the sea to recede. We’re now standing at an altitude of three thousand meters. You could also say the mountains have risen.”
Tesla could hardly believe his ears. He cried out:
“It’s only been a few decades. How could this happen?”
The Venus in Nikola Tesla’s memory had a pleasant climate and relatively stable tectonic plates. It was a paradise fit for Venusian human habitation.
Venus lay 108 million kilometers from the Sun, its orbit positioned at the best point within the Solar System’s habitable zone. Because Venus’s axial tilt was close to zero, there were almost no seasonal changes throughout the year.
Of course there were temperature variations, but they did not change with time; they changed with latitude. The equator was hot, and the poles were cold.
At sixty degrees north and south latitude, the average daily minimum and maximum temperatures were 10 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius, respectively.
Because the proportion of land area in Venus’s northern hemisphere was higher than in the southern hemisphere, the belt around sixty degrees north latitude was the main region where Venusians gathered and lived.
Ruifenbao was located in Venus’s East Third Zone, at fifty-nine degrees north latitude. It was the seat of the Venusian Alliance’s administrative organs. Venusians liked to associate the city with a kind of strong liquor, jokingly calling it “59-degree vodka.”
The driverless electric car carrying the group stopped in front of the Venusian Alliance Administrative Building. The doors opened automatically, and Colonel Feynman hurried a few steps ahead, professionally and politely guiding Tesla and Abbott into the building.
“Director Diston, this is Mr. Nikola Tesla. We have successfully awakened him and brought him before you,” Abbott introduced him to Diston, Director of the Alliance General Office.
Diston, Director of the Venusian Alliance General Office, was tall, with dark skin tinged red, short curly hair, and deep-set eyes.
“Nikola, it is wonderful that you have awakened and can help us all. To avoid public panic, today’s conversation must remain highly confidential.” Diston gestured for President Abbott to explain the situation on Venus to Tesla.
President Abbott activated the holographic projection, and a spherical Venus with detailed topographical markings appeared before Nikola Tesla’s eyes.
Ninety years ago, Nikola Tesla, then forty years old, had begun researching the problem of energy after inventing alternating current.
He firmly believed that all physical events and the laws behind them could be expressed in terms of energy.
Energy determined everything. Energy was everything.
Nikola Tesla proposed the superluminal-wave hypothesis: that the universe was filled with a kind of uniform, omnidirectional energy wave. Its wave velocity was extremely high, its frequency on the order of 10 to the 16th power and above, and its wavelength approximately 170,360 kilometers.
If an object’s diameter was greater than that wavelength, such as a star, it would be struck by incident superluminal waves and undergo a powerful energetic reaction. If an object’s diameter was smaller than the wavelength of superluminal waves, the waves would diffract around it; no energetic reaction would occur, and the object would not sense the existence of superluminal waves.
Based on his theory of superluminal waves, Tesla wrote a paper titled The Dynamic Principle of Gravity.
After the paper was submitted to the Venusian Alliance Academy of Sciences, most academicians in physics and astronomy did not accept it. Only Abbott, who was not yet president at the time, strongly praised it and organized multiple verification experiments on superluminal waves.
In the years that followed, Tesla turned to research on superluminal-wave energy applications and selected a site for the planned superluminal-wave power station.
With the abundant electrical power provided by superluminal waves, he and his girlfriend Maria, a bioengineering specialist, hoped through their efforts to transform the ideal that everyone yearned for—“ultimate immortality”—into an achievable engineering plan.
Their plan was:
To achieve immortality of the body through genetic cloning technology;
To achieve immortality of consciousness through brain-computer connectivity technology.
At the age of forty-three, the Venusian Nikola Tesla invented a non-contact high-speed brain-computer connector, which he called the “Lightning Ball.” During one experiment, an accident occurred. He fell unconscious and became a vegetative patient, sleeping for a full eighty-six years.
“Abbott, I remember everything before I fell asleep. Hurry and tell me what happened afterward,” Tesla pressed Abbott.
In the decades after Tesla fell asleep, Venusian technology developed at tremendous speed, advancing from the electrical age he had pioneered into the information age.
The superluminal-wave theory research group led by Abbott, through observations of solar activity, discovered the periodic effects that the occultation relationships of celestial bodies such as Regulus and Jupiter had on sunspots and solar flares, thereby indirectly verifying superluminal-wave theory.
Sixty years ago, the Venusian Alliance Space Agency launched two space tugs to pull up a “rope” 180,000 kilometers long and received energy from incident superluminal waves, thus finding direct evidence of the existence of superluminal waves.
An artificial structure 180,000 kilometers in length could be struck by a full wavelength of superluminal waves, becoming an inexhaustible source of energy—in other words, what was called a superluminal-wave power station.
Abbott and the project team experts were concerned about possible side effects from the superluminal-wave power station, so they did not build one directly on Venus. Instead, in the distant Saturn system, they connected a 180,000-kilometer-long structure between Saturn and its largest moon, Sedna, completing the first superluminal-wave power station in the history of Venusian humanity.
The Saturn power station provided ample energy support for Venusian space activities. After several years of observation, no side effects from the superluminal-wave power station were discovered.
Sedna was the largest moon in the Solar System, its surface covered in a thick ice shell. Perhaps under the influence of the power station as a super heat source, only a small amount of sublimation was monitored, in which solid ice turned into water vapor.
Faced with ironclad proof, the Venusian scientists who had once questioned superluminal-wave theory turned to supporting the construction of superluminal-wave power stations, in order to fill the gap between the ever-growing demand for computing power and the increasingly inadequate supply of electricity.
On Tower Island at Venus’s equator, the site suggested in Nikola Tesla’s paper, Abbott and the others extended the ninety-thousand-kilometer-high space elevator originally used for transport to 180,000 kilometers, completing the first Venusian superluminal-wave power station.
Superluminal-wave energy, which did not rely on the Sun, could truly be called “inexhaustible and endless.” Thus, along Venus’s equator, Power Stations No. 2 and No. 3 were built one after another. Venus’s computing power had ample energy support, and artificial intelligence models expanded at a geometric rate.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last. The side effects of the superluminal-wave power stations began to appear. Because the thermoelectric conversion rate could not reach the theoretical design value of one hundred percent, the remaining heat energy accumulated inside Venus through the rock of Tower Island.
In the short span of only a few decades, Venus’s tectonic activity intensified, its terrain changed violently, volcanoes erupted in many places, and earthquakes above magnitude 8 occurred one after another.
Incredibly, under the effect of intense tectonic collisions, the Tower Island region rose sharply, its elevation increasing from fifty meters to more than three thousand meters today. Land was exposed, and the sea receded.
Rocks rising above sea level released large quantities of carbon dioxide under sunlight, which accumulated in Venus’s atmosphere and produced a powerful greenhouse effect.
Frequent volcanic eruptions also caused the proportion of sulfides in the atmosphere to rise sharply. In many regions of Venus, people actually had to wear gas masks when moving outdoors.
“How could this be? Then you should immediately disconnect the 180,000-kilometer-long structure and shut down the power station!” Nikola Tesla said anxiously.
“A few years ago, we already shut down all the superluminal-wave power stations except for No. 1. Considering that computing power’s demand for electricity is rigid, if we shut down Power Station No. 1, many intelligent tools people are accustomed to will be paralyzed.” Abbott rubbed his hands and shook his head, showing how caught between two difficulties he was.
“With Power Station No. 1 producing such serious side effects, leaving it running is no solution. Do you have any follow-up plan?” Tesla asked.
“Nikola, this is not merely a question of whether Power Station No. 1 should be shut down. The matter is far more serious than you imagine. That is why I went to Mars to awaken you.”
Pointing at the densely packed volcanic craters on the surface of Venus, Abbott continued, “Volcanic eruptions, atmospheric deterioration, rapidly rising temperatures—Venus may no longer be suitable for us humans to inhabit.”
“You mean that even if we shut down Power Station No. 1 now, we can’t return Venus to the way it was before?” Tesla asked.
“Very unfortunately, before nature we are insignificant. The deterioration of Venus’s environment is irreversible and cannot be stopped. Soon, Venus will no longer be suitable for us Venusian humans to live on.” Diston took over and spoke this unacceptable secret aloud.
He continued, “This is also why we urgently awakened you. We hope that you and President Abbott can face this colossal crisis together.”
Tesla trembled all over and asked loudly, “Ah? If Power Station No. 1 is shut down immediately, have you calculated how much time we Venusians have left to escape Venus?”
Abbott stared at Tesla, desolation in his low voice, and answered:
“Counting down from now, we estimate there are fifty Venusian years left.”
&
Chapter-closing cento:
Things respond best when applied in perilous places. Song, Shi Daoqian
Suddenly the cable snapped and could no longer hold. Song, Zhao Fan
Outside Qingguang Gate, a channel of water. Tang, Liu Yuxi
Whether it will return in force remains unknown. Tang, Du Mu