ATPnovel Chapter 58 reveals the "truth," a complete mess.
Chapter 58 reveals the "truth," a complete mess.
Westhawk, California, SpaceX headquarters.
Only four days have passed since that shocking live broadcast from Mars, but the atmosphere has already changed dramatically.
This control center, which once brimmed with technological fantasies and a desire for conquest, is now shrouded in a somber, slightly anxious atmosphere.
The engineers had their heads down, the sound of keyboards clicking was sparse, and they occasionally whispered to each other, their eyes filled with confusion and unease.
The huge circular screen no longer displays exciting images of Mars; instead, it shows complex data flow analysis and network topology diagrams, interspersed with red and yellow warning signs.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, just as the outside world was widely predicting that SpaceX would boldly announce that "Endeavour" was about to return to its original orbit and engage in a head-to-head image showdown with Dongguo's "Wentian-1", a hastily convened global press conference was launched in a high-profile manner with Ma Dugong in attendance.
It was still the same familiar press conference hall, but the protagonist on stage, Ma Dugong, was completely different from how he had been a few days ago.
His signature black turtleneck sweater was still there, but it seemed a bit loose. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot; the confident, stubborn, and performative look he used to have had completely vanished, leaving only a deep weariness and haggardness.
Instead of standing in the spotlight and delivering a passionate speech, he sat somewhat somberly behind the podium, with a glass of water in front of him, his fingers unconsciously rubbing against the glass.
The world's attention is focused on this. Online viewership has once again broken records, and everyone wants to know how this Silicon Valley Iron Man, this space madman, will respond after making such a huge blunder and being publicly reprimanded by the East Korean government.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Maduro began, his voice hoarse and even somewhat dry, completely lacking the magnetic and penetrating quality of his usual speeches, "first of all, I, and SpaceX, must extend our sincerest apologies to the global public, the scientific community, and all those who care about space exploration for the serious misinformation that appeared in the 'Endeavour' Mars live broadcast four days ago."
Apologize right from the start!
Doesn't this confirm that he's really made a huge mess of things?
The audience, both in the audience and online, erupted in uproar.
Although it was widely speculated that Governor Ma might back down or find an excuse, his direct and humble apology still surprised many people, which was completely contrary to his image as a pretentious person!
"After 96 hours of continuous and rigorous internal and external scrutiny," Ma Dugong said, ignoring the commotion at the scene, continuing in a calm but subdued tone, "we have to face an extremely disturbing fact: some of SpaceX's ground support systems used for the 'Endeavour' mission, as well as some of the orbiter's data injection channels, were subjected to extremely covert and sophisticated external intrusion during a critical phase of the mission."
"External invasion?" The word immediately popped into the minds of many journalists.
In the past few days, there have been many speculations online, including the possibility that a hacker intrusion led to a huge blunder. However, this is clearly considered the least likely explanation.
After all, that's Space X, that's the Western Eagle Empire!
Who has such great ability and such great courage?
But now, in front of all the people of Blue Star, Lord Ma actually admitted that he had been raped!
This……
But then Ma Dugong's next words poured gasoline on the already heated atmosphere.
"We have been able to confirm that a malicious hacking group, whose identity we have not yet identified but whose technical capabilities far exceed our imagination, planned and carried out this intrusion." Ma Dugong raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the countless faces below the stage, some astonished, some doubtful, and some mocking. He smiled bitterly, "I know many of you don't believe it. In fact, even I still can't believe it, but this is the truth."
He paused for a moment, as if he were choosing his words carefully, or perhaps trying to calm himself down.
"They directly infiltrated the orbiter's image processing unit, replacing the actual Martian surface images seen by the probe with their pre-made, highly realistic fake images the moment the raw image data was generated." Ma Dugong's voice rose slightly, carrying the frustration and disbelief of a tech enthusiast being crushed by a more mysterious technology. "This means that what came out of the orbiter's eye was fake from the very beginning. And what our ground receiving stations and data processing centers received and processed was precisely this tampered fake data. So, what we said earlier about 'the data stream not being tampered with' is, in a sense... also true, because the tampering happened at the very beginning of the data's creation, at its source."
This explanation sounds more technical and more plausible than the simple "CGI scam" explanation...
Of course, this is on the premise that you are willing to believe it.
But the majority of the reporters in the audience didn't believe it.
"Mr. Ma Dugong!" A reporter from a mainstream Western media outlet eagerly raised his hand and asked sharply, "Are you telling us that a hacker group has the capability to hack into the core system of a probe hundreds of millions of kilometers away from Earth, in the extreme environment of deep space, and inject such complex and flawless CGI footage in real time? This sounds more like science fiction than your discovery of ancient Eastern script on Mars!"
"Yes, what kind of hacker group has this capability? It would require an intimate understanding of the detector's hardware and software architecture, the ability to bypass multiple layers of physical isolation and encryption, and precise synchronization replacement at the speed of light... This is practically a national-level, no, a science fiction-level capability!" another journalist with a technical background added, his tone conveying an expression that said, "Are you insulting my intelligence?" He then added decisively, "Furthermore, I'm also a programmer by training and worked at a space center for a period of time. I believe this is absolutely impossible!"
The online comments section exploded. [Hilarious! Blaming a hacker? And a hacker capable of hacking a Mars rover? Ma Dugong's ability to fabricate stories is better than his rocket-building skills!]
This excuse is terrible! They might as well just say it was done by aliens!
[It seems they've been cornered by the Eastern Kingdom and are starting to spout nonsense.]
I don't believe it! There must be a bigger conspiracy! What is Governor Ma hiding?
[Maybe... he's telling the truth? After all, the scene was so realistic, it didn't seem like ordinary CG...]
[Is the person upstairs a paid troll? How can they defend this?]
It seems that Governor Ma had anticipated this reaction.
His face showed no anger, only a deeper weariness and a helpless understanding.
"I understand what you mean. In fact, if it hadn't happened in front of me, I wouldn't have believed it myself. But the thing is, I found some evidence."
He spoke slowly, gesturing to his assistant to operate the large screen behind him, "At first, we also thought it was an internal error, a software bug, or even suspected it was a government conspiracy. But all the logs, all the low-level code scans, and all the abnormal signal analyses ultimately pointed to something we couldn't understand."
The screen lit up, no longer displaying an image of Mars, but rather a highly complex and dazzling stream of code.
Ninety-nine percent of people in the world can't understand what this is, but experienced programmers can vaguely understand it. It seems to be a special kind of code, but it is unlike any common programming language. Its structure is strange, its symbols are peculiar, and it is full of non-linear nesting and jumps.
"This is a small fragment of residual code we captured at the edge of the core log area of the compromised system." Ma Dugong's voice sounded somewhat hollow. He zoomed in on several key segments of the code, pointing to some character units that resembled cuneiform script but were more abstract and complex.
"These basic symbolic units, based on our limited analysis, have an information density and logical expression that are completely different from any computer language paradigm we know. It's more like... a language built on a completely different mathematical and logical system. We can't compile it, we can't understand its execution logic, and we can't even determine what kind of 'hardware' environment it needs to run. It's like an operating system kernel written in oracle bone script or cuneiform, which is completely incomprehensible to us."
He sighed and said, "That's it. This is all the truth I know. Whether you believe it or not is your business. Also, on behalf of the entire SpaceX, I apologize again to the public for the trouble caused by our mistakes. I'm sorry for taking up so many public resources!"
After he finished speaking, he stood up, bowed, apologized, and that was the end of it!
What a mess!