Starfall Code: The Reboot of Civilization

In 2187, the Great Silence descends. All faster-than-light communications across the Milky Way suddenly go dark, and the interstellar colonial empire collapses. Lin Ye, the former empire's chief data analyst, accidentally activates a piece of code from a prehistoric civilization, the “Starfall Code,” aboard an abandoned space station. The code can not only restore communications, but also reveals a horrifying truth: the Great Silence is a “screening mechanism” used by advanced civilizations to filter out inferior ones, and human civilization has already been marked as a “target for elimination.”

To restore interstellar connections and expose the truth behind the screening, Lin Ye joins forces with the remnants of an exiled imperial fleet, a rebel planet with advanced biotechnology, and an AI consciousness hiding deep in the network. Together, they form the “Reboot Alliance,” transcending both species and allegiances. As they evade the advanced civilizations' “cleaners” and decode the secrets of civilization hidden in the Starfall Code, they search through the ruins and the sea of stars for a slim chance of humanity's survival. But they discover that the screening conceals a feud spanning a billion years between the prehistoric and advanced civilizations, and humanity is merely the most unexpected “variable” in this cosmic game of chess.