"Three factions?" Chen Sixuan was very curious: "I thought there were just the original Federation and the current Tianqi Federation."
"It’s not that simple. The original Federation, which is our Dawn Plan, represents the Survival Faction, advocating for preserving the seeds of human civilization at all costs. Meanwhile, the Tianqi Federation represents the Resistance Faction, advocating for utilizing the power of all humanity to research and explore the Dark Power, in order to harness this Evolutionary Power to investigate and eliminate the Star Abyss!"
"Apart from these, there is another faction that believes the evolution brought about by this Dark Power is positive, a divine selection, a blessing from the gods. Therefore, those people started worshipping and embracing this so-called ’divine selection,’ believing that those who survive and those with Superpowers are the chosen ones, the seeds of the new generation of Blue Star civilization. Consequently, they established a fanatical organization called the Holy Revelation, which actively recruits various Superpower Users, investigates and contains Taboo Items—some members from the original Angel Plan even left to join this organization..."
Investigating Taboo Items? Upon hearing this, Lin Xian thought of the Mysterious Radio and reckoned that indeed, there were people seeking and using this strange power.
However, this community split into three, each pursuing entirely different approaches to exploring and using this power, which was truly intriguing.
Beside him, KIKI frowned: "Survival Faction? If the Dawn Plan represents the Survival Faction, why don’t they let the civilians live in this Underground City? Moreover, most of them are completely unaware of this plan. These people only know about saving their own lives, what kind of Survival Faction is that!"
Ding Junyi maintained her composure, replying directly: "From a sociological perspective, there is no fairness in this world, everything is only about resource utilization and allocation. So the issue is not whether a train kills 1 person or 10 people, but rather that there are ten thousand passengers and the train can only carry 100 people. The purpose of the Dawn Plan is to build an eternal Underground City to preserve the seeds of civilization, to grasp opportunities amidst survival gaps. The arrival of the Tianqi extreme night was too sudden; all Underground City plans were hastily prepared in a short time. In such a brief period, it’s impossible to be responsible for all citizens. As a result, the leaders had to make secret, targeted selections to avoid chaos."
Lin Xian looked at her: "I was quite curious about something just now. If the purpose of the Dawn Plan is to build an eternal Underground City to preserve the seeds of civilization and avoid the impact of the extreme night, and these citizens are also screened, then why set up a self-destruct protocol in the energy core? Don’t tell me it’s just to defend against the Monsters underground!?"
"That’s it!" KIKI, suddenly remembering, looked at Zhao Yan and Xu Wen with realization: "You have such means, are you planning to deceive us into going down there and blow us up?"
"This... we didn’t know about this." Zhao Yan looked at Ding Junyi in horror: "If Director Ding hadn’t mentioned it, we wouldn’t have known there was such a protocol."
Xu Wen also nodded repeatedly, fearfully saying, "We are just scientists, how could we know about such things."
At this moment, everyone’s gaze turned towards Ding Junyi.
Ding Junyi took a breath and said calmly: "The question is not complicated. After the great migration, my P3-level authority became the highest authority in the subsystem, which was a wartime contingency protocol set by the original Underground City management system. So, I found this protocol in the system of the third backup core, referred to as the ’Cleansing Plan.’"
"Cleansing Plan?" KIKI crossed her arms, frowning: "What are you cleansing?"
"As I mentioned earlier, the Underground City places first, second, and third-class citizens on different floors. Floors 70-80 are densely populated areas for third-class citizens, the largest in area, while floors 40-60 are mainly for second-class citizens, and floors 20-40 are for first-class citizens. There are three backup cores in the Underground City, but only two are equipped with self-destruct mechanisms, located on the 70th and 40th floors, respectively. The plan was designed to address potential risks such as famine and contagions that could occur within the Underground City."
Chen Sixuan listened with a puzzled face, "Famine? What does that have to do with self-destruct?"
"How could it not be related..." Lin Xian’s eyes sharpened: "What she means is, when the Underground City needs cheap labor, it exploits those third-class and second-class citizens from the bottom up. And once there’s a food shortage, they simply seal off the floors and initiate self-destruct, burying hundreds of thousands of people beneath the surface. Am I right?"
As these words were uttered, the air suddenly froze, and Chen Sixuan and the others gasped in shock, even the Building’s expression turned fierce.
KIKI, enraged, clenched her teeth: "These damned people, they should be the first to be fed to the Zombies!"
In the face of everyone’s anger, Ding Junyi still spoke indifferently, "If we discuss this from a moral standpoint, I completely agree and acknowledge that your emotions are justifiable. If it were me, I would feel the same."
"But likewise, as I just mentioned, civilization is not an equitable continuation. From a sociological level, any species that forms a social group since its birth, those who control societal resources, are certainly the more excellent and intelligent. This does not exclude those who are lucky or born into wealth without merit, but probabilistically speaking, climbing to a higher stratum is intrinsically a form of societal selection. Hence, when a train of 100 people must sacrifice 30, the structure of selection remains the same."
"Let’s say you’re a farmer, and due to a plague, you’re forced to cull half of your turkeys due to a food shortage. Would you choose the healthiest, most beautiful, most intelligent turkeys, or the weak and sickly-looking ones? Or, are you prepared to let the turkeys vote or have some volunteer to be sacrificed?"
"What turkeys..." Sha Sha, though mature for her age, reddened her eyes and couldn’t help saying after hearing Ding Junyi’s words: "But to kill so many people, doesn’t that seem too cruel?"
Ding Junyi sighed deeply and broke the silence, "Yes, from my perspective, this self-destruct protocol is indeed too cruel. Humans always display the highest imagination in killing one another, which is consistent with the politicized aims of science."
Ding Junyi’s words seemed self-mocking.
Inside the carriage, the atmosphere suddenly became quiet, everyone fell silent, expressions complex, full of anger, fear, bewilderment...
"It sounds like your sociological theory may make sense, but it seems you’ve forgotten something important..."
Lin Xian, who had been silent, now slowly started speaking, his tone weary.
"What?" Ding Junyi looked at him.
Lin Xian stood up, pointing outside at the night: "Turkeys and farmers are not of the same species, so those damned leaders of the Dawn Plan are not farmers either. Because, to the extreme night and the Dark Creatures, all humans are those turkeys, but with one difference—these turkeys..."