Star Empire

In the bustling depths of space, the bright starlight is being distorted by invisible tentacles. The invisible force field is like a format brush for processing pictures, refreshing the "pictures" of the universe with the starry sky as the background.

Under suitable control methods, energy can bend time and space after modulation - dark space is an excellent isolation barrier. A near-absolute vacuum can isolate almost everything. If "destruction" is needed, apart from the space annihilation bomb itself and the unique shaping methods related to it, space itself is almost indestructible in the face of conventional physical methods.

…

"We're probably going to be here for a long time."

In the main passage of the frontline base, Cavinriel was walking while talking to Kalost. Although it took a long time for the light to reach here, with the help of the federal network section that was closing, everyone here knew that something was happening in space. Something happened.

"In fact, it stands to reason that a series of larger-scale detection facilities should be established in a slightly distant place. Although the frontline base is now stable, it is not a good idea to rely solely on the deteriorating shields to resist."

"You and I are both soldiers, and this is our battlefield. No matter what difficulties we encounter, as long as the Federation still needs us, we cannot retreat." Kalost said to Cavinrel seriously.

"Besides, it's not me... Many times now, when the space station rejects you, it's done deliberately - we are in danger now, and resources are relatively scarce - once the isolation agreement comes into effect, it means that material communication has stopped."

"Currently, we cannot do what you suggested. Within the scope of the blockade application you reported previously, only basic industrial structures are relatively abundant, and heavy military industrial facilities only have space for annihilation bomb production bases and accessory production lines that are relatively scarce. We do not have suitable equipment to immediately Build large-scale space facilities, this is a border area, and the level of development and construction is not that high."

"Okay, I understand." Cavernelle gently sidestepped the two soldiers who were discussing the current situation and said seriously, "Let's continue talking about business. General, if we want to collect data about the whirlpool, we You have to rely on probes — how many deep space probes do we have in stock? Especially harsh-environment self-sustaining probes with chromatic nuclear force shells and the ability to travel at both sublight and superlight speeds."

"There are a total of 112,700 probes, 12,000 are self-sustaining probes for harsh environments, and the remaining 50,000 are atmospheric models and do not have deep space navigation capabilities; 30,000 are It is an autonomous resource exploration model with strong recording capabilities and autonomous cruise mode, but poor protection; the 9500 is an enhanced data link relay node model that can form a small information collection network data link. "

"The rest are all combat models, which have the same defense and action capabilities as the self-sustaining probes in harsh environments, but they function more like jump missiles, with a simple locking system and built-in space annihilation bombs. The space for modification is very limited."

"That is to say, if we count everything, we have 23,700 probes that meet the conditions." Cavernelle thought for a moment, "How about the sensor array?"

"Currently all sensor arrays have been offline due to unknown radiation caused by abnormal phenomena. They can be forced online again, but it requires a certain amount of preparation time." Kalost replied, and at the end he added, "Subject to the current indescribable In a chaotic environment, the effectiveness of these facilities may be reduced.”

"...Then, let's start from the first step." While talking, the two of them had already walked to the central control room. The staff were busy here, exchanging information in real time. In the hall, most of the output The terminals all display the federal emblem. They were originally responsible for outputting the live monitoring of various monitoring systems, but now they are all offline. According to the science officer's request, Kalost is preparing to restart the system.

"General, science officer." All the officers on duty saluted the two men.

"The work is urgent." Caloust interrupted their movements with a wave of his hand, "How long will it take to re-wire the mass and gravitational focus sensors?"

"About four hours." Someone quickly answered, "In order to prevent damage, the peripheral sensor arrays were not only offline, but also sunk into the preset wrinkle grooves. If we want to directly restart all the systems, we will need about four hours. Get the sensor array back online."

"Pay attention to maintaining the redundancy and stability of the overall system." Cavernelle immediately reminded, "Let the main system and the redundant system go online separately. No other backup redundant equipment is required to participate in the calculation under the current working status."

"This...is, Science Officer." Although this operation seemed to be against the rules, the operator still carried out Cavinriel's orders meticulously.

"During this period, we are preparing to launch the first wave of ten probes. The range is a spherical space one hundred light years away from the observable entity of the golden structure. The equipment cannot detect their properties, so we will try to conduct physical tests."

Cavenriel projected the gravitational focus distribution map recorded by the previous shipboard sensor array before it went offline into the hall. However, in order to prevent those hideous and terrifying graphics from affecting the minds of other workers, the golden vortex and the part in the middle were Deliberately hidden, leaving only the periphery of the vortex, in that seemingly empty area, there is a quality that surprises everyone.

On the side of the forward base facing the golden vortex, dozens of shield generator arrays are arranged in several steps, operating at maximum power. Although the surrounding space seems empty, these are supposed to be hemispherical. The shield has actually been compressed, which means that the location where the shield generator is located is receiving a strong impact. Dazzling bright spots occasionally flashed across the shield, as if something had been stripped away.

The main structure of the space station began to undergo some changes: on the two originally extremely smooth total reflection mirror platforms, rows of square gaps slowly opened, and some bright silver shuttle-shaped aircraft flew out of the gaps. In the middle of the four slender tail needles, there is a bright white halo floating, and slight fluctuations emanate from around these bright halos.

When the probes gradually adjusted their postures in batches, the tail halos of some probes began to gradually extinguish, but at the same time, more crystal bright lights began to appear around the probes, which was the warp space that was about to close. Special effects on light. The warped space bubbles closed one after another in sequence. Along with bursts of starlight distortion, the probes entered the warped space mode one after another and flew towards the huge gravitational focus.

Cavinrel and Caloust are taking turns monitoring the operation of these probes in the control room, and the rest of the staff have been sent elsewhere. Even if the golden vortex in the surveillance picture is photographed by the probe, the data is transmitted and filtered again by the host, the resulting picture still cannot be viewed for a long time——

Both Caluster and Cavinrel have undergone very thorough bio-augmentation reconstruction, and most of their brain functions have been replaced by information black box computers. But even so, if they watch the monitoring data for a little longer, it will make the two of them dizzy, just like downloading the star map of the entire Federation at once and watching it all in a short time.

"This thing seems to be constantly radiating a huge amount of information that seems to be able to interfere with cognition..." Cavinrel struggled to hold on, resisting the dizziness that kept coming, while mobilizing the various probes. , a small number of probes are currently adjusting their attitude, while most of the probes are already in flight, and communication is extremely limited.

"...Huh? What is that?.

A small piece of transparent golden crystal was peeled off from the shield, and the broken crystal quickly hit the rear shield surface, blooming with golden light in a layer of ripples.

"That means... the shield itself has also been heterogeneous?" Cavinriel immediately downloaded the footage into his processor and watched it carefully again. An astonishing fact emerged. Even if it was purely The shield in the energy state will also be turned into crystal by irradiation.

"Based on the fluctuations in shield readings, we have always classified it as an annihilation high-energy reaction. Now the results are really surprising." Kalost came over.

"General, you should continue to rest. It will be your working time in ten minutes."

"I'm fine." Caloust waved his hand, "That abnormal tiredness can be recovered after leaving for a while. Besides, you have made such an amazing discovery. How can I just sit back and ignore such a major matter?"

"But..." Cavinriel still wanted to argue, but the sound from the system interrupted the dispute between the two, "Attention, the gravitational focus sensor system has been partially online. The equipment has been affected by an unknown impact. Please use it as soon as possible..."

In the control room, a huge holographic projection floated in front of the two people. The images of the golden vortex part and the central black hole part were hidden. Outside the structure, a huge, hemispherical thick mass belt was in the dark space. This mass belt is not only astonishing in scale, but its activity is also extremely violent, enough to produce huge space vibrations. But fortunately, the destination of this target - the vague cantilever position outside the golden vortex does not have a strong space impact. .

If this were not the case, I am afraid Cavernrel would not have started the detection operation immediately. Considering the summary of previous interference situations, Cavinrel was not sure whether these probes could survive such strong unknown energy radiation... With the help of warp space, the probes should at least survive until they land.

Cavinrel wasn't too worried about the impact of the mass band itself on the probe - the outer shell of the probe was made of a layer of chromonic force material with a thickness of one thousandth of a millimeter.

In the microscopic structure of matter, the nuclei in atoms are bound together by the strong interaction force, but this force, which far exceeds the macroscopic level of existence, is insignificant compared to the color force. Under hadrons, the pairs of particles that make up hadrons are bound by an extremely powerful force. This force is so great that the energy required to dismantle it is higher than all the energy contained in the hadron itself. Compared with this, the strong interaction force exhibited by the atomic nucleus is almost just a little bit of fragments spilled out by the color force.

Although this is problematic to a certain extent - by introducing the pattern perturbation of the information computer, the particles with different color nuclei will be fixed into a tiny "element", and in this "element" structure, there are also considerable A large number of gluons, after countless "elements" are combined together, these gluons will be "charged" and activated. The activated gluons will form a dynamic balance in the entire structure, absorbing and dispersing each other between the micro-elements. Form a stable color core force field.

In terms of nature, it is quite stable and can support mass production. Even the most intense high-energy rays cannot destroy this structure that already has half of its feet outside the material plane. But now, the most convenient way to produce modulated chromatic force materials is disappointing - all technologies included in information disturbance have serious black box properties.

Including information computers, many black box technologies were born in the huge explosion that wiped out half of the star system. Many unknown laws were established. However, what federal technology can currently do is only to use these established laws. , but little is known about the nature of these laws.

After being restricted by the rules, the sense of existence of the frontier limit has increased. This is one of the reasons why Cavinrel has shown great interest in the various properties of this abnormal phenomenon that are inconsistent with the laws of the world.

Although information computers are "universal", if the principles cannot be understood and real breakthroughs cannot be made, then no matter how many derivative products this powerful technical black box can bring, it will be a castle in the air built on the "black box". Not to mention that what brought this black box was an extremely dangerous explosion. If you develop on this kind of technology without a foundation, the more technology tree points you have, the worse the failure is likely to be.

According to the preset flight parameters, the first probe will enter the periphery of the mass zone in ten seconds. Cavenriel ordered the computer to compress the transmitted monitoring images as much as possible to extend the observation time as much as possible.

…

"Five, four, three, two, one. The probe has arrived at the predetermined coordinates." Accompanied by the electronic synthesized sound of the AI, the first probe escaped from the warp space and crashed directly into a large chaotic sea of ​​clouds.

The color of this "sea of ​​clouds" is almost indescribable. Perhaps it is some kind of basic force that distorts and affects the transmission rules of light. It is even possible that the light itself has mutated - on a rather huge scale, these inexplicable The material is churning and surging tirelessly.

Vortices with a span of tens of millions of kilometers are generated and then blown away. Huge fluctuations sometimes suddenly turn in place, completely ignoring the conservation of momentum and kinetic energy. However, the material here is so close to the internal vortex-like structure, but There is no crystallization phenomenon, which is indeed a strange thing.

However, the two of them were not able to learn more details from the picture returned by the probe. The probe's shield reading, which was slowly crystallized but still relatively resistant, suddenly reached the overload critical point. , the next second, the probe was destroyed.

In this batch of launches, the first probe is used to detect the basic stability of the environment, the next ten probes are the first to arrive at the anchor point for further navigation, and the expected escape position of the last probe is in the mass ring. Outside the band, it detects the environment of the entire test site and transmits back the working scenarios of some probes.

The encounter with the first probe determined the failure of this first attempt, but Calost and Cavinrel did not expect to succeed the first time. They pinned their hopes on the last probe.

Soon, the last few probes also arrived at the predetermined location. They did not have time to provide navigation signals and were buried in this indescribable ocean of matter. Because these ten probes need to be evenly distributed to a diameter of several hundred light years. They are on a huge hemisphere, so they can't take pictures of each other.

However, the images sent back by the monitor still showed something interesting. Some probes lasted a little longer. The shield layer within the field of view was completely crystallized before being destroyed, while for some probes, the shield appeared. There was a sudden flash of light and then a loss of contact. This difference attracted Cavinrel's attention.

"It's really a harsh environment." Cavernrel knocked on his head, which had been swollen by the background chaos like Hong Zhongdalu, and looked at the blackened probe monitors with some confusion. He muttered to himself, "It doesn't look like the shield was penetrated, but it didn't have much effect at all..."

"What did you say?" Kalost heard the strange murmur and turned to look at Lihun's science officer.

"No, it's nothing." Cavinriel came back to his senses and continued to look at the loss of probes. It has to be said that the first batch of probes were almost wiped out casually. The thousand color nuclear probes If they are to be used in war, they can completely rely on their own energy to tear apart space, travel through galaxies, blow up stars, and penetrate most celestial bodies in the universe like cheese, but in this "small" vortex In front of the jet, they were like ice particles falling into a magma lake, evaporated completely in the blink of an eye.

Even the last probe that escaped from the warp space at a long distance failed to return in the end. Although its location was outside the mass belt, it may still be too close to the golden vortex. It was severely disturbed and the shield It was completely crystallized very quickly. Due to the necessary flight attitude adjustment when the probe returns, the conventional driving part of its tail is directly exposed to the impact after losing the shield, and the original energy circuit quickly fails.

The high-energy propulsion halo exploded out of control during the crystallization process. Under normal circumstances, an explosion of this scale cannot destroy the color nuclear force armor layer. However, after the explosion, the signal and panoramic environment monitoring equipment to determine the survival status of the probe All lost contact——

The former is located in the middle of the probe and is extremely well protected; the latter is located at the front end and short axis circumference of the probe. These two systems were destroyed at the same time, indicating that the debris generated by the explosion may directly destroy the probe from tail to head. Hit a pair of piercings.

"Alert, the first batch of probes have been destroyed."

"The situation is a bit beyond expectation, and there are some strange phenomena that require further investigation..." Cavinriel hit his dizzy head hard, "I have collected some information about the mass band, and we should try to take samples next... General, what’s wrong with you?”

Cavenriel looked at Calost beside him. The general who had always been expressionless was now twitching with his face and eyelids, and his face was so dark that he seemed to be about to turn into an event horizon. This made the science officer startled. I thought there was some contaminating hidden meme in the surveillance data that had bypassed the cleanup process and invaded.

"I'm fine..." Kalost could only shake his head slightly now, "There are so many precious probes..."