Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones-Chapter 314: Place To Stay

This deep space voyage was different from all the previous ones.

This time, Tom also brought a large number of deep space probe ships with the fleet.

These probe ships had a total tonnage of about ten million tons, carrying 200,000 probes of various sizes and functions, as well as several hibernation pods.

Inside each hibernation pod, a clone was sleeping.

After accelerating the main fleet to 80% of the speed of light, Tom began to release these deep space probe ships.

The target area was limited to a radius of 100 light-years.

That is, Tom would send a deep space probe ship to every solar system within 100 light-years of his route.

Due to the vast distances, Tom obviously could not directly control these ships.

However, it didn’t matter, as these ships were equipped with a simplified version of Primal, possessing extremely high intelligence, at least in terms of deep space exploration.

They would autonomously initiate deceleration upon approaching a solar system, and once inside, they would release all their internal probes to explore every celestial body within that solar system, as well as the widest possible interstellar space, searching for any possible traces of intelligent life, especially traces suspected to be left by the Purple Moon Civilization.

Although his current technological level was slightly inferior to the Purple Moon Civilization, there was no generational gap.

Tom had reason to believe that the Purple Moon Civilization, during its deep space voyages, would also choose a method similar to his own, meaning that after traveling a certain distance, they would find a solar system to stop, rest, and resupply.

What Tom needed to do now was to find the next stop for the Purple Moon Civilization.

After that, he could use that next stop as a starting point, and following the general direction, continue to search for the next stop after that.

If he could connect all the stopping points, his chances of ultimately finding the Purple Moon Civilization would greatly increase.

The star density around the Solar System is approximately 0.004 stars per cubic light-year.

Currently, Tom’s fleet was closer to the Galactic Core region, where the star density was higher, roughly 0.005 stars per cubic light-year.

Calculating with this star density, assuming Tom traveled a thousand light-years, then the volume of this cylinder with a radius of 100 light-years and a height of one thousand light-years would reach 7.854 million cubic light-years, corresponding to about 40,000 solar systems needing exploration, which would mean 40,000 ten-million-ton deep space probe ships.

Just the manufacturing alone would be an extremely massive construction task for any Strong Nuclear Civilization, and the subsequent launch of each ship into a solar system, along with the collection and analysis of all data, would make the entire exploration mission unimaginably vast.

Even if a regular Strong Nuclear Civilization could undertake this exploration mission, there would still be an insurmountable and unresolvable obstacle.

How to retrieve the data?

Long-range communication was out of the question.

With Tom’s current level of quantum mathematics, communication could only reach 200 billion kilometers, and the previous Mechanical Disaster only reached about 110 billion kilometers.

So, the only way to retrieve the data was to find a way to recover these ships.

But don’t forget, his main fleet was always in high-speed transit, and those probe ships couldn’t catch up to the main fleet.

Even if they could catch up, they wouldn’t have enough fuel.

However, this insurmountable obstacle was overcome by Tom through a method akin to cheating.

At least at this stage, Tom had not yet discovered the limit of communication distance between himself and a clone.

Although the connection speed was only the speed of light, the distance seemed to be infinite.

So, each deep space scientific research ship would carry some clones.

Once Primal had compiled the data, it would activate the clones in hibernation, and then the clones would transmit the final observed data to him.

Thus, this massive deep space scientific research mission began.

They traveled forward, continuously deploying scientific research ships, searching for any possible traces of the Purple Moon Civilization.

Tom’s main focus once again shifted to scientific research.

With the support of Flying Star, as long as it wasn’t super-large-scale fundamental physics research involving civilization advancement, all other research presented no problems.

More than ten years later, a message arrived from a clone in the first scientific research ship.

It was an ordinary red dwarf solar system, with no traces of intelligent life activity within it.

After the scientific research was completed, Tom immediately issued an order.

After a period of delay, that large scientific research ship, having retrieved all its probes, would crash into the star, completely destroying itself and leaving no trace.

Then came the second, the third...

Detailed data of one star after another, one solar system after another, was presented before Tom.

Large and small, bright and dim, single, binary, triple, and even quadruple and quintuple star systems, all kinds of star systems, truly broadened Tom’s horizons.

However, Tom was still unable to find any traces of intelligent life activity.

The vast emptiness and immensity of the universe, and the scarcity of intelligent civilizations, made Tom sigh with emotion.

Although the Recorder Civilization’s list of extinct civilizations recorded a total of over 10,000 civilizations, that was the sum total over hundreds of millions of years.

Moreover, the Milky Way is so vast, with hundreds of billions of stars.

These 10,000 civilizations, scattered within it, were as inconspicuous as drops of water merging into the ocean.

The long journey continued, Tom’s research went on day after day, and the intelligent life forms of various races also spent their days in work and life.

On this day, Heimerlan, the Vice Clan Leader of the Viller Race, returned home, feeling a bit tired after a full day of meetings.

After washing up and eating, served by intelligent robots, he lay down on his comfortable, soft bed.

Although his body was tired, his mind was very excited.

Today, he finally persuaded Vasilolo, the Viller Race Clan Leader, who was once just a minor official of no importance but had now risen to the position of clan leader, to fundamentally change the race’s development strategy from its current focus on applied physics to fundamental physics.

"Hmph, not to mention Vasilolo, even the clan leaders of other races are a bunch of short-sighted fellows.

They actually can’t see that with the digestion and absorption of the Havilah Civilization and Black Mountain Civilization’s technological data completed, Human Civilization’s research focus will inevitably shift from its current emphasis on applied physics to an emphasis on fundamental physics.

In the future, there won’t be that period of rapid, groundbreaking technological advancements anymore; it’s time to tackle the hard problems and push the development of fundamental physics little by little.

But I can’t blame them.

They were always just low-level figures within the civilization; how could they have a comprehensive perspective like me?

By shifting early now, our Viller Race can seize the initiative in the next stage, make greater contributions to the civilization, and further elevate our status within the civilization..."