My empire of stars

"Are we here? Have we sailed out of the asteroid sea?" Liu Rushun, who was lying on the command seat, was shaken awake by the crew, and the yellow light that spilled into the bridge caught his eye.

"Yes, Captain, we have escaped from that ghost place!" Many crew members on the bridge were excited.

After they woke up and served as crew members and were responsible for the maintenance of the spacecraft, it didn't take long for the Ark to sail into the asteroid sea.

Because the emergency plan to deal with special circumstances was activated, these crew members were revoked their right to continue sleeping.

They could only stay awake and wait for the Ark to be out of danger. Who would have thought that this period of sobriety would last seventeen years.

During these seventeen years, some of the crew members had given birth to children. These crew members originally thought that they would die of old age on the Ark, or rot with the Ark in the stars.

Unexpectedly, just when they had lost their fighting spirit, the Ark actually sailed out of the asteroid sea!

"Quick, scan this starry sky, I want to know where we are!" Liu Rushun stood up from the command seat and shouted anxiously.

Several telescopic ground-scanning radars rose from the upper deck of the Ark and began to rotate and scan the surrounding starry sky one by one.

Tens of minutes later, the crew member responsible for drawing the star map shook his head in frustration.

"Captain, the star system we are currently in is not within any star region we know."

"Not only have the empire's astronomical telescopes not recorded this star area, but even the deep space exploration ship has not discovered this star area." The crew member sighed.

"Is this another galaxy? It's impossible. There are no wormholes between us." Liu Rushun was a little confused.

"Captain, what we are currently in should be inside a special celestial system."

"According to the information returned by various scanning equipment carried on the Ark, this star field is wrapped in a thick sea of ​​asteroids in the center, forming a strange star field isolated from the outside world."

"Because it is far away from the middle line of the main arm of the Milky Way, and it does not emit a trace of light, this star field has not been noticed by our empire's scanning equipment at all."

"When the deep space exploration ship entering it lost its signal, we thought it was just a brief loss of contact. We didn't expect that the area of ​​​​the meteorite sea is so vast."

"This star field contains as many as 663 star systems. The starlight you see is emitted by these very close star systems."

"The distance between each star system here is only a short 0.5 light-years. That is to say, the distance between two adjacent star systems is only about a quarter of the width of the solar system." (The diameter of the solar system is calculated according to the distance surrounding the solar system. The artificial intelligence carried on the Ark (calculated from the two light-year diameter of the Oort cloud) appeared in front of Liu Rushun and slowly told her what she had learned so far.

"So close, how can this star system not be attracted by each other's gravity?" Liu Rushun wondered.

"The gravity of the surrounding asteroid sea and the gravity between these star systems create a delicate balance that allows these star systems to stay quietly in their respective positions."

"But this balance is very fragile. The disappearance of any planet will lead to the collapse of the balanced system, as will the entry of a spacecraft with too much mass."

"Of course, our Ark is not that big." After the artificial intelligence finished speaking, he spread out a hologram in front of everyone on the bridge. In the hologram, each star system was scattered in an orderly manner like chess pieces in a huge circle. In an empty shell.

Obviously, the circular shell is the asteroid sea they passed through when they came in!

"I detected a large number of electromagnetic signals of different frequencies between these star systems, which indicates that there are a large number of civilizations between these star systems."

"According to my speculation, because of the special terrain environment here, these civilizations may not have developed the technology to jump. After all, it only takes a short quarter of a star system to reach the next star system." Artificial Intelligence in With a wave of his hand on the map, electromagnetic signals of various colors immediately covered the entire star field.

"Send a few drones to infiltrate. I want to know the details here." Liu Rushun waved to several crew members and said.

"As commanded."

A few minutes later, five deep space exploration drones flew out of the Ark's warehouse and jumped into hyperspace toward the five nearest planets.

In a matter of tens of minutes, the five drones jumped out of hyperspace and arrived in the star system they were responsible for.

The messages sent between various star systems were intercepted by drones and uploaded to the Ark.

Soon, the information was translated and compiled by Ark's supercomputer and handed over to the artificial intelligence.

"There are twenty civilizations in this star field, and the relationship between these civilizations is intricate." The shipboard artificial intelligence said to Liu Rushun.

"Oh? What do you mean?" Liu Rushun asked confused.

"You have two friends, but the two friends are enemies of each other. Your friend's friend may also be your enemy." The artificial intelligence spread its hands.

"These civilizations also maintain a weak balance like these stars. No country has declared war on other countries, but small battles continue to occur on their borders." Seeing that Liu Rushun did not speak, the artificial intelligence continued.

"Calculate how likely we are to win if we intervene?" Liu Rushun said solemnly.

"Calculating"

"The calculation is complete, the probability of our success is 0."

"The various civilizations in this magical celestial system are very familiar with each other, but once outsiders like us intervene, there is a 98% probability that they will attack in groups."

"Not only that, although their warships do not have the ability to make hyperspace jumps, according to the data collected by our drones, their warships are no less powerful than ours."

"Although we have obtained the new warship design drawings and technical information from the imperial capital, we do not have the conditions to transform the existing warships."

"Right now, our warship technology is still quite backward. We have no chance of winning against the many civilizations in this celestial system. No, it can be said that there is no chance of winning." The shipboard artificial intelligence poured cold water on Liu Rushun's head.

"We. We all voted!" Liu Rushun thought for a long time, but still did not dare to make his own decision, so he could only raise the banner of voting.

"1. Let's just pick the nearest civilization and go there!"

"2. Let's turn around and go back, leave here, and continue to make a detour towards the established goal."

"3. Let's stay and use guerrilla tactics to deal with these civilizations. For example, how about we become interstellar pirates?" Liu Rushun's eyes sparkled with excitement when he mentioned the third option.

You know, since he was a child, his favorite games and movies were about interstellar pirates!