Humanity's Stone Age lasted for two to three million years, while the Birong star insectoid's Stone Age lasted only 100,000 years.
Then, the Birong star insectoids skipped the Copper Age and Bronze Age, directly entering the Iron Age.
The Iron Age lasted for ten thousand years. Various insectoid races engaged in constant warfare, kingdoms rose and fell. Battles on the plains were the most fierce, countless great cities were razed, and approximately over a thousand insectoid species faced extinction, exiting the evolutionary stage forever.
During this period, larger insectoids gained a decisive position, while smaller insectoids lost their languages and civilizations, becoming mere meat in breeding farms.
Finally, a great city in the desert prospered, taking the lead in skipping the Steam Age and directly entering the Electrical Age. With less than 1% of the global insectoid population, it rapidly swept through other regions inhabited by 99% of the population, unifying the entire Birong star and establishing an unprecedented desert regime.
However, the desert regime lasted only 120 years before collapsing, splitting into 12 great nations.
In the following century, the 12 great nations collapsed again, fragmenting into over 200 smaller states, and a period of chaos resumed.
For 500 years of warfare, through repeated integration, annexation, and dissolution, over a thousand more large insectoid species were driven to extinction. Their unique scripts, languages, and civilizations vanished, and they became meat products in breeding farms.
Some stone tablets even contained a memoir-like novel titled "My Neighbor Appeared on the Supermarket Shelf."
Jiang Ye spent an entire night reading this prehistoric novel from the insectoids. To be honest, their literary level was quite good, with delicate descriptions and a complete structure. However, some of the wording and psychological depictions were strange, likely due to cultural differences.
The novel's protagonist, "I," is a male great beetle with a green shell and two claws, residing in "Xufa City," a great city on the edge of a swamp. His neighbor is a beautiful female great beetle with a red shell and four claws. From the moment "I" developed a crush, he and the neighbor sister exchanged glances, secretly engaged in forbidden acts, and agreed to elope to a distant hybrid city once "my" wings grew, where they would have a brood of beetle children with red and green shells and an unknown number of claws.
However, just as "my" wings were halfway grown, a world war broke out. The red-shelled, four-clawed great beetle race was defeated and ordered to be purged. "I" watched helplessly as the neighbor sister was dragged away by military beetle police at night, her whereabouts unknown.
The ending depicts "me" going to the supermarket to buy food. In the fresh food section, I find a newly established shelf for red-shelled, four-clawed great beetles. On one large piece of meat, there are several spots identical to the ones on the neighbor beetle sister's body in the same location. "I" fainted on the spot.
Jiang Ye was almost moved to tears. The story was both perverse and tragic. Crucially, there was a final annotation revealing the author's true identity and the story's authenticity.
After 500 years of chaotic warfare, six great nations remained on Birong star.
The six great nations maintained peace for two hundred years. During this period, Birong star's technological and economic levels soared. They developed biological computers, mastered spaceship technology, and produced a vast amount of art, including poetry, novels, music, and games.
The insectoid races of Birong star were liberated from their savage state and entered a relatively civilized society.
At that time, all the insectoids believed that Birong star would continue to prosper. Although there were still many societal problems, the large-scale slaughter of the past would not reappear. The next step was to venture into space. After so much dark history, the insectoids deserved a brighter future.
But the insectoids never expected that the two hundred years of prosperity were merely their final flicker of life.
A nuclear war broke out.
No one knew why it started, who struck first, or even if there were any signs. A month before the war, the leaders of the six great nations had gathered for a global development conference. At the table, they were as friendly as family. The entire conference proceeded without any arguments, and only good news was reported. When the leaders dispersed, they even made plans to visit each other after retirement.
In the first six hours of the war, 3,000 cities globally were hit by nuclear bombs. After 24 hours, this number rose to 7,000, out of a total of only 9,000 cities on the planet.
Nuclear warheads rained down on the great cities, and the densely packed buildings collapsed like withered grass blown by the wind. Passing aircraft and spacecraft fell like birds shot by a hunting rifle. Cities shrouded in darkness were constantly illuminated by the blinding light of a rising sun, and the insect corpses on the streets burned fiercely.
According to post-war estimations, none of the six great nations had adhered to the nuclear disarmament agreements. They had only verbally declared reductions in their nuclear arsenals, but after the nuclear war broke out, they all produced far more nuclear missiles than publicly disclosed. They attacked not only enemy nations but also allies, and even fired nuclear missiles towards their own borders to create radiation zones, thereby preventing potential ground invasions by neighboring countries.
The nuclear war lasted for exactly one week, and the world fell into a deathly silence.
Only one in a thousand insectoids survived. They attempted to rebuild their homes amidst the ruins and set extremely high birth quotas for themselves. However, both the rainwater and the land had been contaminated by radiation. In heavily irradiated areas, survivors died of sudden illnesses within a year. In less irradiated areas, the stillbirth rate for newborn insectoids reached seventy percent, and those who were fortunately born suffered from severe radiation sickness.
Survivors broke through ethical and moral limitations, finding some top-secret biological laboratories beneath the ruins, and began to actively clone themselves. The cloned insectoids were indeed healthier than naturally born ones, but this was only temporary. The entire planet was saturated with nuclear radiation. Half of the post-war generation would die off due to radiation sickness during their growth, while the other half would develop bizarre deformities.
The records end here.
Jiang Ye was filled with emotion.
He finally understood where those deformed fossils came from. They were indeed not naturally formed, but products of insectoid catastrophe.
If the nuclear war had not erupted, perhaps the insectoids of Birong star would have become a respected race in the universe.
The next day, Jiang Ye convened a grand meeting, calling on all cities on Birong star to actively develop tourism. Almost every city had excavation pits of prehistoric ancient cities nearby; the plan was to build tourist cities around these pits.
Two months later, a surge of tourism companies, hotels, and souvenir manufacturing plants emerged on Birong star.
Jiang Ye also began to promote tourism on Birong star.
He first returned to Jiang Ye star and found Zhi Jun, instructing Zhi Jun to quickly produce a batch of songs and music themed around Birong star, as well as fictional novels set against the backdrop of Birong star's insectoid civilization.
Zhi Jun Music and Zhi Jun Literature were now the most popular and influential forces under Jiang Ye. After years of accumulation, the fan bases for both had become incredibly massive.