Chapter 1606 Desolate Land
It has been three days since the fleet left the Imperial Zone.
Of course, since there is no concept of time in the void, these "three days" are calculated according to the imperial standard timeline. No matter how far away from the imperial zone, we will keep the time scale on the battleship consistent with the imperial zone.
For battleships in the void, rushing means constantly "jumping". Every time the void engine modifies its own information identification code, it is equivalent to moving the entire fleet once. This is a non-linear way to advance, and each jump is very fast. Without the "absolute path" as an obstacle, the only thing that affects the fleet's forward speed is the computing power of the void engine. Three days is enough time for us to travel a very, very far distance - but it seems we are still further away from our destination.
After all, the movement speed of the fleet cannot be compared with the void shuttle. Although Tavel installed modification plug-ins to increase the sailing speed of each spacecraft in the fleet as much as possible before departure, this improvement was limited. It will take us more than half a month to reach the first suspected coordinate.
Now the fleet is far away from the border, but it is still within the range that the Garden of Death system can barely radiate. The empire has launched some sporadic outposts and automatic observation posts to this area, as well as some self-proliferating and self-evolving self-discipline bases. It can be said to be the limit of the empire's power. Through the border outpost development station, some unclear civilian channels can still be received here. Although there will no longer be any civilian exploration ships here, these civilian channels are still using their weak signals to declare the imperial hegemony here. sense of presence.
It's such a desolate and dead place. We have never developed here because there is really nothing to develop here - only three or two universes can be searched within the information offset of thousands of units. And all of them have no life response. This place is as empty as a large cemetery, and even the remnants of the world are rare items.
Very empty areas like this occasionally appear in the void. The distribution of the world in the void is uneven. Where there are dense areas, there are sparse areas. When sparse reaches the extreme, it is this kind of desolate area. Desolate areas are a desperate situation for the occasional civilizations that emerge there. This means that even if they develop the technology to sail across worlds, it will be difficult for them to find other universes alive. They will die on the long journey of their first voyage; but for some cross-world civilizations, such desolate areas are rare. Natural barrier: Without the universe as a springboard, it means that it is difficult for the abyss and foreign enemies to penetrate. You do not need to set up a sovereign hub in each world to build a costly "Great Sentinel Wall". This desolate area falls into the latter category. It has been an excellent barrier for the new empire for several years, and it has proven to be effective - since the founding of the new empire, there has never been an early warning of the abyss penetrating from this desolate area.
But this time we have to trek through this barren land. This kind of journey is not difficult for the Imperial Fleet, but it is extremely boring and boring. There is nothing to see along the way. Even Qian Qian, a vitality girl who is always excited at any time, quickly becomes bored.
Fortunately, the Imperial spaceships are quite large, even to the extent that towns are common within them. The hundreds of kilometers long Imperial Admiral has additional space for expansion inside, and its town size has reached the level of a city. Although each spacecraft is a purely industrial military industry town. But walking on those city streets can also make people temporarily forget that they are on a starship sailing in the void. In addition, there is also a huge ecological ball in the spacecraft. This is enough to keep Qianqian busy for a long time - the girl will not suffer from depression.
But Qianqian can run around and play. But I have to be on duty here in the command hall all the time. Although I know that I am not an expert in the professional field, after all, as a commander, I have to set an example, and no one can be absent from such a significant voyage. Only Shandora and I can't. Although we usually talk about eating and waiting to die, we still have the consciousness at critical moments.
Of course, what's more important is that if you skip work casually, you will be bitten by Sandora. I can't bite her...well, I don't have the habit of biting!
It was the afternoon of the third day. Half an hour after lunch, I was called by Sandora to come to the command hall to accompany her. This place is always brightly lit and busy. Every command seat and every data terminal is constantly receiving information and issuing instructions. It serves as the brain of the entire spacecraft and even the entire fleet to coordinate everything. And here Sandora and I seem to be supervising the working status of this brain - by the way, is this metaphor a little strange?
"Huh, it looks like it's another day of doing nothing." Sandora was also a little bored (in fact, I suspected that she called me here just to find a fellow prisoner to kill time with her). She breathed out and looked at the scene in front of her. Embedded data terminal, "The signal from the Garden of Death can still be received here. It seems that the last system upgrade of the Garden of Death was quite effective. But it's time to set up an outpost development station. Although the psychic network has always been very reliable, it would be better to leave a few more A line of communication is always good.”
I looked at the picture coming back from the external monitor. Located in the middle and rear of the fleet were dozens of large engineering barges. These barges were used to carry out bridge erecting operations after arriving at the destination. They were also responsible for continuously setting up bridges during the voyage. The outpost development station, and the role of the outpost development station is to ensure smooth communication between the fleet and the imperial area.
After all, we are going to a quite remote place with many unexplored environments. We must set up a large number of stations along the way to be prepared for various accidents.
The upper structure of an engineering barge slowly opened, and a dozen autonomous machines and a small work boat floated out. Behind them was a silver-white cube dragged out with a tractor beam. This kind of silver-white cube is the "construction core" of the outpost development station. They have a long-term order field, and a set of architectural blueprints and information-matter conversion devices required for self-expansion are sealed inside. They are the most suitable for void exploration. A useful basic unit. This basic unit requires very little external intervention to operate. Basically, autonomous machinery and work boats throw it into the void, then position it and set a startup mode. The rest of the work can be done by the construction core itself. They will grow and expand rapidly, and finally turn into a sustainable station similar to the void node of the Gods. The standard configuration of an outpost development station is as follows: a core computer room located in the dome building in the center of the site; two sets of high-power void communication modules. They are two large antenna towers, one at each end of the site; a medium-sized factory that can continuously produce autonomous machinery and small work vessels. These work units are used for self-maintenance and basic defense of the site (although there is nothing in the void Enemies. But Xiling Apostle is accustomed to hanging guns everywhere); two sets of teleportation devices, these teleportation devices lead to the next outpost development station, all outpost development stations are connected by this void portal, and ultimately lead to The Empire Zone; and finally a living space that can accommodate hundreds of people (loaded with the New Empire Survival Protocol, which can provide an ecological environment for seventeen life forms, and provide "quick freezing preservation" services for other life forms).
The pioneering station is actually unmanned, but its main purpose is to provide safety for nearby explorers in various extreme environments. In addition, a survival capsule that can accommodate hundreds of people does not put much pressure on the space expansion device. Large, so these sites have living areas.
The basic shape of an outpost is a short, blunt olive shape. There are antenna towers protruding from the main body at both ends. The alloy carapace and psionic energy barrier completely covered other parts of the outpost. Their size ranges from one kilometer to ten kilometers, depending on whether they need to "grow" that big. In such a desolate area, outposts are important communication equipment. It's also "insurance" for the people on duty working here, should you encounter danger in the void. Then escaping to the outpost development station is likely to be your last chance of survival - and you can also quickly return to the empire area through the teleportation device at the outpost development station. But to be honest, people who encounter danger in the void may not necessarily have time to escape to the nearest outpost. In any case, most mortal artifacts are too fragile in the void.
"Perhaps we should take this opportunity to deploy more development stations." Watching the work ship and the autonomous machine drag the silver-white cube with a side length of 100 meters out of the order field and disappear behind the fleet, I suddenly had an idea, "We can Let the development stations be connected into a network in the desolate area, and then use them as benchmarks to build a transmission channel to the home world. After all, the home world is too far away, and the power of the Garden of Death simply cannot 'drag' it. We can't every It takes half a month to fly there every time, which is more difficult than having Xi pull us to visit us."
"This is indeed a problem, but let's talk about it when we have the opportunity in the future," Sandora pondered for a moment and shook her head slightly, "It takes a lot of energy to set up the kind of continuous jump channel you mentioned, and this place is a desolate area, and there is no universe around it that can serve as a node. , the jump channel itself requires a lot of self-maintenance components, and our fleet is not here for construction along the way."
I nodded, still writing it down in my mind. This problem must be solved sooner or later: the home world is far away from the current empire area, and the Xiling apostle's habit of "drag the new world over as territory" has a limit to the distance. It took the old empire an unknown number of years to bring a new world to the territory. More than a hundred heavenly regions have been established, but now the "distance" between the new empire and the home world is farther than the first heavenly region to the 135th heavenly region! It is unrealistic to slowly break up the soil and open up the territory to push through, so we can only build a temporary channel to connect them first.
By the way, I think of the Silk Road at this time, can our history be saved?
The fleet left an outpost and continued to move forward. What followed was an even more boring and long journey.
Another week has passed, and the fleet has arrived at a strange void that no one has ever set foot in. If the previous intelligence and calculations are correct, this is already the front edge of the wave of destruction, and we will probably see it soon. A lot of world fragments.
But the first thing we see is something surprising.
Sandora called me to the research facility of the Imperial Admiral early in the morning. A group of Tavel's mass projections were already busy here, and Abyss Xiling was also present. I saw the holographic projection in the center of the hall showing a large piece of broken wreckage appearing at the front of the order field, and the fleet had stopped in front of this wreckage.
A large number of work boats were shuttled among the wreckage, dragging out bright lines. I looked familiar at the appearance of those wrecks, and couldn't help but ask Sandora next to me: "What is that?"
"It's the self-proliferating drone group we launched two years ago," Sandora frowned. "Some of them lost contact last year. I didn't expect that they have proliferated to this place. But it seems that they were given by something. Ruined.”
Self-proliferating drone swarms? I was stunned for a moment, and then quickly remembered this: this was a detection plan two years ago. At that time, the war between the New Empire and the Abyss Zone was still in full swing. We urgently needed to expand our territory and increase our strength, so Sandora took the lead in launching a large number of self-proliferating drones. This kind of drone is actually not a single piece of equipment. Rather, it is a "population" that includes drone mother bases, conventional aircraft fleets, exploration laboratories, pioneering factories and a lot of other things, which can generate huge collective power just like ant colonies or bee colonies. Once this kind of drone swarm enters the void, it will rapidly proliferate and search for the world. Drop the colonial station, send the invitation signal to the imperial area, and at the same time desperately expand and spread. Only the orders set by the Xiling Apostle can stop them. This kind of fleet is used for "exploration and discovery", so they are not offensive except for leaving marks everywhere and encircling the territory. They are "safe products" (at least for Xiling Apostles, but many ordinary races seem to have doubt). In the old empire era, this kind of docile and loyal drone group has always been an important auxiliary tool. They helped the belligerent Xiling apostles to open up territories. It has worked diligently for hundreds of millions of years. Their work was also very effective in the new imperial era. The pioneering program two years ago brought us at least one-third of the new territory.
But not all of these drone groups can work safely. Last year, a batch of drones disappeared together with a mother base.
This kind of sudden loss of contact is not uncommon, because the drone swarms have to explore some extremely dangerous and unknown areas. Their forward speed is not as fast as the void shuttle, but their spread is far greater than that of any void exploration team. So there are always swarms of drones missing in white areas. These missing fleets either encountered an abyss, or were unlucky enough to encounter the end of the world. When the situation was serious, it was too late to even send an alarm signal back.
Last year's disappearance of the drone group was considered a serious one, because they also brought a newly built mother base, which was considered a large group. Sivis also organized several search operations specifically for this purpose, but Because the missing aircraft group was too deep into the White Zone, and the Abyss Zone was too restless at the time for the empire to pay attention to, this drone group gradually faded out of everyone's sight.
Unexpectedly, we would see the remains of the fleet here. They are obviously not the ones that disappeared at the beginning, but should be the new fleet that has been multiplied later. It has to be said that the expansion speed of these things is simply terrifying. Without the coordination of the headquarters, they have spread all the way to this point in the white area. Fortunately, the core instructions of each drone include "Do not interfere with the local civilization process, There are two restrictions on "not destabilizing the local world" (after all, they are used to mark new territories, and the empire does not want to get a scorched earth and a group of enemies when receiving territory from the drone swarm), otherwise this thing will definitely be another group of horrible wars. plague.
Even the extraordinary materials created by the empire will quickly disintegrate and assimilate if they fall into the void without energy supply. Therefore, the wreckage the fleet encountered should have been destroyed not long ago. Most of them have serious signs of "evaporation", and the edges of some wreckage have become blurry like phantoms. I can even see this obvious blurry scene on the surveillance screen, but many of the wreckage are still intact. Salvage them It should be possible to confirm what happened in this area recently.
The work boat found a spherical device from the wreckage that looked to be in pretty good condition. It was a silver-gray metal ball with a radius of more than one meter. There was still a dim blue light slowly floating on the surface. It was supposed to be the installation It was on a base somewhere, but now all that's left of those connections are broken stubbles of metal. I watched a work ship use a tractor beam to pull this spherical device into its cargo compartment and then fly towards the Imperial Admiral. Tavel explained next to him: "That is the thinking device of the drone swarm. Every day A thousand drones have one such 'brain', and every hundred 'brains' can form a mother base. Of course, there is also the phenomenon of expansion or reduction of the number, which is decided by the drone group itself. These The 'brain' has a very powerful protective function. Even if the carrier ship they are on is blown up, these thinking cores can sail independently and survive in the void for a long time. Presumably, these brains record the recent progress of the drone swarm. encounter."
This thinking core was quickly sent to the research facility of the Imperial Admiral. Tavel led a group of experts to quickly dismantle it and found a database inside it - fortunately, it was not broken.
According to database records, this thing was destroyed several months ago.
A report was compiled and sent to Sandora and I. Abyss Xiling also received a copy. She looked at the analysis conclusion and shook her head slightly: "It seems to be related to the wave of destruction. The log said that the drone group lost contact with the Empire area. Then they chose to rebuild the communication link while continuing to expand into the depths of the void. They proliferated normally for several months. Finally, a large group of drones finally found a stable new universe, and the consciousness of the drones decided to merge themselves with this new universe. They seemed to be planning to build an industrial world, and then build a giant mothership to send a copy of the database back to the Empire, but before that... the entire universe was 'broken' without warning."
"Just like what those exploration teams reported, the world is dying in pieces, and the causes of death are all kinds of strange." Tavel looked at the disassembled drone's thinking core with a sigh, "It seems that we still know about the void. Too little, and the exploration will never end... The world barrier will suddenly 'shatter', which is obviously only the void itself can do. This is the theory."
"Don't study these ultimate secrets yet," Sandora put down the data terminal in her hand and looked up at the large holographic projection not far away. The projection showed a panoramic view of the imperial fleet. The work fleet had cleaned up the order field. The drone swarm at the front end was wrecked, and some autonomous work ships were released to search for other drones nearby (we still hope to recover some things if possible, so we can live a good life), while the fleet itself is preparing to set sail again, "We should be close to the 'wave of destruction' now, and we may encounter unprecedented situations at any time. Let the fleet be prepared, the sensor power is fully turned on, and the order field is transferred to the alert cruise mode - the speed can be slowed down a bit , it’s better than missing anything.”
The next second I realized that Sandora's sixth sense might be similar to Lin Xue's, because as soon as her voice fell, the shipboard broadcast rang: "Attention, the information tide has been detected, and we are about to contact the order field! Everyone! Be prepared for impact!”
(I’ve been thinking about what to write in a new book... and finally decided to go with an imaginative style without restraint.)