Star Empire

"The first scanning process has ended. Check the data stability and confirm the current ship situation."

After diving into the Dead Tide Gate, the first system working condition of the deep submersible vessel is crucial to the operation - it can be said that in an operation, accidents caused by negligence and other human factors can be carefully inspected Use the data obtained after the first system operation to troubleshoot and avoid.

The accuracy of the data obtained from the first system operation also determines whether it is necessary to continue the entire operation - if acceptable and accurate data cannot be obtained in the most stable place, then the next operation will be Part of it can only be described as "one wrong step, one wrong step after another".

This is as humanly possible as possible. And everything outside of this... can only rely on luck, the specific line that one can stick to in the chaotic system, and "fate".

No one is willing to entrust everything to uncertain probability and fate. However, the powerful distortion and destructive effects of the Deathtide Realm can disrupt nearly any conceivable approach. This cannot be avoided, so the Empire and all beings can only choose to accept it.

"...the attitude of the ship is stable...the output of the power furnace is stable, the crystal energy pipe network is operating in good condition, and no distortion points are found...the shield update iteration is in good condition, the omnidirectional broadcaster is in good working condition, the filtering system of the receiving equipment is normal, and the model Establishment is normal...the deep submersible is in good condition and Dead Tide Gate is stable enough to continue exploration."

"Confirm that the ship is in good working condition and start diving." After integrating the reports of each member of the team and drawing a clear conclusion, the captain issued a new order.

The ship's hull, immersed in a faint black-red cloud, began to "tilt". It further improves its engine output. The dim and steady light propels the ship deeper into this dangerous and mysterious realm.

Different from sailing in the void, the content in the Dead Tide realm that can be used as "navigation reference" is very small to almost non-existent. Although theoretically, the void should be a more dangerous and chaotic place than the death tide field, in reality, the void presents... If it can be considered a property, then this property is "inert", which is very Extreme inertia - the void will not actively invade the order field, and will not actively impact the basic rules of the world... "it" does not seem to actively do anything.

Even over a long period of time, the birth and death of countless information bodies may have even formed some kind of accumulation, and the final withdrawal of these accumulations is that a dim and empty mist gradually begins to float in the void. That mist is all kinds of information. The combination of disturbance... These factors make the difficulty and danger of void navigation greatly reduced relatively speaking.

Therefore, the Dead Tide area has become the most dangerous navigation area for the empire. There is only endless chaos, decay and destruction inside it, and their appearance and disappearance are completely irregular. At the same time, there is nothing in the Death Tide realm that can be grabbed by Order Creation and used as evidence to declare that it has "moved". This makes navigation in the Dead Tide realm extremely difficult.

When a ship enters the dead tide field, it must seal itself off as much as possible, declare the rationality of its existence with its own attributes and rules, and fight against the corrosion of the outside world. If it wants to move, there are currently only two methods available:

Or, use the Death Tide Gate that you sneaked into as the "origin", create the same coordinate system in the world of order, and use it as a basis for movement. Or, use itself as the origin, and use the diffusion pulse wave to scan the surrounding damage concentration distribution every time, use the scanning results as the "coordinate system", and explain your own movement.

In fact, it is like sitting in a rotten, crumbling room full of toxic infections, completing a game by yourself. You make your own rules, set your own questions, complete your own exams, invigilate your own exams, and make your own corrections. The exam is the same.

Although it sounds absurd, the experience gained over a long period of time tells every relevant research department and researcher in the empire: Unless there is a huge breakthrough in specialized communication research in the field of death tide, the former will be destined to be difficult to move forward. to a level that can be widely applied. Moreover, the instability of the Dead Tide Gate itself further denies the feasibility of the first idea.

"The road ahead is long." In the silence, the emotions did not flow out from his subconscious. They dissipated silently in the depths of his mind.

The ship continued to move deeper into the Dead Tide field. The ship continuously releases omnidirectional scanning waves. Such scanning waves can effectively mark which part of the "atmosphere" around the ship is relatively mild and which part is relatively harsh. And in this scan after scan, the ship is getting farther and farther away from the "exit" when it entered.

"Confirm the ship's attitude and track - the ship is moving away from the entrance, the ship's attitude is stable, and its sinking speed is normal." The navigation technician once again made a routine report. "Captain, according to past navigation experience, the distance between us and the current "maximum safe depth limit" is close to the first warning value - we have dived more than 50% of the depth."

"After this, direct mental interaction between individuals is prohibited, and manual engraved characters and lagging synchronization boards are used to transmit information. The ordinary passage of the ship is blocked, and a special clock is used to connect the system with the power part. The ship sails at half speed. After crossing the second warning value, it changed to low speed sailing and at the same time changed from submersible sailing to level sailing."

"Begin execution."

"Confirm execution."

The barriers that separate life from each other have once again been restored to integrity, and all networks connecting each other have been completely disconnected. They removed the crystal plate in front of them and carved detailed and complex symbols and words on it to complete the necessary communication.

The internal environment of the ship has become more stable and single, the colorful holographic projections have disappeared, the communication windows that can be activated anywhere have disappeared, and all the equipment in the ship no longer express their various attributes.

Everything has become simpler, and everything has been completely blocked. As it gradually sinks, the convenience and efficiency from the outside world begin to disappear. It’s like an onion formed by events and history is being peeled off as its shell continues to iterate through history. And in the process of stripping away, the action itself is also sending all this to the past that only exists in memory...

At present, it seems that this is actually the case.

When sailing in the realm of death tide, the ability to explain one's actual existence and everything one does from one's own perspective is too important. It is as important as constructing an order field to void navigation.

Everything in the Death Tide realm, from the specks of tiny patterns to the endless, unfathomable, uncountable realm itself, every part of it is challenging the empire and challenging the cognitive limits of ordered life—— It does not support any rules of order, nor is it subject to any rules of order.

Everything possible and impossible outside is completely shattered here. Here, everything must only rely on oneself.

"Stop diving and level off your sailing attitude. Change to slow sailing."

"All data needs to be recorded, and the recording facility must enter the highest level of working status. Each recorded data needs to be individually packaged, and if necessary, throw them out in a "drift bottle"..."

The environment inside the cabin became monotonous and silent.

The route outlined by the ship's track begins to overlap with a plane with essentially the same concentration of damage. This plane is at three-quarters of the ultimate depth that the Empire's deep-diving ship can reach - this is the "second warning value" during the Empire's death tide navigation.

After crossing this plane, the impact that the Death Tide Realm can have on the creation of order will become more chaotic and difficult to deal with.

"All members - synchronize their own clocks after every two routine reports of navigation attitude to control the flow of information."

The outer layer of the shield is constantly being eroded by invisible forces, and the stripped shield structure creates a golden stream of light that diffuses out. However, they were like newly evaporated water vapor crashing into the sea of ​​plasma fire, and quickly disappeared under the extremely violent erosion of the surrounding harsh environment.

The operating mode assigned to the shield itself continuously integrates the information flow output from the ship's power furnace, integrates and programs them and injects them into the overall capacity pool of the shield itself, thereby replenishing the evaporated part of the shield.

Relying on this rapidly changing dynamic balance system, the deep-diving ship can isolate itself from the surrounding black and red thick fog, but just isolation... is not enough.

When operating in the dead tide field, the first priority that all action groups and equipment need to follow is to ensure survival and quarantine, and the second priority is to determine their own time - in fact, if you want to consider your own return and quarantine, In future life, the second type of priorities will be no less important than the first type of priorities. Sometimes, the latter is even more important than the former.

Death tide pollution will attack and corrupt everything, which naturally includes the operation and changes of the information body itself - in other words, death tide can destroy time, whether it is overall time, individual time, or a certain part of an individual time.

It is said that... at the beginning of such a dangerous and unknown deep-diving attempt, the word "good news" came from all the people after the empire's technology enabled the deep-diving ship to survive in the shallow part of the dead tide field for a period of time. Completely and completely missing from the records of the deep dive port for quite some time.

During that time, accidents will occur in every deep dive mission, and there are probably countless kinds of accidents in the death tide field, and each of them is fatal...

Death tide pollution is everywhere in the death tide field - pervasive, everywhere, and intrusive. Everything that enters it is affected by Deathtide taint. Theoretically, everything after entering the death tide will no longer have any purity.

No matter how thick, comprehensive and layered the protection system is, the core of the protection system, which is protected layer by layer, will be polluted at the same time as the protection system. The only difference is the severity.

This is one of the main reasons why life and equipment in the field of dead wave research were short-lived. No matter how strong the protection is, it cannot prevent hidden pollution from directly affecting every detail of the body. And once such destructive effects accumulate, I am afraid that if you want to save those corrupted bodies, you will have to write a new story for them, a new story that is no longer "blood related" to the former and the independent individual.

This is also the reason why the two types of priorities are put forward with the highest priority - after entering the realm of death tide, the erosion of some or all will begin from all levels, regardless of internal and external.

Although the specific symptoms that the death tide can cause do not have this effect, the atmosphere of the death tide can penetrate into every corner, and constantly erode and change the original operating rules and development rules of information in a subtle way - in a severe state, the equipment may It will begin to decay from the inside, and life will become out of control and violent, becoming a source of severe infection and a springboard for pollution.

This must be strictly guarded and controlled, otherwise even the most sturdy ship will quickly become a nest of pollution. As for the second priority...it's easy to understand, but also difficult to understand.

If you want to maintain your own accuracy, you always need a precise "reference origin".

In the realm of death tide, there is no "reference origin".

Small errors will accumulate in the process of self-explanation and refreshing, eventually leading to various catastrophic consequences - in small cases, causing equipment damage, in large cases, they may even tear apart all connections and reference systems between itself and the outside world. possibility.

"It is said that the most extreme cases that have occurred corresponding to the second category of priorities... mainly occurred in the empire's first several life-limiting deep dive experiments?

During those tests, many deep-diving ships had their ties with the Empire completely severed. The continuous accumulation of errors has caused the deep submersible ship's self-explanation and self-improvement refresh frequency and response frequency to have a huge error compared to the original state... Such errors are shown when the deep submersible ship dives into the dead tide field. The problem is not serious, because right and wrong are all concentrated on oneself - everything is decided by the beings themselves, and there is no problem. But when the deep-diving ship returns to an orderly environment and connections begin to be re-established, problems will emerge..."

"Re-establishing contact means that both parties need to re-accept each other. In this process, the broken time will act on the deep-submersible ship. From the perspective of the ship itself, the "history" it spans is constant. Just "staying" in the death wave for that long - but in the eyes of other observers, this "time" may be very short, or it may be very long.

This means that the ship may have been soaked in the death tide for tens of thousands of years... Even a super flagship cannot survive for so long on its own power, even if it is only in a shallow layer..."

"Ah, yes, this is the main manifestation of tearing... Many ships and many people have been affected by this. Even if the ships have been improved for many generations, these factors are high on the list of fatal factors..."

Sailing on a dead tide is lonely, cold and lonely.

Even if you are not far apart from each other, it is generally best not to communicate unnecessarily. Here, you need to pay attention at all times and protect yourself properly - the death wave is everywhere and unpredictable. No one dares to guarantee that everything that was originally normal will suddenly erupt into a devastating disaster at one or several points in the next moment.

As for the communication between ships and ports, and between ships? At present, I am afraid that all of that is still within the scope of thinking - not to mention the information structure for communication, even the combined firepower of a full fleet, if we insist on advancing here, I am afraid that we will not be able to keep moving forward for such a long distance. …

…

This is the realm of death tide.

But what is here? What could it be—what might its nature be like?

Could it indeed be the opposite of existence?

So... before "existence" and "anti-existence" completely annihilate each other due to these phenomena, what are the properties of the structure and field formed by anti-existence itself?

All the terrifying things gathered here really correspond to a certain part of the Order environment, like shadows, projecting the figure and shape of Order behind another completely different mirror?

Or maybe all the opposites of order... have been completely and completely mixed together? All properties and characteristics are completely and completely mixed together. Is it precisely because of this that it is impossible to extract the characteristics of the "opposite of order"?

Even... the pollution and disorder shown by erosion... is this also because of it? Different fronts and different backs cannot correspond, which leads to the slowdown of pollution and the intermittent jump of pollution? They seem to be jumping, but are they actually looking for a breakthrough in an orderly environment that is most "friendly to themselves"?

There is no way to know - any detection of the dead tide cannot obtain results recognized within the scope of the order. Those so-called phenomena and the so-called conclusions drawn all come from the wreckage that has been corroded to pieces.

They have reference value and research value. They can help the empire understand the phenomena brought about by the death tide, and can help the empire better fight against the death tide. But...those are not the results the empire really needs.

"..."

Part of my thinking seemed to be a little out of control, and some other thoughts popped up. But no one paid too much attention to it - it was just normal.

The death tide corrodes and softens the mind. Here, doubts, entanglements, fears, depression, depression and other negative emotions will appear sooner or later, and there will be no stable rules for their appearance.

When appropriate, relax the corresponding requirements here. A standard that is too high is too rigid. In such an environment, if it is too rigid, it will break easily. In the final analysis, the focus of all safety standards is always the overall concept of [the safety of beings], not just for the beings of the empire, and not just for [security], but the focus is not on the standards and those who require themselves dogma.

Occasionally...think about something? Just think about it and don’t get too deep into it.

"Change the direction of progress and increase by 0.12% to the fifth direction."

"Three unstable nodes appeared in the sixth shield diffusion array, and the corresponding load was transferred to other shield diffusion arrays in good condition."

"Parallel submersible navigation has completed 50% of the mission requirements. The power furnace and dead tide navigation engine are working normally. The ship's self-explanation capability has a good margin, the shield strength has fluctuated, and the lower limit is still above the safety alert threshold..."

In the boundless sea of ​​black and red clouds, this small solitary boat is so out of tune with everything around it.

Weirdly twisted whirlpools and clouds melt proportions.

When the chaotic whirlpools and clouds touch the tiny light spots that are out of place in the ocean, they will immediately materialize. They will turn into black-red light patterns without any thickness, adsorbing on the surface of the light spots and starting to erode inwards.

But they can't cling for long - the outermost layer of the shield quickly disintegrates, like dead skin fragments peeling off the creature's body.

The debris will be completely destroyed by the surrounding environment, but the shield as a whole can still keep itself intact and pure.

In this way, direct destructive forces from the outside cannot erode the core. Although the decaying atmosphere is irresistible, it will not immediately kill life and erase existence. For Imperial Being and Imperial Intelligence it can be resisted, and for relatively long "times".

Now, the deep-diving ship is "crawling" inch by inch in the vast sea of ​​black and red clouds. What you can know is that this is only the shallow area of ​​the entire death tide realm. The true depths... are not yet accessible.

So... if this is a sea of ​​clouds swirling with mist whirlpools and black-red clouds, then what will the lower and deeper levels here, the true interior of the Dead Tide Realm... be brought by when the scanning wave returns? data? What kind of model can be pieced together from that data?

A strange but peaceful "sea"?

have no idea.

It may be calm and peaceful in the depths of the ocean, but... not in the sea of ​​clouds.

An invisible torrent envelops the pollution and spreads rapidly in the chaotic fog. It stirs up the clouds and rushes in with overwhelming force from a source that is no longer detectable.

"Change the course, concentrate the shield to the first range, mobilize all backup calculation capabilities to the relevant direction, and execute it quickly!"

When the data obtained from the environmental scan showed this strange and violent anomaly, this command immediately appeared on the synchronization crystal board in front of everyone.