Chapter 118: Turkeys

“Three factions?” Chen Sixuan was very curious. “I thought it was just the original Federation and the current Apocalypse Federation.”

“It’s more than that. The original Federation, which is our Dawn Project, represents the survivalist faction. They advocate for preserving the flame of human civilization at all costs. The Apocalypse Federation, on the other hand, represents the resistance faction. They advocate for mobilizing all of humanity’s power to research and harness the dark power, thereby using this evolutionary force to investigate and eradicate the Star Abyss!”

“In addition to these, there is another faction. This faction believes that the evolution brought about by this dark power is positive, a natural selection, a grace from the gods. Therefore, these people began to worship and accept this so-called ‘divine selection,’ believing that the survivors and those with abilities are the chosen ones, the seeds of a new generation of Blue Star civilization. So they formed a fanatical organization called the ‘Holy Revelation.’ This organization wantonly recruits and enlists various metahumans, investigates and contains anomalous forbidden objects. A part of the original Angel Project members also split off and joined this organization…”

Investigating anomalous forbidden objects? Hearing this, Lin Xian immediately thought of the strange radio. He thought to himself that there were indeed people searching for and utilizing this peculiar power.

It was just that this group had split into three, with three completely different approaches to investigating and using this power, which was truly intriguing.

Kiki, at the side, frowned. “Survivalist faction? If the Dawn Project represents the survivalist faction, why didn’t this underground city let all those civilians live in it? And most of them don’t even know about this project. These people only care about their own lives. What kind of survivalist faction is that!”

Ding Junyi’s expression didn’t change as she said bluntly, “From a sociological perspective, there is no fairness in this world. Everything is just the utilization and distribution of resources. So this isn’t a question of a train running over one person or ten people, but a problem of having ten thousand passengers when the train can only carry one hundred. The purpose of the Dawn Project is to build a permanent underground city to preserve the flame of civilization, to find a crack to survive in. The Apocalyptic Polar Night came too suddenly. All the underground city plans were renovated in a short period of time. In such a short time, it’s impossible to be responsible for all citizens. So those leaders, in order not to cause chaos, could only conduct targeted screening in secret.”

Lin Xian looked at her. “I was very curious about one thing just now. Since the purpose of the Dawn Project should be to build a permanent underground city to preserve the flame of civilization and avoid the impact of the polar night, and these citizens have all been screened, why was a self-destruct protocol set up on the energy core? Don’t tell me the purpose was to guard against monsters from underground!?”

“Exactly!” Kiki, upon thinking about it, suddenly realized and looked at Zhao Yan and Xu Wen. “You have such a method. Were you planning to trick us down there and then blow us up?”

“This… we didn’t know about this.” Zhao Yan looked at Ding Junyi in terror. “If Director Ding hadn’t mentioned it, we wouldn’t have known about such a protocol at all.”

Xu Wen also nodded repeatedly, saying fearfully, “We’re just researchers. How would we know about this kind of thing?”

At this moment, everyone’s eyes turned to Ding Junyi.

Ding Junyi took a breath and said calmly, “This problem is not complicated. After the great migration, the P3-level authority I possessed became the highest authority of the subsystem. This was a wartime backup protocol set by the original underground city management system. So I found this protocol in the system of the No. 3 backup core. It’s called the ‘Cleansing Plan’.”

“Cleansing Plan?” Kiki crossed her arms and frowned. “Cleansing what?”

“I’ve said before that the underground city placed first, second, and third-class citizens on different floors. Floors 70-80 are the third-class citizen residential area, the most densely populated and largest area. Floors 40-60 are mainly for second-class citizens, and floors 20-40 are for first-class citizens. The underground city has three backup cores, but only two have self-destruct programs, set on floors 70 and 40 respectively. That plan was designed to deal with risk factors such as famine and contagion that might occur in the underground city.”

Chen Sixuan was completely baffled. “Famine? What does that have to do with self-destruction?”

“How is it not related…” Lin Xian’s eyes narrowed. “She means that when the underground city needs cheap labor, they exploit the third and second-class citizens from the bottom up. And once there’s a food shortage, they directly seal off the floors and activate the self-destruct, burying the hundreds of thousands of people on the lower floors underground. Am I right?”

As soon as he said this, the air suddenly froze. Chen Sixuan and the others gasped, and even Dalou’s expression turned fierce.

“What a vicious plan!”

Kiki’s face was full of anger, her silver teeth grinding. “These damn guys, they should be the first to be fed to the zombies!”

Facing everyone’s anger, Ding Junyi still said with a calm expression, “From a moral standpoint, I completely agree with and acknowledge the emotions you should have. If it were me, I would feel the same way.”

“But at the same time, as I said just now, civilization is not a continuation of fairness. From a sociological perspective, from the birth of any species to the formation of a social group, the ones who control the social resources are always the more outstanding and intelligent among them. Of course, it’s not ruled out that there will be good-for-nothings who are lucky to be born well, but in terms of probability, being able to climb to a higher class is essentially a form of civilizational screening. So when this train of 100 people has to choose 30 to sacrifice, it will still be chosen with such a structure.”

“It’s like you’re a farmer. When you have to get rid of half of your turkeys due to a plague and food shortage, will you choose the healthiest, most beautiful, and smartest turkeys, or those that look ordinary or are weak and sickly? Or are you going to let the turkeys vote for themselves or let them volunteer to be sacrificed?”

“What turkeys…” Shasha was not old. Although she looked mature, at this moment, hearing Ding Junyi’s words, her eyes turned red, and she couldn’t help but say, “But to kill so many people, isn’t that too cruel?”

“Huu…”

Ding Junyi let out a long breath and broke the silence. “Yes, from my perspective, this self-destruct protocol is indeed too cruel. Humans always show the highest imagination when it comes to killing each other. This point is exactly the same as the purpose of politicizing science.”

Ding Junyi’s words seemed self-deprecating.

Inside the car, the atmosphere suddenly fell silent. Everyone was silent with complicated expressions, some angry, some terrified, some confused…

“It sounds like your sociological theory might be very reasonable, but you seem to have forgotten one important thing…”

Lin Xian, who had been silent all this time, slowly spoke, his tone sounding a little tired.

“What?” Ding Junyi looked at him.

Lin Xian stood up and pointed to the dark night outside. “Turkeys and the farmer are not the same species. So those damn leaders of the Dawn Project are not farmers either. Because for the polar night and those dark creatures, all humans are the turkeys. But the difference is, these turkeys…”

“Are turkeys with guns!”