Star Empire

If you want to start a project, the first step is to build roads.

The empire needs to build passages that can reach directly to the top of the Sun Wind. These passages need to ensure that they can allow any engineering ship of the empire to pass safely and efficiently, and any equipment and materials needed ahead can be safely delivered.

The first batch of virtual point jump ships set out as experimenters and pioneers, and they laid the initial foundation for the empire's route to Sunwind Summit. The lighthouses left behind by these pioneers provided great help for the Empire to open up routes to the remote depths of the void in the future.

However, just as they were not sent out to build a prosperous and continuous void route, the node routes they left behind can be used by virtual point jump ships including the Great Journey class, but such passages cannot become Imperial ships travel to the "fast road" to Sunwind Summit.

Moreover, since the terminal route in the void near the top of the Sun Wind is already too far away from the empire, the information offset difference in the void can have a huge impact. The conditions of the virtual point jump ships that can reach there are all extremely bad. It's almost impossible to move anymore.

Therefore, although the Empire has been constantly trying to improve various types of virtual point jump ships including the Great Journey class during these trillions of years, and has spent huge efforts to maintain the precious waterways set out by these pioneers, the condition of these waterways is still not good. It's good, especially the back section and end of the channel - there has been a semi-lost state for a long time.

Most of the void channels can only be said to be in acceptable condition in the front and middle sections. In the parts after the middle section, things like node loss or route interruption can happen almost at any time. The void is not safe in the void. The void far away from the empire is dark and unfamiliar to the empire, but that is because the empire's creations are not adapted there enough. The "indigenous beings" who appear there will not feel that there is anything strange about the void there. Wherever they feel uncomfortable, they are free to move around, just as the creatures of the Empire are free to move around the borders of the Empire.

Fault zones, world-class creatures or floating objects, and even possible cross-world civilizations may threaten the safety of these void routes away from the empire. Although the beacon worlds that make up the void route are strong enough and concealed enough, the void route is very long, and the number of beacon worlds that make up the void route is also very large. In a huge sample environment, the possibility of small-probability events will be greatly increased. Increase.

At the same time, because the void route can be roughly regarded as a "series connection", problems with a few of its nodes may cause the entire void route or a large section of the void route to be paralyzed. All these problems and situations are superimposed, and the final result is the reason that "the empire has spent a lot of effort to maintain the integrity and safety of the void channels, but these actions have still not been effective so far."

However, one should not simply regard the empire's actions as useless. The very act of venturing into the unknown realm of deep darkness is of extraordinary significance, and such things will inevitably lead to sacrifices. These are all It has been recognized for a long time and is within the acceptable range.

The empire has also collected a large amount of data in the process of continuously maintaining the void routes. These data describe the overview of the strange environment in the distant void. These data are constantly accumulated and analyzed and studied by the empire. The process is very long, but there are also a large number of The results are coming as more information comes back from the Solar Peak.

During this long process, the Empire learned why the information from the Solar Wind Summit was not transmitted back until a trillion years later - because far away from the Empire, the information offset difference in the void would increase dramatically. , the drastically changing information offset will also aggravate the damage to the ship. This damage is similar to the death tide corruption, it is full-scale and all-round, that is to say, all redundancy and insurance measures will be The parts being used are damaged together.

The virtual point jump ship is far away from the empire. With all its own data constantly being lost, it will become increasingly difficult for the ship and its crew to restore their condition to intact. The ship and crew will have to drag The more and more serious the disease is, the closer the ship is to the wind crest, the more time it will take for maintenance.

The dormant maintenance may last for tens to tens of billions of years, and there is no problem in reducing the total time spent on the entire voyage to a considerable number. On the other hand, if this problem can be solved, then the first voyage that took nearly a trillion years to complete will be gradually compressed into hundreds of billions, tens of billions, billions of years, until it is compressed into thousands, hundreds of years or even shorter time There is no problem at all.

Problems have been discovered, and the Empire's ability to deal with these problems is constantly increasing with the progress of research - the Empire can reduce the erosion caused by the void information offset difference on the virtual point jump ship by improving the algorithm of the order field. The Empire can directionally change the properties of the main materials that make up the bodies of ships and crews through fixed data. Even, as the empire begins to invest more energy here, one day, the light circle order cohomology algorithm can be completely expanded and become a new generation of main algorithm for void navigation.

It's not impossible.

"It's just that relying on more direct technological progress to achieve breakthroughs is still not possible at the moment." After reading the report in his hand, Vidoville shook his head with emotion.

In order to fight against giant malicious meta-memes, the Empire seemed to have squeezed a little too much of its technical foundation. Two trillion years ago, a large number of new creations and new technologies were put into use. Although the empire at that time seemed brilliant and powerful, the consequence of excessive investment in technological reserves and turning them into actual results was that the empire itself became a Spire – Tall and pointed.

On the top of the tower, there is no way to continue building new towers. High towers require a solid, stable, and broad foundation. The empire must find a way to expand the spire and body of its "spire" so that the entire spire gradually transforms into a vast plateau. Then, the empire can rebuild a new tower on the top of this new and distant place. , and this process is repeated continuously.

In the third trillion years, everything the countless lives of the empire did was dependent on the empire, which enabled the empire to broaden its "head" that was excessively sharpened and elevated in the second trillion years. However, this is not a simple matter. This requires the entire empire to make greater progress in all aspects, and progress and development take time.

"But, it doesn't matter, the empire has no shortage of time in the expedition calendar." Victorville leaned on the back of the chair and let out a sigh of relief. In front of him, the empire's local territory was like a core, bright but subtle, and the countless "blood vessels" extending from the core were dense and long. Among these "vessels", you can vaguely see the surging "blood flow", which is the virtual point jumping ships that are maintaining the waterway and "building roads".

After quietly watching the void route map of the empire extending beyond the country's borders for a while, Vidoville withdrew his attention. There are many crystal plates neatly stacked on his desk. These crystal plates contain a large number of documents. The Empire stores exact copies of important documents on the Sun and the main flagship as a security redundancy. It's also quite interesting to occasionally look at the newer parts of these backed up files when you don't have important business to deal with.

Vidoville waved slightly, and a crystal plate flew out from it and landed firmly in Vidoville's hand.

"Well, the content of this is the plan that everyone has set up in advance to deal with possible unexpected situations." Vidoville looked at the past one by one, "Emergency Plan for Accidental Contact with Strange Cross-World Civilizations", "Large Information Entity Drag" "Operational Safety Regulations", "Measures for Temporarily Improving the Hidden Performance of Imperial Creations (Draft)".

It seems that I don't need to mention anything more. The people of the empire have already considered everything carefully. Optimistically, I estimate that the time spent paddling and fishing in the fourth trillion years that has already begun will be much longer than the time spent in the third trillion years.

It is unrealistic to connect so many long void channels at once, even if the empire's unlimited anti-crowding resources are drained, this cannot be achieved.

In order to ensure the steady progress of the project, the chief engineers who guided the project finally adopted a four-stage treatment method after analysis and research, that is, the overall treatment method of the waterway of "opening one section, building one section, maintaining one section, and maintaining one section."

Among them, "opening a section" is the first stage of construction of each void route closest to the empire, and the specific construction methods are to significantly increase the density of the world on the route, increase navigation equipment, increase security forces, and eliminate surroundings. After processing, although it still does not meet the standards for use as a convenience project, for the military with less demanding requirements, such a channel can already meet the navigation requirements while ensuring safety.

"Building a section" corresponds to the slightly farther part of the void route - the world of beacons left by the virtual point jump ship on the initial voyage is very sparse. The virtual point jump ship with powerful void navigation capabilities can recognize subtle signals in the void, but apart from them, most of the empire's ships cannot observe the next representative from a certain beacon world. world.

In order to make the subsequent opening process smoother, it is necessary for the advance team to set up more relay worlds between these beacon worlds so that the empire's engineering fleet can operate normally in the subsequent construction sections. Taking into account the need to meet security-related needs, the channel covered by "Constructing a Section" will not be too long, because in this section of the void channel, it is difficult for the Imperial Fleet to deploy quickly.

"Maintain a section" corresponds to a position farther back in the void route. After entering this period, the imperial fleet has no way to deploy in an effective time. While the benefits of stationing troops here have dropped sharply, the price the imperial fleet has to pay has risen sharply. It can be said that when we leave the external dividing line of "construction section", we also leave the scope of the influence of imperial order and imperial rules. The parts further away from the empire have become lawless zones.

In the lawless zone, even the empire, which is already quite powerful among known civilizations, has to bow to the power of the natural environment. During this construction period, all the empire can do is to use a large number of virtual point jump ships to patrol as many existing long chains of beacon worlds as possible to ensure their safety.

If there is a beacon that loses contact with the world, then install a new beacon to replace the old one. If there are unsafe factors approaching the waterway, then find a way to push the unsafe factors back or adjust the waterway to bypass the unsafe factors. Maintaining the basic functions of this section of the void route will be the most important task of all virtual point jump ships cruising in this area.

As for the "maintenance section", this section refers to the remaining parts of the entire long chain that have not been taken into account by the first three construction sections. Reaching here is possible only with the most powerful virtual point jump ships manned by crews of the most elite suicide squads. Their mission is to replenish the beacon worlds that have been lost or destroyed in this section of the route, so as to ensure as much as possible that no more ships will be needed to carry out the trillion-year-long "pioneer voyage."

Only when all the flight segments that need to be built, maintained and maintained disappear, and the void routes are connected from point to point, allowing the empire's armed fleet and engineering fleet to sail normally, can this project proceed to the next step of a larger scale - From lines to surfaces.