From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

2 month 27 day.

The North Pole region of Harvest Star during the extreme daylight period.

Although the diameter of Harvest is only 4,000 kilometers, which is not as large as Mars, thanks to the strong magnetic field protection, Harvest's atmosphere provides a livable environment and has complex seasonal changes.

The North Pole of the Harvest Star is like the South Pole of the Earth, with the original land and everything covered by ice.

According to the various scanning, detection and analysis of Eneo, it can be determined that the average thickness of the Arctic ice cap is about two hundred meters. At the same time, many places with abnormal magnetic fields have also been discovered.

The local colonists, including previous smart artificial intelligences, have never carefully explored these locations with abnormal magnetic fields. After all, their main goals are development, construction and land reclamation, and they do not have much energy to engage in scientific research and exploration.

On the other hand, Atlas, which was deployed to the Harvest Star through the space gate, had a firm attitude that "there are high-value alien relics here" and invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the search.

With Apu's assistance, it took the Atlas engineering team only two Earth days to locate one of the strange locations and begin rapid excavation work.

Come to the top of the site for a bird's-eye view.

The first thing to be discovered was that there were many temporary buildings erected on the edge of the excavation site, as well as landing platforms for stable parking of flying vehicles.

As for the central location, there is the "ice pit" dug by the snow-type Hex robot, and the metal remains at the bottom of the "ice pit".

Get closer and observe.

You can find metal walls engraved with unknown patterns, diagonally inserted into the hard rock formation, and blue-green light leaking out from the gaps.

Follow the opened gate and enter the interior of the ruins.

The spacious passage was also lit up with blue-green light. Technicians affiliated with Atlas, under the protection of the accompanying emergency countermeasures force, carried out on-site collection, research and other work.

Continue down.

The structure of the ruins is simple and clear, without the maze of tunnels, paths or traps found in ancient tombs.

Following the spacious main passage to the depths below the surface, you arrive at an extremely open cave space.

A large number of metal pillars support the area. There is still a large amount of metal embedded in the rock wall, and the general control platform in the area is like an isolated island, surrounded by a bottomless dark abyss.

At the end of the main passage, there are two "light bridges" that look like transparent glass across the abyss, and are then linked to the master control platform to facilitate the passage of Atlas personnel and vehicles.

At this time, the team headed by Sui Yang reached the end position.

He took the lead on the light bridge without any scruples and headed towards the master control platform.

Fulgrim, Angron, and researchers with many titles followed closely behind, as if they were floating above the abyss together.

"."

But Riemann, standing on the edge of the cliff, hesitated and refused to walk onto the light bridge.

He looked down, and with the original body's extraordinary vision, he vaguely saw what seemed to be a rolling river of magma at the bottom of the abyss.

Looking at the light bridge that seemed to be formed by some kind of particles, Riemann felt that the bridge would suddenly dissipate, causing him to fall into the abyss.

He had no choice but to follow his father deep into this dark alien ruins.

Also, he is a little afraid of heights.

Slow down.

!

Riemann took a deep breath, walked quickly with his eyes wide open, and followed a researcher whose hair was somewhat bald due to years of thinking and working overtime through the light bridge and arrived at the main control platform.

Under the doubtful eyes of Fulgrim and Angron, he joined the two brothers, and then looked at his father who was near the main console with an expression like "nothing happened just now."

In contrast, Sui Yang.

For him personally, everything here feels very familiar, because as early as a hundred years ago, he learned about Harvest Star and the Forerunner ruins in advance by playing "Halo Wars 1" repeatedly.

Moreover, after the communication on Harvest was restored, Apu indeed helped them confuse the UNSC and UEG in their judgment of the situation on Harvest. At the same time, he also provided a large number of mature technical blueprints, as well as all colonies including Reach and Arcadia. specific coordinates.

The piece of information that Sui Yang paid the most attention to was that Apu obtained the UNSC's Naval Intelligence Agency through the AI ​​Council. The notorious ONI, which protected all mankind in the "Halo" universe, was fighting with the 18-year-old ONI. Year-old Katherine Halsey discusses 'what's next'.

ONI executives have analyzed that if humanity continues to fall into civil strife, the war will last for at least 30 years and 50 billion people will die.

This will eventually lead to the collapse of human civilization, the complete loss of contact between the earth and the colonies everywhere, technological regression, and some colonies will even degenerate into the Middle Ages or the Stone Age.

Therefore, ONI intends to restart the Orion Project and prepare to build a team of super soldiers who have been trained since childhood and undergo transformation surgery to accurately assassinate rebel leaders and reduce counter-insurgency costs and casualties as much as possible.

The solution provided by Catherine Halsey was very much in line with the expectations of ONI senior officials.

However, the UNSC is still waiting and watching. It seems that it does not want to bear the charges of "kidnapping children" and "anti-human transformation surgery", causing its already extremely poor reputation to drop again and again.

After learning this, Sui Yang prepared to send the elite of the Investigation Department to Reach to take the opportunity to "capture" Catherine Halsey.

As long as we acquire that genius among geniuses, Atlas will achieve rapid breakthroughs in various fields.

Especially combined with Atlas' existing biotechnology, it may be possible to create a more powerful "Spartan II".

Moreover, Apu also assisted the company in improving the modification plan of the Selune class and the Fidus class, so that the jump engine can be installed in the shortest time without affecting the hull structure.

Therefore, as long as Atlas is given some time to relax and a 3D printing factory and an automated shipbuilding dock are set up on Harvest, the speed of shipbuilding can be replicated.

You must know that Apu not only perfected the Selune-class and Fidus-class, but also provided the construction of mainstream UNSC ships, such as Stalwart-class frigates, Phoenix-class support boats, Sahara-class heavy cruisers, New Era-class heavy aircraft carriers, etc. blueprint.

It is equivalent to Atlas being able to directly build mainstream UNSC ships with only minor adjustments.

now;

Sui Yang no longer thought about "capturing" Halsey and shipbuilding, but focused on the main console in front of him, stretched out his left hand, and touched the blue sphere engraved with unknown runes.

Swish-!

In an instant, the sphere burst out with a burst of dazzling light, and then released a three-dimensional star map outwards, allowing the people gathered on the master control platform to be immersed in the vast ocean of the universe with various planets and stars.

But before Sui Yang got Apu's preliminary analysis results, he heard the cold voice in his mind:

[The two heirs have arrived in the Arctic region of the Harvest Star]