Die on Mars

"The Roman Empire?" The old cat buried his head in the cabinet, sorting out the miscellaneous items. "The Roman Empire was a very typical centralized classical empire. Although its political system was not as stable as ancient China at the same time, it was still the only almost unified empire in history. A huge country that controlled the entire Europe. At its peak, the Roman Empire was large enough to include the Mediterranean Sea as an inland sea. After the fall of ancient Rome and until the disappearance of the earth, Europe could not be reunited."

"The Western Roman Empire fell in the fifth century AD."

"Yes, in fact, Rome was actually divided in the fourth century. The Western Roman Empire perished at the hands of the Germans, Huns and Goths during the barbarian invasion. It was the first large-scale ethnic migration in history. "The old cat placed the bottles and jars in the cabinet on the floor. "From then on, the glory of ancient Rome ceased to exist. Europe fell into a thousand-year war. Citizens turned into serfs. The church controlled people's thoughts. No one anymore. Discussing philosophy and art.”

"Is this considered a step back?" Maidong asked.

"Spiral upward." The old cat paused, "Miss Maidong, history is an upward spiral. People sometimes go astray, but they will not always go astray. In engineering, this is called negative feedback control."

"Isn't the Middle Ages a dark age?" Tang Yue's voice sounded on the channel. "The church is hostile to all those who oppose theology. The Inquisition declared them heretics and then threw them into the fire and burned them to death. Is that so? I remember it was in the elementary school textbook. There was Bruno and Copernicus.”

"Then you should learn to look at problems outside of elementary school textbooks."

"Anyway, the reputation of those magicians is not very good." Tang Yue muttered, "As a Chinese who studied materialism, I am born with the BUFF of criticizing religion."

"The textbooks you used when you were in school gave you an impression that theology and science are antagonistic to each other. This view is very one-sided." Lao Mao explained, "Most of the time, the church is not hostile to science. On the contrary, many people in the church are not hostile to science." They were all proficient in mathematics and astronomy. The most famous and greatest physicist in the world, Isaac Newton, was a theologian himself. Newton only spent twenty years studying mathematics, but he spent a lifetime studying theology. He had a deep understanding of God. There is no doubt about its existence.”

"In that era, few scholars could break away from religion, because the schools they went to school were all established by the church." Old Mao continued, "Even in the Middle Ages, wars continued in Europe, plagues were rampant, and the common people were extremely well-educated. Low, religious institutions objectively bear the responsibility of cultural transmission and continuation...even though they will only teach you how many gods can dance on the tip of a pin."

"Is there any use in teaching that kind of thing?"

"In medieval times and even modern Europe, it was the last word that there was no strategy and development for rejuvenating the country through science and technology." Old Mao straightened up, "Philosophy and science are both hobbies of the rich, except for calculating the angle of the fountain in the garden and making speculations for the king. Cannonball range, do you think mathematics and physics can still be used in potato fields?”

"Stupid Europeans." Tang Yue shook his head.

"Asians of the same generation were immersed in studying and taking imperial examinations. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Lafayette also played horse-drawn trains. From a literal level, she was the earliest Marxist-Leninist in China." Old Mao said lightly, " How can it be better?"

Tang Yue dragged the solar panel out of the garage, where the Martian stray dog ​​stopped and was charging.

Last time, the old cat drove the Mars Stray Dog out to search for the Chelome, and accidentally fell into a pit. The damage to the Mars rover was very serious. The entire front of the car was deformed and all the glass was shattered. Now the Mars Stray Dog looks like a In a convertible, only the polygonal frame is left in the front cockpit. The view is excellent when you sit in it, but there is air leakage from all sides.

Every day, Maidong would discuss humanities and history with the old cat. One person and one cat would talk about everything from Macedonia to ancient Rome to Carthage. It was difficult for Tang Yue to say a word. After all, his history studies were so bad that he could only stand by. Applause for fun.

With Lao Mao around, it is not too difficult to roughly record history.

But once the writing goes deeper, there are many questions that even Lao Mao cannot answer, and a large number of historical unsolved cases have not yet been solved. Lao Mao is not a historian, it can only transfer the research results of its predecessors.

It’s easy to stump an old cat. Tang Yue often asked questions like this:

"Was Zhu Yunwen burned to death?"

"What's going on with the sound of the candle shadow's axe?"

"If the peasants didn't revolt, could the Manchus still enter the country?"

The old cat choked.

The hundreds of thousands of words of the manuscript were converted into digital codes in the hands of Laomao, and then broadcast through the antenna of the space station. The capacity of numbers to carry information is far lower than that of text, so the broadcast time is very long.

As for the self-interpretation system, this is a decoding method similar to a codebook, just like the Rosetta Stone. The person who receives the message can use it to restore the code to the original text. When the message is broadcast, the computer will use the self-interpretation system. Incorporated into article content. When designing the self-interpretation system, Laomao considered Chinese and English. Since the Chinese character library is too large and the square characters have different structures and are difficult to separate, if they want to achieve free conversion between numbers and Chinese characters, they can only rely on a simple self-interpretation system. It was too difficult, so in the end Laomao used English letters.

In other words, intelligent creatures that receive the signals can convert them into English.

After the earth disappears, the last language to be spread will be English.

However, all the files on the hard drive on Mars are in Chinese. Tang Yue and Maidong wrote epitaphs for human civilization in Chinese characters.

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"Miss Maidong, can you spare some time these two days?"

At noon, Tang Yue and Lao Mao were resting in Kunlun Station. Tang Yue was eating, as usual, compressed biscuits filled with pickled tomatoes and a glass of fresh water. Ophiopogon japonicus was also eating, and she had a piece of bread.

"Huh? Find time to come out? How long will it take?"

"It will take at least four hours." Old Cat replied, "We need you to go out and check the upgraded heat insulation tiles on the Eagle spacecraft."

Lao Mao adopted Tang Yue's suggestion. The Eagle spacecraft is the only vehicle that can enter the atmosphere without disintegrating. It is the only hope in this desperate situation, but the lander must ensure that there is no problem with the heat insulation tiles, so Inspecting the upgraded ventral tiles on the lander is the first step.

However, it is not possible to check the insulation tiles inside the cabin, so Ophiopogon japonicus needs to be carried out outside the cabin.

Lao Mao was really cornered and dared to use the scrapped spaceship.

"Check the Eagle spacecraft?" Maidong was startled, then nodded slowly, "Is it an out-of-vehicle operation? Yes, I have time at any time. It just so happened that the torsion mechanism of the space station's S1 battery panel had a slight problem and it started to rotate. If you don’t have a good idea, we can solve it together.”

"Is there something wrong with the battery board?" Tang Yue looked up, a little nervous with biscuits in his mouth.

"It's just a very common glitch. The computer self-checked and it said the sensor was broken. Just replace the wire." Maidong was also nibbling on biscuits. She took a bite of the compressed biscuit and then inhaled the water droplets suspended in front of her. He said, "It's normal for circuits to age, so don't be nervous."

The Mars Joint Space Station has been operating for so many years without any major problems, but minor problems continue. The astronauts usually tinker with it and often go out to replace materials and parts. This is also a daily task.

"Then you go to rest later and be careful to conserve your energy." Old Mao instructed, "We will start taking action in twelve hours. I will give you detailed action steps at that time."

Maidong nodded.

"Okay, I understand."