The First Superhuman: Rebuilding Civilization from the Moon

The ion engines of the six spacecraft emitted pale blue flames as they gradually distanced themselves from the Deep Space...

Despite his crew’s strong protests, Jason did not personally participate in this mission. Instead, he stood quietly on the Deep Space’s observation deck, watching the vanguard fleet depart.

Half a day later, the fleet, forming a protective escort around the Titan-Z, successfully arrived in the high orbit of Digg-114 at an altitude of approximately 15,000 kilometers above the planet’s surface.

They immediately began a slow deceleration burn to lower their orbital altitude.

If the operation proceeded smoothly, the five Leviathan dropships would enter low planetary orbit, roughly 1,000 kilometers above the ground. From there, they would deploy and remote-control their unmanned drones.

A distance of 1,000 kilometers was equivalent to the standard operational range of a low-orbit satellite, meaning the remote-control signal delay would be perfectly manageable.

Meanwhile, the Titan-Z would remain parked in a higher orbit at a distance of 3,000 kilometers.

The massive spacecraft would be responsible for processing the immense influx of telemetry data and providing orbital fire support if necessary.

The Titan-Z was an absolute behemoth, designed entirely for warfare. To maximize its combat efficiency, its hull resembled a spherical space fortress, housing a mind-boggling array of complex weapon systems.

However, this heavily armored structure came with certain drawbacks... Much like the Deep Space, it was simply too massive to land on a planet.

"If the Titan-Z sinks too deeply into the planet’s gravitational well, it’s going to have a hell of a time climbing back out. Its ion engines just don’t have the thrust-to-weight ratio to break free," a technician noted.

"In that case, shouldn’t we design a specialized heavy cruiser explicitly meant for climbing out of deep gravity wells?" Jason asked from the bridge.

"You mean... a massive capital ship capable of making planetary landings? The manufacturing costs would be astronomical, and honestly, there’s just no need for it."

"A ship like that would require us to completely overhaul our structural engineering paradigms. It’s just too much trouble."

Lily shook her head and calmly explained, "You have to remember, warp drives cannot operate within a strong gravitational field. Based on our current theoretical models, the ship still has to eject physical mass in the opposite direction to generate thrust..."

"An ion engine simply ejects high-speed plasma, which is essentially just a highly advanced way of jetting air backward... It sounds primitive when you say it like that, right? Imagine how much working fluid a 100-million-metric-ton spaceship would need to expel just to break atmospheric escape velocity!"

She smiled faintly. "So, when it comes to climbing out of gravity wells, space elevators remain our most efficient option."

Jason nodded thoughtfully. "That’s true. Converting electrical energy directly into potential energy is incredibly economical... What about propellantless propulsion methods? Has the R&D department made any progress on that front?"

Lily thought for a moment before shaking her head. "Laser propulsion is currently our mainstream focus, and we’ve achieved some minor successes in the lab. However, the raw propulsive force is extremely weak, and scaling it up is a nightmare. Microwave propulsion suffers from the exact same bottleneck..."

"Without a physical propellant, the energy-to-thrust ratio is just completely unacceptable. We could fire massive arrays of high-energy lasers backward, and the resulting physical recoil would still be negligible. Honestly, unless we have a massive breakthrough in theoretical physics, propellantless drives aren’t going to replace ion engines anytime soon."

"Is achieving thrust without a working fluid really that difficult? Well..." Jason sighed.

As they continued their debate on the bridge, the vanguard fleet made a new discovery.

Likely as a result of the global war, the planet’s near-orbit was littered with a massive, scattered field of space debris, all whipping around the globe at terrifying speeds.

Orbital debris was an absolute nightmare for aerospace engineering. There was always a statistical probability of a micro-collision, which could trigger a catastrophic hull breach. Traveling at more than ten times the velocity of a standard rifle bullet, the kinetic energy behind even the smallest fragment was immense.

Although the Federation’s spacecraft featured heavily reinforced armor plating along their vital sectors, taking a direct hit from a larger piece of debris could still spell disaster.

As a result, the automated point-defense laser grids on every ship were fully spun up and placed on high alert.

"Space debris isn’t naturally generated; it has to be artificially created!" The Senior Scientists aboard the fleet stared at the floating junk like it was buried treasure.

Shortly after, their sensors locked onto a spherical device resembling an old-fashioned communications satellite, hurtling rapidly through the debris field.

It was traveling at roughly 7 kilometers per second.

One of the dropship captains reacted instantly. The moment he spotted the satellite on radar, he shouted excitedly, "Capture it! Bring it in!"

Upon his command, a highly maneuverable Swallow interceptor drone detached from the ship’s bay and accelerated, chasing after the rogue satellite.

As it closed the distance, the drone’s robotic arms deployed a soft, aerogel-like net to safely absorb the satellite’s momentum.

The satellite was successfully ensnared. The drone drifted alongside it for a short distance until its velocity matched the dropship’s.

Then, it was reeled back into the cargo bay...

"...Did they just capture an alien satellite?"

The Deep Space was currently parked 900,000 kilometers away from the vanguard fleet, resulting in a three-second telemetry delay. By the time Jason received the video feed, the operation was already over. He frowned slightly.

If he had been in command, he would have ordered a rigorous, non-invasive scan before bringing an unknown alien object aboard. He needed to verify its power state to rule out any potential booby traps or hidden dangers.

From a veteran’s perspective, the rookie captain’s actions were incredibly reckless...

However, Jason held his tongue.

A communication gap of 900,000 kilometers resulted in a six-second round-trip delay, which was far too sluggish for real-time tactical command. Because of this, Jason had preemptively delegated operational authority to the fleet captains, allowing them to make their own calls as long as they adhered to standard safety protocols.

This entire mission was also intended to serve as a live-fire training exercise for the Federation Marines.

Aside from Austin commanding the Titan-Z and Marcus captaining the lead Leviathan, the remaining four dropships were all helmed by rookie captains.

Honestly, calling them "rookies" wasn’t entirely accurate. They were highly trained, but they had never actually fought in a real war or seen actual bloodshed...

The older generation couldn’t shield them forever. They had aced every simulation the academy threw at them, but they still lacked a genuine sense of crisis and raw field experience.

Once the alien satellite was secured in the cargo bay, it quickly underwent a preliminary diagnostic scan.

It weighed approximately 560 kilograms. A small, precise hole had been punched directly through its core by some unknown projectile weapon. Because its internals were completely fried by the impact, it was nothing more than dead space debris, incapable of emitting any signals.

"...The immediate threat level is negligible. Theoretically, there shouldn’t be any rigged explosives or active defense mechanisms left."

After running a final risk assessment, the engineering team used the bay’s automated robotic arms to quarantine and disassemble the probe to analyze its technological makeup.

The first step was to analyze its material composition.

The metallurgical results showed that the casing and optics were constructed from incredibly standard, low-level aerospace materials, specifically basic titanium alloys, magnesium alloys, and rudimentary fiberglass.

"These material signatures look so incredibly familiar... I mean, didn’t we use these exact same alloys back in the early days?"

"Yeah... does every intelligent civilization in the universe follow the exact same technological development tree?" a few of the researchers asked in confusion.

"It’s easy to assume that, but discovering a genuinely unique tech tree is incredibly rare," one of the older engineers speculated. "At the foundational level, basic physics dictate that every primitive civilization will stumble upon the exact same structural materials. It’s only when a society ascends to higher technological tiers and their developmental paths branch out that their technology becomes truly unique..."

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