NABC Chapter 252: Details
Chapter 252: Details
It was unclear how long the debate lasted, but the council members even skipped lunch to watch the entire video three or four times. Every single playback revealed new discoveries! The conference room buzzed with non-stop excitement and chatter.
Seeing that they were running out of time, Jason had to clear his throat loudly twice to interrupt the enthusiastic discussion.
"Alright, everyone. Let’s put a pin on the indigenous diplomatic team for now. Our microbial immunization protocols are not yet complete... and the current population stationed on the surface has reached five thousand, which is already far too high!"
"Even when we do launch diplomatic missions, the team will be selected strictly from those five thousand personnel on the surface!"
Hearing this, the surface managers in the room smiled with satisfaction, while the attendees patching in from The Ark immediately let out collective groans and raised loud objections.
Jason managed to calm their restless minds after a bit of persuasion. Then, his expression turned serious, and he said solemnly, "Furthermore, the news regarding these reptilian natives must not be leaked until after the memorial services. Otherwise, it might completely overshadow the public’s solemn mourning of this disaster."
"Our pioneering heroes must be remembered by all of humanity! I do not want any distractions before the state funeral is completed!"
"The Department of Public Relations needs to keep public sentiment under tight control."
"Therefore, you must maintain absolute secrecy regarding this matter."
By the time he finished speaking, Jason’s expression had grown incredibly grim. He absolutely could not allow a cultural decay where the heroes of the Federation lay forgotten. The expansion of any civilization was inevitably paved with sacrifice, and it was that very sacrifice that forged greatness. If everyone refused to take risks and refused to sacrifice, then where would the pioneers come from? How would humanity ever push forward?
Therefore, the state funeral for the seven victims remained their absolute priority. On one hand, it would unite the citizens’ hearts; on the other hand, it would ensure that the Federation never forgot their names. The Federation had always placed the utmost importance on public morale. Although the discovery of an alien race was monumental, its sensational nature could easily drown out the solemnity of the funeral. Postponing the public announcement by a few days was a small price to pay.
The council members nodded solemnly, giving their word to keep the secret locked down.
Right then, Jason’s ears twitched as he caught a light knock at the door. For executive meetings of this level, armed guards were stationed outside, and normally no one would dare interrupt unless something urgent had occurred.
A thought crossed his mind, and he quickly strode over to open the door. Sure enough, Sergeant Will and his seven companions stood outside. They had just discharged themselves from the medical wing and, realizing the gravity of the situation, had rushed straight over to the briefing room.
"Come in, quick!"
Jason smiled, gesturing for them to enter as he returned to his seat. His eyes narrowed slightly with anticipation. "The main characters have arrived. Come, let me introduce you..."
Initially, Sergeant Will and his Marines felt a bit anxious and overwhelmed to be standing before so many high-ranking Federation officials. However, seeing that their direct superiors, Marcus and Austin, were present, they gradually relaxed. After all, they just needed to tell the truth.
A large group of Senior Scientists immediately swarmed them, firing off a barrage of questions that the Marines answered one by one. To the scholars, studying an indigenous civilization was like witnessing the dawn of human history; it was something they couldn’t help but take with absolute seriousness.
The helmet-cam video had been recorded from a first-person perspective, showing the scientists exactly what the scout had seen. However, the other seven Marines had eyes of their own and might have noticed details that didn’t make it onto the digital recording.
"So, these reptilian natives definitely possess a structured language?" a sociologist inquired.
"Yes, sir!" Will answered without a shred of hesitation. "They absolutely have a functional language and can communicate with one another quite fluently. I even managed to pick up a few phrases during our trek. ’Ya ha ma ta gai’ indicates danger, an ambush, or the presence of enemies..."
"And ’Gara-tak’ means victory or a celebration cheer..."
"What about ’Fah’?" another Marine chimed in. "That one seems to mean ’attack’ or ’advance’."
The other soldiers continuously added details, explaining what they had managed to decode over the past couple of days through context and body language.
"So their linguistic structure relies on distinct words and syntax?"
"Yes, that appeared to be the case."
Several computer science experts exchanged meaningful glances, making meticulous notes of the syllables. The raw video files contained a wealth of linguistic data and corresponding physical behavior, which could be fed into their mainframes to build a baseline translation matrix. Relying solely on crude hand gestures was far too inefficient and left too much room for dangerous misunderstandings.
"Do they master fire? Do they consume their food raw or cooked?" another Senior Scientist asked, hitting on a fundamental anthropological marker.
This question caught them off guard.
Sergeant Will blinked, momentarily speechless. He was a combat Marine, not an anthropologist. He hadn’t paid attention to such trivial details during a high-stress survival trek, and trying to recall them now was near impossible. Furthermore, they had been racing against a ticking nuclear clock. After making initial contact with the lizardmen, their sole focus had been escaping back to the surface. They had only bypassed the outer rim of the caldera and had never actually entered the heart of the village. They had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the settlement from a distance.
The Marines looked at one another, racking their brains before finally offering an uncertain theory.
"...There should be fire. We noticed scattered light sources flickering in the distance when we looked down at the village, but we didn’t pay much attention then. I think... they probably have it," one of the Marines murmured, his brow furrowed as he tried to piece together his chaotic memories. It felt like he had seen flames, but he couldn’t swear to it under oath.
"As for whether they eat their meat raw or cooked... we honestly don’t know." They hadn’t stayed long enough to watch the lizardmen prepare their rations. The giant worm carcass had simply been dragged back to their camp, not eaten on the spot.
Besides, fire was such a common concept that even if they had seen it, their brains would have subconsciously filtered it out. There had been far too many mind-boggling anomalies screaming for their attention at the time. Furthermore, under low-light night vision, the visor’s display rendered the environment in monochromatic shades, making it incredibly difficult to distinguish active flames from a distance.
Dissatisfied with the ambiguous answers, the scientists on the orbital link began muttering among themselves. Fire was the ultimate cornerstone of civilization. Only by mastering fire could a sentient species claim to have harnessed a fundamental force of nature. Fire drove technological evolution, shifted social structures, and ultimately drew the line between intelligent beings and wild animals. Naturally, the Federation scholars hoped these lizardmen were a bit more advanced rather than stuck in a primitive state. If a species was too primitive, they would be far more difficult to educate and integrate into the workforce.
As the sociologists debated, a lead biologist finally found an opening and asked urgently, "Do you still have any samples of that herb they used to repel the black swarms? We need to run a chemical analysis to synthesize a localized countermeasure."
"Yes, absolutely!" Will answered instantly. "The outer plating of my powered armor is still caked in that green paste. It hasn’t been cycled through the wash bays yet. Can you extract a usable sample from that?"
"More than enough!"
The biologist was ecstatic. Throwing all formal meeting etiquette out the window, he deftly produced a set of sterile collection vials from his kit and hurried over to scrape a thick layer of the sticky alien residue off Sergeant Will’s powered armor...