Chapter 1536 Signal

Deep submersible test port, control center monitoring team.

In the space outside the control center, one hundred and twenty-two sets of antennas point to the Gate of the Abyss. More relay stations and abyss communication arrays than these antennas operate day and night inside the dark gate. These advanced equipment form a A seamless communication link continuously monitors the "world" below the gate at a very high cost of loss, and does not dare to miss even a second.

Today is the seventh day that the deep-diving ship has completely lost contact. Just like the previous six days, only clutter is transmitted back from the antenna, without any orderly information that can be decoded. The Gate of the Abyss is like a crazy whirlpool. , there is no life at the bottom of the whirlpool.

But the high-level Xiling Angel in charge of the communication system and monitoring system still dutifully waited in the monitoring team's work area, focusing all his attention on the equipment in front of him, even if what he heard in his ears was always the messy sound. Jamming the signal, this female angel with silver hair and golden eyes did not dare to relax at all, even though all she recorded during these six days was clutter.

According to the "dive" speed of the deep submersible ship and the rough calculation of the void model, if the deep submersible ship could survive, it should have reached the other shore by now and sent back information. The only person who has not sent back the information may be One: The deep-diving ship has been completely destroyed, or although it successfully reached the other shore, it unfortunately fell into the barbaric void without super civilization.

Xiling Apostles will not be disturbed by negative emotions. Even the most basic soldiers are immune to various emotional and psychological abnormalities (unless they are attacked by special beings like Soul Sealers or Psychic Assaulters), but even if the mind is tough, Like iron, they still feel sad when they think about the possibility that the deep-diving ship is completely destroyed and all their ancestors have been killed.

"Zi Zi"

As a high-level researcher, Xiling Angel was not disturbed by the irritable emotions in her heart. She just frowned and put the bad thoughts into another process in the core of her thinking. The main process is still paying attention to the monitoring device in front of it.

"Zi Zi"

There seemed to be some orderly signals coming from the monitoring equipment, but they were quickly covered by clutter. When I looked for them again, I couldn't see anything. There were only a bunch of seemingly meaningless lines and irregularities in the historical records. A combination of gibberish.

"Zi Zi"

Just when the Xiling Angel was about to switch the monitoring channel and temporarily forget about the expectation for a moment, the brief signal appeared again. This time it seemed to be more obvious than before, and a message was displayed on the recording system. Continuous small curves that repeat within a certain range. "Zizzizizi", the orderly signals that are repeated repeatedly make a loud sound as if they are hitting the core of thinking!

Signal! Orderly signal! This is an orderly signal from the other side!

The huge emotional impact seems to break through the threshold of rational thinking, but this is just a momentary illusion produced by the core of thinking. The duty officer kept calm at the first moment. She did not cheer ecstatically, nor did she call her companions or superiors when she was unsure of the situation. According to the procedures, she immediately connected to the duty host of the control center. Uploading these short signals to the host, using the latter's super computing power to start parsing these short codes, she then adjusted one-third of the one hundred and twenty-two sets of antennas to focus them all on the received The frequency band of the signal. It took one-third of the entire control center's monitoring efforts to track the signal source, but in the end it seemed that it was not enough, so she added fifteen more antennas so that the signal appeared more clearly in the monitoring system.

This is not necessarily news from the ancestors, it is most likely just a call from the other side. After all, they'd been doing it all along, and this time it was probably just a coincidence. No conclusion can be drawn before the final facts are determined. This is a professional quality that a technical worker must have, so Xiling Angel wisely remained calm after doing all this. Just wait quietly for the host to send back the cracking information.

The wait didn't last long, but it seemed like a full year had passed, accompanied by a slight system prompt. The deciphered message appeared on the holographic projection in front of him. It was just a few short words. Seeing these words, Xiling Angel no longer had any doubts:

"We're still alive."

Sandora and I were woken up from bed by an emergency message at 4:30 in the morning. Also woken up were my sister and Qian Qian. Of course, I believe Lin Xue should also have received this reminder at her home. "Alarm clock", because I sensed a burst of anger in my spiritual connection: it was the anger of a young lady who had not slept enough and was woken up rashly.

But soon no one had any objections to this emergency communication, because news came from the deep dive port: the ancestors are still alive!

Even with the fastest void shuttle, it would take several hours to run from the capital of the empire to the deep dive port. In addition, this time we did not need to attend any experiment in person, so the whole family was not awakened from their sleep. Instead of going to the deep dive port, he went directly to the Shadow City Research Center, connected to the deep dive port monitoring team through the data network, and asked the other party to transfer the signal.

When a large group of us rushed to the deep diving project department, Harlan and Abyss Xiling were already waiting here, and Tavel's body was debugging a set of equipment in the center of the hall.

Seeing us appearing, Haran didn't say anything, he just raised his hand and pointed to the holographic projection next to him.

There is only one sentence on the holographic projection: "We are still alive."

Below this sentence are dense data and charts, indicating the forwarding intensity, reception pattern, encoding method of this message, and various data required for information source positioning and reverse transmission, although it cannot be fully seen. I understand, but I know that this is the key to deciphering this short piece of information and helping us contact the other side.

"Only this sentence?" Sandora frowned and looked at Abyss Xiling. Tavel was busy operating the equipment there, so naturally she could only let the second expert on the scene speak.

"Well, it was broadcast for three minutes in total, and the content was only this sentence," Abyss Xiling nodded. There was a red light traveling quickly on the big box behind her, and an obvious buzzing sound came from the box. Apparently she also She is in a state of high-speed calculation: her body is not here. During high-speed calculation, the spiritual network in the abyss is actually active, and the current state of this big box is the result of massive data exchange. "The actual broadcast length should be longer than this. Maybe It is the interference from the discontinuous band that affects the communication quality, so that your antenna can only receive the information for these three minutes. And because the antenna is not strong enough, the information sent from here should not reach the other side. The other side does not know whether it is received here. When the signal is detected, the broadcast may be terminated at any time. Antenna strength and discontinuous band interference...are really an unsolvable problem."

I didn't care about Abyss Xiling's sigh. Seeing that Tavel's busy work seemed to have come to an end, I hurriedly asked: "How is it? Can we also increase the intensity of sending and receiving? How about filtering interference?"

"The sensitivity of all antennas has been raised to the highest level. Bubble has also built a host array to filter interference. The reception problem should be solved soon, but the antenna strength...the strength of a single machine is difficult to continue to improve. The current technology is limited. In theory, it is so."

Qian Qian couldn't help shouting at this time: "What should we do?"

"Increasing the number, multi-point broadcasting, and channel overlapping will improve the quality of communication. Although the cumulative number cannot fundamentally increase the broadcast intensity, it can greatly improve the clarity of the broadcast, allowing the relay stations in the critical layer of the abyss to operate at a higher The power will work, and the decoding on the other side will be easier," Tavel said quickly. "My subordinates have activated the communication systems of several other backup deep dive ports. The Star Territory is also connecting their detection stations online as soon as possible. If they broadcast at several abyss gates at the same time, there will definitely be a change. In theory, there will be changes. That’s right.”

"But the communication network between the Protoss and the Empire is not directly connected. If you use an over-limit connection, you have to go through a translation process. This itself is a loss and reduces the network coordination," Abyss Xiling said, "This will affect the effect... and The Protoss' detection station is limited by its own architecture when broadcasting. Its signal format is fixed, which may interfere with the signal broadcast by the empire, but will increase the workload of the relay station. Wait a minute. I am in the abyss. deep dive port, I can start broadcasting from there and it only takes a few minutes to synchronize.”

"Use the radio station in the abyss area..." I was stunned for a moment, with a strange expression on my face, "I didn't dare to think about it before."

Sandora lowered her eyes and was thinking about other things, then she raised her head: "Well, using the broadcast point in the Abyss is a good way, and it can also greatly expand the channel, but there is a problem: the network and empire in the Abyss Isn’t the district’s network absolutely isolated? How to synchronize it? This kind of multipoint broadcast must be synchronized to be effective. Although the Protoss’ data network and the Empire’s data network need translation, they are at least connected.”

At that time, my mind was twitching and I almost wanted to follow the second half of the sentence: Why can't it be mobile?

However, considering that Shandora might bite him to death if he said this, he didn't dare to say it.

"The isolation is to prevent me from being purified, so as long as I avoid purification..." Abyss Xiling glanced at me, then shrugged, "Of course, I know that you definitely don't agree to let void creatures leave the empire network, so there is a compromise. The method is to isolate the data link of the deep dive port from your main network, synchronize this part of the data link with the network of the abyss area, restore the network after sending the message, and use the power of void creatures to eliminate possible infiltrations from the abyss area. Contamination from the past. Although the steps are a little more troublesome, a Xiling host with sufficient computing power can perform this process. You only need to pay a little risk and trust: are you willing to let your deep dive port data link be open to the abyssal zone?"

She might have thought Sandora was going to hesitate, but the latter nodded decisively: "Okay, no problem."

Noticing the surprised expression of Abyss Xiling, Sandora smiled: "During this period, the Abyss Zone has been showing sincerity. We can occasionally show trust. And it's just a deep dive port... Even if something goes wrong, With the empire’s current strength, it can create several new ones at any time, and the number of spare abyss gates is in double digits.”

This time Abyss Xiling didn't have any more comments. I noticed that her figure suddenly dimmed a lot, and the big box behind her also glowed brighter red: she should be mobilizing resources in the abyss area.

This kind of network delivery is not a physical operation, but a data operation based on the virtual environment. As long as some telemetry antennas are pointed at a few specific coordinates in the abyss area, and then the Xiling host performs calculations on the network, a temporary data exchange can be established. platform, so everything was completed quickly: all the deep-diving ports in the Imperial Zone and the deep-diving facilities in the Abyss Zone were temporarily connected into one, and a super-powerful broadcast system was formed in just ten minutes.

After the new system was set up, Tavel took a few deep breaths solemnly, as if as an apostle of Xiling, she also needed this method to calm down her mood. Then she straightened her face and put the information that had been edited in advance. Through this huge multi-point broadcast system, it is sent to the "bottom layer" of the Gate of the Abyss: "This is the Xiling Empire, the message has been received. Please reply."

We still don’t know how large-scale information exchange this fragile connection path can withstand, so instead of sending images or audios rashly, we send a simple text, which is also accompanied by a self-decoding "dictionary". It is prepared for some kind of translation program on the other side: if they also use a similar translation program.

According to the information received from the other side before, the civilization on the other side should be able to understand this self-decoding law. Anyway, multi-layer consideration is not a bad thing.

What follows is a few long and excruciating minutes of waiting. The message has been sent, and all the antennas in the Empire and Abyss areas will continue to broadcast this message to the other side, and all we can do is wait: there is no effective enough testing method. There is no "send receipt" method to refer to. No one knows whether the message has successfully reached its destination, and no one knows how long the "communication delay" is in the weird structure that separates the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Before the reply arrives, All that can be done is to wait.

"This is the Star Ring Federation. I received the message and say hello to the Xiling Empire."

A line of text suddenly appeared on the communicator. There was a special mark under "Star Ring Federation", indicating that this word was not a noun with an exact meaning translated according to the decoding rules. It is a "temporary name" that facilitates understanding and communication between the two parties. It is neither a transliteration nor a free translation.

The text was shaking on the communicator, which seemed to indicate that the person on the other side was feeling the same excitement when sending this message.

Countless epochs of hard work finally came to light at this moment...connected! !

"Long live!!" Qian Qian was the one who couldn't restrain her emotions the most, so she was the first to cheer. Under her influence, even a reserved person like her sister couldn't help but become happy, and soon everyone was having fun. However, Tavel and the experts on the scene remained calm: although their eyes looked the same. shining. But no one let it interfere with the work at hand.

"Okay, okay, there will be plenty of opportunities to celebrate in the future," I had to press Qian Qian's head to calm the girl down. Then, while holding the vitality girl who was still running around, he turned to look at Tavel and said, "Ask about the ancestors."

Tavel once again revised and improved the "dictionary" based on the messages sent from the other side. Based on the information previously collected and the information submitted by Abyss Xiling, he initially determined the best signal format for communicating with the civilization on the other side, and then sent out the third Two texts: "We are aware of the matters related to 'building a bridge'. Now one of our scientific research ships has been involved in the turbulence and has lost contact. Is it on your side?"

After the message was sent, there was another period of silence. It took three minutes for something to appear on the communicator. I looked at the time and said to myself: There is a three-minute delay. A small part of the time is consumed by layers of relays and information transcoding. Coupled with the distortion effect of the abyss environment on "time", these things should be able to be compensated for through technical means. The rest is probably the "hard delay" on both sides of the void. How long will this period of time last? One minute or two minutes? Can it be solved through technical means?

A line of text was displayed on the communicator: "The spacecraft was severely damaged, but the core is preserved, and the personnel on the spacecraft are safe."

"Huh" I let out a long breath. Although I had already seen the five words "We are still alive" before, but now I got a more affirmative answer, and my heart completely fell back into my stomach.

Next, Tavel began to send messages one by one, sending the issues we were most concerned about to the other party in the most concise way possible. This communication process was maddeningly slow: every sentence was delayed by several minutes!

This is simply unimaginable for people who have been accustomed to the convenience of the empire's data network. Even those who are used to the crude Internet on earth will not be able to accept this kind of slow communication, but this is the maintenance between "this shore" and "the other side" The only way to talk. We, the top officials of the empire, gathered in front of the communicator. In front of us were the best scientists in the empire, using the most advanced communication equipment in the void (the same should be the same on the other side), using the most concise information encoding currently available, and it took several minutes to communicate. A few words of difficult correspondence.

We dare not send too much information at a time, because according to the calculation of signal noise, once the amount of information exceeds a certain threshold, it is possible to burn the relay station at the critical layer: that is our only reliance on communicating with the other side, if it is burned , God knows when the next one will be deployed, we can’t afford another “accident”.

"It feels like a group of aliens wearing power armor squatting in a cave digging for wood to make fire," Qianqian said, as always open-minded, and the metaphor she proposed was novel but ingenious, "Can the ancestors survive on the other side? "

"I think there's no problem," I said casually as I watched Tavel struggling to communicate with the other shore. "The materials on the other shore and our own are not 100% incompatible, and the civilization on the other shore is also a super civilization. We all have ways to deal with black shuttles. With the wreckage of the deep-diving ship on the other side, it shouldn’t be a big problem to feed a few survivors on the other side.”

This difficult exchange lasted for several hours, and we finally understood roughly what happened after the deep-diving ship lost contact.