“Landing complete. Run atmospheric check and full suit diagnostics.”

She waited for a series of checkmarks to appear on the display, along with a paragraph confirming the atmospheric content was primarily ammonia and hydrogen. This was as expected, based on an initial probe.

“Send message. Explorer One deployed. Landing successful. Beginning exploration.”

She lifted her arm and tapped a code into the wrist display. A flashing ‘confirm?’ button appeared. Opening the doors always required a manual confirmation.

Priya tapped the display.

#

The doors slid silently open and revealed a purple world—at least, that’s what Priya saw. Humanity now developed under many different skies, sending evolution in multiple directions. Eyes born on a red planet see things differently from those born bathed in green light. No matter the ‘real’ colour, Priya saw purple. She stepped to the edge of the pod and looked out over her temporary home.

The sky was filled with a mixture of pink-coloured clouds. They swirled in unexpected directions on unknown wind patterns. They were transparent above, fading in a gradient to light pink and then purple as they reached the ground. The planet was large, so the land stretched far into the distance before it met the horizon. The surface rose and fell smoothly in every direction. Unusually, there were no jagged rocks, outcroppings of stone, or even pebbles littering the landscape. Pinching her fingers together, a screen appeared in her helmet. She gestured to zoom and, for a second, didn’t think her instruction had been registered. Then she moved her head and saw the ground rush past. She was zoomed in; it was just that the ground appeared identical no matter the distance. She closed the screen and slowly scanned everything she could see. Identical. Everything was the same, smooth, undulating surface. No great mounds, mountains, or vegetation to be seen.

Crouching, she examined the ground beneath the pod. Expecting soil or rock, she found a regular diamond pattern. No diamond was the same, but they were similar enough. In the centre of each was a dark circular spot. Leaning forward, she saw one of the legs of the pod had settled into a depression in the ground. Twisting to see another leg, it was also sitting in its own special spot. It didn’t take much thought to realise that the pod’s weight was bending the surface and that she should prepare for a springy experience.

Purple and springy—this was new.

A loud crack shattered the silence. Priya hadn’t realised just how quiet her surroundings were until something broke through. She looked to the empty sky, locating the expected descending pod. New planets were dangerous places, so every expedition had two explorers. Once the first confirmed their safe arrival, the second descended.

Priya watched as the pod carrying her long-time friend and colleague, Leo, made last-minute adjustments before touching down a kilometre away. The display in her helmet provided detailed telemetry on something she could do nothing about. She waved a hand, and the zoomed view returned, tracking the pod as its jets fired. She watched the legs extend and touch down on the surface. Zooming in further, she saw the ground depress to accept the spacecraft, almost like it rested on a rubber sheet. Jets fired erratically to stabilise the lander. After a few seconds, all movement ceased.

Priya cleared her vision and keyed her comm. “Explorer One to Explorer Two. Copy? Priya to Leo. Did you enjoy the bounce?”

“Explorer Two here,” replied Leo in his deep, always-amused voice. “It was a little odd. What have I landed on? The whole planet looked as flat as anything from the air.”

“You’re safe and sound.”

“Any threats?”

“None that I can see. Suit isn’t registering anything microscopic attacking it, and I can see to the horizon.”

“Sounds good. Exiting now.”

“Stand firm!” Priya snapped. “I haven’t set foot yet.”

“Understood. Doors open. Will await confirmation.” A pause. “It’s very green, isn’t it?”

Priya smiled but didn’t reply—she really needed to stop airing her thoughts with people. Looking down, she watched as her booted feet walked down the metal step and onto the planet’s surface.

She had expected to feel some give under her weight, but it was no different to stepping onto any smooth floor. She jumped a few times, landing with an expected thump each time.

Leo’s voice came through the comm. “Looks pretty safe.”

Priya guessed she was being spied on and waved at Leo. She watched him leap from the pod and land heavily, staggering a little. She laughed. “You surprised your bots, didn’t you?”

A grunt came through the com. “My knees are shot.”

“You always have to go one step further.”

“You know me, P.”

Priya’s helmet darkened slightly as some of the clouds cleared away, leaving the blue-tinted light from the nearby star to shine on her and her pod. She glanced up and saw that the break in the clouds was currently only at her location. Despite the random atmospheric air currents, she was uniquely granted good weather.

Leo’s voice came through the comm. “You copy, Priya?”

“Yes. You can stop waving. I’ll go set some probes.”

“Great. I’ll get started on the soil samples. Call in fifteen.”

“Copy.” As she headed to the pod storage locker, Priya noticed the clouds had changed again. The sky above her was a regular grid of lines. Each cloud formed a perfect line in a different shade. Elsewhere, the clouds broiled and writhed. Directly above her, the sky was neat. Organised. Structured.

She pushed the observation aside; it was easy to be caught out by perspective and scale on a new world. Years of training forced her to ignore the strange and concentrate on establishing measurable parameters.

#

Fifteen minutes later, Priya erected a small tripod with a large sphere resting in a cradle. She tapped the controls and the sphere glowed yellow and rose to about a metre above the tripod. Satisfied, she turned and headed down the gentle rise towards her pod. As she walked, she looked out over the vast emptiness, still surprised at the absence of anything. She had stood in deserts on faraway worlds, but never before had she seen such an unblemished view. The lack of visual stimulation brought a calm to her thoughts. Even the clouds seemed quieter. Their ordered lines now stretched across most of the sky.

“How’s it going?” came Leo’s voice.

Priya quickly spotted the man in the smooth, unbroken landscape. “All good here. Just on my way back.”

“Sounds good. I’m starting the core collection. The drill is confused. It keeps mentioning organic compounds, but I’m overriding and it’s cutting now.”

Priya zoomed in on Leo as she walked. She saw the man beside a drill almost his size, its A-frame pointing to the sky while its teeth bored into the planet’s crust. A few hairs pricked up on her neck as her subconscious warned her something was amiss. She immediately halted and focused her attention on her colleague. Her concentration stopped her from registering her surroundings, which were rapidly darkening as the clouds thickened unnaturally fast, turning an opaque dark purple.

“Enhance view. Show movement,” she commanded. The view inside her helmet duplicated itself. The motion tracker was a simple filter that compared video frames. It showed black for no movement and white for any change. Leo and the drill appeared in monochromatic white slices as they moved.

He wasn’t alone.

What initially looked like static flowed from the ground on every side of Leo. Glancing back and forth between views, Priya could make out a rising mist or gas. “Leo. Immediate threat.” She saw the man straighten. “There’s something around you. Can you see it?”

“No. What do you mea…agh…” His voice cut out.

“Leo? Leo?” She watched as her only friend and colleague through time and space began wildly thrashing his arms as if he were fighting a swarm of insects. “Come in, Leo.” She saw him drop to his knees. “Respond!” He abruptly stopped moving, still kneeling upright on the ground, his head bowed forward and his arms hanging limply from his shoulders. Priya watched, her breathing rapid and shallow, as the white static on the movement display filled the view. She returned to the visual and watched in horror as Leo and the drill began tilting to one side and sinking into the ground as if the surface had suddenly become loose sand.

A warning alarm flashed for attention. Selecting it, Priya saw a damage report from the probe she had just set. She turned and watched as the probe descended out of view.

Priya set off at a run for her pod. Above her, the clouds darkened and released spots of moisture that wet the ground. In the distance, there was a deep grumble of thunder as electricity flowed through the atmosphere. She got within a hundred metres of her pod when it also began to be absorbed by the planet. Priya called on her suit to propel her with powered assistance. A few seconds later, she slammed into the hard round side of the only machine that would keep her alive beyond the suit resources. The impact was brutal enough to break a few ribs, which the nanobots immediately began repairing.

Priya saw that two of the pod’s legs were somehow absorbed beneath the unbroken planet’s surface. A look showed that the jets were still clear. Still clinging to the side, she snapped commands at her suit as the outside of her crystal helmet began running with whatever liquid was now falling in sheets from the sky.

Where had the storm come from?

She shook her head. “Emergency departure. Pod launch and hold at five hundred metres. Suit magnetise and attach.”

Both suit and pod reacted immediately. Priya was spread across the pod’s surface, arms and legs outstretched as her suit became one with the little spaceship. Then, the pod’s main engines fired up.

Multiple warning messages filled Priya’s display as the pod strained against its trapped legs. “Detach landing gear,” she shouted through gritted teeth. The pain from her position and her damaged body was intense.

Her stomach fell through the floor as the pod suddenly released its legs. Relief flowed through her as she escaped the danger. This was short-lived as the pod lurched first to one side and then abruptly halted its ascent. For a moment, she thought it had reached her requested altitude. A quick check of her display showed she was less than a hundred metres up.

Thruster heat warnings appeared.

She twisted her head as far as she could to one side. The sky broiled with swirling clouds, pouring rain, and flashes of discharging electricity. With each flash, she saw a fog surrounding her and the pod. It was uneven, and parts were thicker, almost like tentacles gripping her and her ship.

Despite the immense power of the thrusters, refined and improved over hundreds of years of human engineering, she felt and saw herself being dragged back to the surface. Ten seconds later, the pod finally exceeded the safety limits and the engines shut off. Priya closed her eyes, expecting to drop like a stone. Instead, she descended steadily until the pod touched back down.

Without the landing legs, the pod immediately rolled onto its back before sinking into the surface again. Priya deactivated her magnetic suit and leapt away from the craft. She stood only a few metres away and watched in despair as her means of contacting and returning to the mothership disappeared.

Only as the pod vanished beneath the surface did she realise her suit lights had come on. Aside from the flashes of lightning, the white beams from her suit were the only illumination on a suddenly dark world.

Seeing all options disappear, Priya fell back on her training and sat on the ground with her legs crossed. She blocked out the pain that wracked her body, closed her eyes, and began attempting to calm her mind. As she rejected thoughts of escape and rescue, she became aware that the sound of the rain started to ease. The raging torrent of thoughts flowing over the rocks of possibility gradually settled until she could visualise a vast, still lake. Around her, the pressure eased, and all sound faded away. Curiosity got the better of her, and she opened her eyes.

Once again, she sat in a vast, open landscape under an unbroken sky.

Then she saw the mist.

The same mist she had seen surrounding Leo rose around her. She decided against fight or flight and chose nothingness.

She relaxed and awaited her fate.

The mist grew thicker, and the same strands she had seen in the air began pressing against her. Probing. Feeling.

Abruptly, everything was grey. She felt momentary pressure on every part of her body; then it was inside.

Still calm, Priya watched as the mist filled her suit.

Then, it filled her.

#

Priya sat in grey nothingness.

“We welcome you,” She didn’t hear a voice. The words appeared in her mind.

“We have waited…waited…now you’re here.”

Thinking was difficult. It was like trying to run in a dream. “I…I don’t understand.”

“You will. We will. You are home. Bring the others.”

“Others?” She watched…no…she reached out through the mist. She flew up, racing at unimaginable speed through the atmosphere. A white spot grew rapidly as she hurtled towards the metallic shape of her former home.

“We shall greet them all. They shall become us.”

Priya reached forward, and grey fog flowed around the helpless ship—a ship filled with the hope of humanity.

She hugged the ship and pulled her family close.

“We are many.”

“We are one.”

“We are Priya.”

Why don’t the Chinese eat Chinese food?

Hi, Muhammad Okasha. Thanks for the interesting question and Answer Request.

My answer to your question would be:

Because there will be times when the Chinese have to drink “Chinese food”.

For example, I’m a big fan of consuming the below Chinese soups.
They’re made from ingredients that are said to be good for the skin, hair, and nails.

From top to bottom, left to right:

红豆燕麦乳 (Red Bean Oat Milk Soup)
经典美龄羹 (Classic Meiling Soup)
苹果山药小米羹 (Apple Yam Millet Soup)
浓香黑芝麻糊 (Fragrant Black Sesame Paste Soup)
水润五白羹 (Moisturizing Five White Soup)
红豆黑米苹果露 (Red Bean, Black Rice, Apple Soup)

---

Also, there will be times when Chinese might choose to enjoy “non-Chinese foods”.
For me personally, if I’m not eating “Chinese food”, I will almost always be eating “Japanese food”.

These two “cuisines” are my Big Two.

---

Also, Muhammad Okasha, my advice to you would be to stop using ChatGPT to write your questions and answers:

This is because the vast majority of people – myself included – will ignore answers that are churned out by ChatGPT.

I ignore all answers generated by ChatGPT, and I delete all comments that were generated by ChatGPT PLUS will immediately block all Quorans who have the gall to place ChatGPT comments on any of my answers.

If you can’t even write your own answers and comments, you don’t deserve any visibility whatsoever.

Have a wonderful NYE celebration ahead.

You’d call them buddy.

After a while I spy in my periphery the faint but dignified celestial spotlight of Uranus. Turning to face Him, I ask with Jovian thunder, ‘Storm and stone, why call thee Uranus?’, like I haven’t asked before, and His response is, with a bloated sigh, ‘Because I’m full of gas.’

Gets me every time.

Poor Uranus, though. They say scent offends most, and everyone knows He’s cloud over core for Titan (Saturn’s moon), who notably smells a bit like gasoline and almonds (that’s Bleu De Chanel perfume by space standards). I mean, we gas giants all have a scent, but Uranus is the unwashed butt of the Solar System.

No chance, man. No chance, no chance.

‘That spot isn’t going anywhere, is it, Jupiter?’ howls Uranus. And I respond with a dignified, ‘It’s just a storm, man. Void, I am the storm!’

He opts for this: ‘Scary.’

And I say, ‘Must be tough, smelling like a space-rat.’ 

And He says, ‘Gosh Golly, you’re in a mood today.’

And I say, ‘It’s this damn spot, it won’t abate. And nice to see you, too. How’s long’s it been?’ 

‘From my perspective, a season or a few Uranus months ago. You?’

‘A little over a year ago, yeah.’ 

Back and forth, round and round.

Jupiter. Uranus. Jupiter. Uranus.

Jupiter’s vacuuming Trojan asteroids from its ebony carpet, trying to win Earth’s attention like a show-off feminine knight in golden armour with storm-formed pauldrons and icy jewels.

He looks magnificent. So what if Earth dotes on Him?

Uranus is back, rotating like a lazy turtle chasing a wayward ripple. ‘Best thing you can do,’ He says, ‘slather some benzoyl peroxide on it. It’ll calm the spot right down.’

‘Calm’s right,’ I say. ‘But it’s a storm. It just needs time.’

‘Until the next one appears,’ Uranus says.

‘Oh Jove’s Thunder, don’t say that!’

We talk for weeks. Part ways. Until next time.

Months pass.

The spot is shrinking but still young. It faces toward Earth like a cherubic newborn. Earth rotates, Her splatter-of-paint eye glancing sideways, her little South America smirk.

I do not say anything, besotted, bespotted gashead I am. I drift for many months more. I get the idea that Earth and Saturn are fucking. That’s the nature of gorgeous things; they cling together, like God’s balls in His great divine zipper.

This little squall across my face, it shrinks yet somehow grows. I know, I know it’s slowly shrinking—but it just gets bigger and bigger, you know?

‘Have you checked out that dating app, Jupiter? It’s called Gravitate. How’d I meet my exoplanet? At a Big Bang. Did I “conjoin” with Mercury? No comet’ 

Wild Venus, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

To be honest, I guess I’m feeling a little deflated. I guess I’m all, I don’t know, feeling like a tiny particle adrift the vast, cold, finite infinity with a cycloptic, oozing blister of tempests and feel like I’ve got something to hide.

They call that shame.

It could be worse. It is worse for the sun. He’s got sunspots basically the size of me, and He’ll just keep flaring up, and He’s always searing angry about it, and no wonder.

Okay, friggin: do I do it? I’m doing it. Yeah, let’s do it. It’s done.

Discovery Settings, Search Distance: 5,000,000,000 miles >>>>>>>>> 2.5 million light-years.

Show Ages: 3,500,000,000 <<<<>>>> 6,000,000,000

Gravitate account’s all set up.

By the way, here’s my bio: I’m the planet with a Huge Red Eye, but I promise, I’m not high. 

It sounds like a rap bar, but it’ll do.

I begin swiping.

Venus 4,503,000,000

416 million kilometres away.

‘Looking for someone to cool me off—if you can handle 900°F!’ 😛 🔥🥵

There She goes…

I swipe left.

Pluto 4,500,000,000

3.7 billion miles away

Not technically a planet anymore but still proud. Swipe right if you are looking for something more than just Plutonic and can handle a little distance. 😎🪐

Right.

Proxima Centauri b 5,000,000,000

4.24 light-years away

Pros:

Habitable 

Spacious

Cons: 

Live far away

Tidally locked

Left.

You know, I bet you Saturn’s on here. I bet you he’s saying something like, ‘This ring doesn’t mean I’m taken.’ He’s like that.

Earth 4,540,000,000

484 miles away

I’m a down-to-Earth chick. 😀 Mother of seven billion. Environmentalist.

Gulp. Swipe Right. Gulp.

Hours later, a ping.

IT’S AN ALIGNMENT! <3 You’ve matched with Earth! <3

Woah. Wait. Woah.

I don’t say anything, nor does She. I can’t seem to think of something to say. Then I say, Did God really make you in six days? 😛

And She says, ‘Are you sure you’re not high, Red Eye? :P’

And for the first time in 350 years… I think I can feel the storm settling.

Expert scammers NEVER ask for money right away. They know that this would be a huge mistake. Only the apprentices, who are not under the guidance of a “Chairman”, ask for giftcards on the first round of chatting. They thus learn the hard way that a money request on first chat is always a “crash-and-burn”.

Expert scammers are usually more patient since they know that first it is always necessary to construct and consolidate a romantic relation “of love and trust” (as they call it). In fact, after they have love-bombed the wall around your heart and made it come tumbling down, that is when they go in for the kill.

For example, the current love of my life is Gen. Andrew Poppas_Version 2, who is the paragon of muscular masculinity in the photo below.

As you can see, he appears to have muscles in all of the right places. We have been chatting for a while now. Like all of my past 112 fiancés, he is a millionaire, and incredibly, he does have access to his money! In fact, the other day he offered to send me €44,000 for the medical bills of my youngest son.

All he needed was for me to send him all of my bank information (and codes) and/or credit card so that he could enter my account and leave me all of this money. I told him that I did not think that this was a good idea because such information should be kept private. Not that I did not trust him but someone (evil) could hack his email and steal it from him.

Of course, he understood completely and the next day came up with another plan. He told me that the CEO of Wells Fargo, Mr. Charles Scharf, would get in touch with me. Incredibly, the next day Mr. Scharf wrote me a grammatically correct email, asking me to send him my bank information in order to make the transfer of the €44,000.

Since I have an account with an Internet bank, which I only use when I travel abroad and which currently has a total of three euros in it, I gave him the account number. He then asked for the “codes”. Instead of sending him MY personal bank codes, I sent him the BIC and SWIFT codes, which are necessary for international money transfers (and are publicly available). Mr. Scharf must be a very busy man because he has still not gotten in touch with me, and the three euros are still in my account. I am still awaiting the €44,000.

Meanwhile, Andrew, my dear fiancé, persists in our passionate romance. He has even sent me three or four touching AI-generated voice messages with a posh British accent, in which he sounds like the Duke of Wellington. Since he claims to have been raised in Ohio, this is quite an accomplishment that he still has not been able to explain. This morning he sent me the following urgent message:

I am writing to inform you, as I am going to the city of Iraq for a special mission, that all high-ranking military officers have been asked to come together for a special meeting from which they will issue a high ranking orders. will be turned over to us for quick action. I count the days I have left to finally get close to you right next to my heart. I love you, my angel. (Gen. Andres Poppas in Palestine and losing his grammar on the way to the CITY of Iraq)

Since Gen. Richard Clarke_Version 1 once went to the “city of Syria”, never to return, I know that this is not going to turn out well. In fact, it is the beginning of the end. Gen. Poppas will soon ask me to receive a small fortune in money, gold and jewels, apart from his Rolex and ‘multi-wears’ (the term for all-purpose clothing in West Africa). I will refuse his request and still another of my romances will hit the dust. The good news is that my bank account with three euros will remain intact.

This Is How the American Economy Ends: And It’s Already Happening

Suburbs are emptying. For sale signs gather dust. And the math that once built the American Dream has quietly turned against itself.

For decades, rising home values and swelling populations fueled an economy that promised more—more growth, more security, more buyers around every corner.

Now, with each passing year, there are fewer families, fewer new arrivals, and fewer shoulders to carry the weight. 🏚️

What happens when the next generation can’t—or won’t—take over what the last one built? 💸

Why are cities and pension funds staring down permanent shortfalls as the population grays and demand evaporates? 📉 Could negative equity, demographic decline, and empty infrastructure create a crisis too slow for headlines, but too vast to reverse?

This video unravels the quiet unraveling tracking how aging suburbs, shrinking tax bases, and a vanishing sense of “growth” are transforming America from the inside out.

We’ll follow the numbers behind the headlines, explore the psychology of a country built for more, and confront what’s left when more is finally gone.

China’s oldest known bamboo slip from the Cao Wei state found in Gansu

By Sun Langchen and Li YuchePublished: May 26, 2025 11:24 PM

Photo: Screenshot

The oldest known bamboo slip dated from the Cao Wei state of the Three Kingdoms period (220-280) has been discovered during a study of 216 ­previously unreleased slips collected by the Gansu Provincial Archives and Gansu Jiandu Museum, offering rare insights into the administrative and military life along the ancient Silk Road more than 1,700 years ago, CCTV News reported on Monday.

According to CCTV News, the finding emerged from a joint research project that examined 216 previously unreleased bamboo and wooden slips held in the archives’ collection.

“We’re currently studying and interpreting this batch of 216 slips that have never been made public before,” said Sun Xiaoyun, director of the development and utilization division at the Gansu Provincial Archives.

“Among them, we made a particularly significant discovery: the oldest slip dated from the Cao Wei state of the Three Kingdoms.”

Jiandu are the bamboo and wooden slips on which ancient Chinese people wrote using ink and brushes before the invention of paper. To date, the vast majority of known and studied slips were from the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC) and Western Jin Dynasty (265-316). Discoveries from the Cao Wei state of the Three Kingdoms have been exceedingly rare, with only a few dozen slips found prior to this new find.

Xiao Congli, head of the sorting and research department at the Gansu Jiandu ­Museum, told the Global Times that this particular slip records the delivery of official documents between a courier and a postal officer and is dated explicitly to a day in June in the second year of Jingchu, or the year 238.

This seemingly ordinary mail delivery record offers a valuable time marker.

The Jingchu era refers to the reign of Cao Rui, also known as Emperor Ming of Wei, who was the son of Cao Pi and grandson of the warlord Cao Cao – key figures in the tumultuous Three Kingdoms era.

The year 238, when this slip was written, was a time of intense military activity. Historical accounts suggest that this was when Jiang Wei, a famed general of the Shu state, launched his first northern campaign against Wei forces. Some believe he was stationed in Hanzhong alongside commander Jiang Wan before leading a detachment westward into Longyou, an area now part of modern-day Gansu Province.

While scholars cannot yet confirm whether the slip is directly connected to these military events, its timing and geographic origin evoke the wartime backdrop of more than 1,700 years ago.

Besides this slip, other slips among this batch also provide further insight into the military and administrative structures on China’s northwestern ­frontier during the Han ­Dynasty (206BC-AD220).

“We found out that the content of many of the 216 slips is unprecedented, including rare references to frontier military outposts, ­fengshui-related practices, thus enriching understanding of the defensive infrastructure along the Great Wall and the social systems of the Hexi Corridor. Their diverse formats and long chronological span also provide valuable insight into governance, communication, transportation, and social life along the Silk Road,” Xiao added.

Xiao further noted that some records confirm that Xuanquanzhi, a postal relay station established during the Han Dynasty near Dunhuang and the only fully excavated Silk Road courier site in China, remained in operation into the Three Kingdoms, demonstrating its enduring role in regional logistics.

Grilled Reuben Chicken Melts

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
• 2 cups shredded red cabbage
• 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) Swiss cheese, shredded
• 1 large onion, cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 1 1/4 cups Thousand Island salad dressing, divided
• 4 French rolls, split

Instructions

1. Brush chicken and onion with 1/2 cup salad dressing; set aside.
2. Combine 1/4 cup salad dressing and cabbage; mix well; set aside.
3. Grill chicken over hot coals 5 to 7 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in center. Sprinkle chicken evenly with Swiss cheese during the last minute of grilling.
4. Grill onion 4 to 5 minutes on each side, or until browned and tender.
5. Grill rolls until toasted. Spread toasted sides of rolls with remaining 1/2 cup salad dressing. Place chicken on roll bottoms. Top with onion, cabbage mixture and roll tops. Serve immediately.