Rebirth of the Super Battleship-Chapter 609: Three Questions

Xiao Yu’s technological strength had now fully surpassed a Level 5 Civilization and truly entered into a Level 6 Civilization. But without a small universe of his own, there remained an essential difference from a proper Level 6 Civilization. From any perspective, the role of a small universe was beyond doubt; it was worth any price for a civilization to exchange for it.

Now, several difficult problems lay before Xiao Yu. He could already cut space without obstruction, slicing off a portion of the main universe’s space to form a small universe. However, this small universe was uncontrollable. From the moment of its birth, it followed certain mechanical laws to orbit around the main universe, and Xiao Yu had no way to move it according to his will. Although in the Trolor Civilization’s ruins Xiao Yu had used that clumsy method to manipulate the small universe and ultimately let it return to the main universe, it was obvious that such a method was not acceptable.

The second problem was the issue of material flow between the small universe and the main universe, that is, Xiao Yu needed to establish a passage between the small universe and the main universe to allow spaceships and intelligent beings to enter and exit freely. This involved even more advanced space science, which Xiao Yu was temporarily unable to solve.

The third problem was the matter of region. For a small universe to be practical, it had to be large. A small universe like that of the Trolor Civilization, with only a diameter of several tens of billions of kilometers, was completely insufficient. At least, to satisfy his material needs and the habitation needs of intelligent beings, in Xiao Yu’s plan he believed he needed to manufacture a small universe with a diameter of one light year at minimum.

Xiao Yu intended to move dozens of stars and hundreds or thousands of planets into this small universe, then place all habitation ships, supply vessels, repair docks, and so on entirely within the small universe. Even at dangerous times, the warships could all hide in the small universe, and then the passage between the small universe and the main universe could be closed, using the small universe to resist danger.

In Xiao Yu’s plan, intelligent beings could freely choose whether to live on planets or in spaceships. Stars could provide almost inexhaustible energy, and planets would provide vast quantities of materials. With such a portable logistics base, Xiao Yu’s survivability would increase by several times at least.

Under Xiao Yu’s leadership, a new round of technological rapid research operations was fully launched. Different from the last rapid research, this time Xiao Yu possessed extremely abundant computational power, and the stars and planets he had hauled over provided ample resources. Therefore Xiao Yu could verify to his heart’s content any method conceived by the scientists or by himself. Even if a method had only a zero point one percent success rate, Xiao Yu would expend enormous computational power to verify it.

Such a luxurious usage was something Xiao Yu had scarcely dared to imagine before.

With this mindset, within a range of one light year around this star system there were busy construction robots everywhere, and spaceships shuttled about everywhere. More than one million enormous bases rose up on the nearly one thousand planets that Xiao Yu had moved over, supplying the materials needed for experiments. Several hundred tiny small universes had already been cut out and were linked to Xiao Yu in the main universe through spatial broadcast communication technology. Under Xiao Yu’s control, they carried out all kinds of experiments, seeking a way to stably control the motion of small universes and to link the small and main universes.

In this way, thirty years slipped by quietly. Xiao Yu had already accumulated a great deal of research data in all aspects. Yet he still had not found a specifically feasible method. However, Xiao Yu had a premonition that he was likely already not far from solving the problems.

Xiao Yu reached this conclusion based on the recent performance of the two most brilliant scientists, Luka Three and Xu Junpo. These two had found alternative approaches. Although whether they were specifically feasible was still unknown, based on his confidence in them, Xiao Yu believed that these two methods should be workable.

As these two most brilliant scientists simultaneously began the newest stage of research, Xiao Yu himself also achieved a major breakthrough. Through extremely complex calculations combined with space-cutting tools so precise as to be unimaginable, Xiao Yu believed he had found a way to cut an extremely large region of cosmic space and let it detach from the main universe to become an independently existing small universe.

Another three months passed. With Number Five’s assistance, Luka Three finally submitted his scientific paper. After this paper passed review by the scientists’ assembly and then passed the feasibility test established by Xiao Yu, Xiao Yu immediately decided to use experiments and real, concrete data to verify the feasibility of this method.

“This method is indeed an alternative path. It completely abandons the idea of moving by relying on the small universe’s own power and instead uses a linkage method between the main universe and the small universe to make the small universe move under control. Then, first we must construct, respectively within the main universe and the small universe, an instrument based on gravity and space to connect the two. By moving the instrument in the main universe, we pull the small universe to move correspondingly.” Xiao Yu silently contemplated this method and quickly began constructing such instruments.

This method was indeed somewhat ingenious. Its specific principle was like flying a kite. The kite itself could not move, but the person standing on the ground could pull the kite to move by means of the string in their hand. The instrument that Xiao Yu constructed within the main universe was equivalent to the person flying the kite, that gravity-and-space-based connecting instrument was like the kite string, and the small universe was equivalent to the kite. The instrument within the small universe was equivalent to the connection point between the string and the kite.

Xiao Yu first manufactured the instrument on the small-universe side, then used a space-cutting tool to slice that region of space out together with the instrument. A tiny small universe thus formed. Then Xiao Yu manufactured the corresponding instrument in the main universe and equipped a spaceship with it.

“Very well… begin the experiment.” In front of tens of thousands of scientists, Xiao Yu issued this command.

By means of spatial fluctuation detection, at such close range Xiao Yu could clearly detect the position of the small universe. By analyzing the position of the small universe at different times, one could know whether it was moving according to his control.

Under Xiao Yu’s order, the spaceship equipped with the special instrument began to move slowly, whereupon a large quantity of data began to be produced. Through a certain conversion program, the implications contained within this data were analyzed.

The conclusion was that, under the spaceship’s traction, the small universe was undergoing a certain regular displacement. Further analysis showed that this displacement had a direct relationship with the motion of the spaceship. At the three-dimensional level, the displacement of the spaceship and the displacement of the small universe had a one-to-one correspondence.

Having obtained this conclusion, Xiao Yu gently set down his somewhat taut nerves.

“I declare that this experiment has succeeded. That’s right, we have found a way to control the movement of a small universe! Although this method has certain drawbacks, such as requiring traction from the main-universe side to move, and the instrument built in the main universe runs the risk of being destroyed, that does not matter. We can solve this problem by constructing a large number of traction instruments or spaceships.”

Xiao Yu announced this news with great passion. Cheers immediately broke out in the venue. This meant that their decades of hard work had not been in vain and had finally borne abundant fruit at this moment.

“There is another problem.” At this time, another scientist raised an objection. He stood and said, “I noticed a piece of data. It seems that this traction method requires the consumption of a huge amount of energy. During the experiment I saw that, on the main-universe side, the traction spaceship exhausted all the energy it carried merely by pulling the small universe forward for less than one hundred kilometers.”

“That is not a problem.” Xiao Yu replied. “Once we have researched the technology for free exchange of matter between the main universe and the small universe, we can use the materials within the small universe to supply the traction spaceships on the main-universe side.”

“I also have a question.” another scientist said. “I do not know whether this traction mechanism can pull the small universe into Faster-Than-Light Travel. After all, if the small universe can only conduct conventional flight, then this technology is still somewhat tasteless.”

“I will answer this question.” Luka Two stood up and replied. “According to our theoretical projections, there is absolutely no problem with pulling the small universe into Faster-Than-Light Travel. Spatial motion is not constrained by relativity. The only issue is the amount of energy consumed. As long as the energy is sufficient, the maximum speed of the small universe can even reach one hundred and ten times the speed of light.”

“I have another question.” yet another scientist stood and said. “My question is, if we encounter a very powerful enemy who destroys all our traction spaceships in the main universe and then guards the exit of our small universe, destroying any new traction instrument the moment it appears, what should we do in such a situation? You must know that without traction on the main-universe side, the small universe has no way to move.”

“This problem cannot be solved for the time being.” Xiao Yu answered. “But I think, if we truly encounter an existence that can bottle us up in the small universe so that we cannot come out, then simply hiding in the small universe to develop technology, or using the small universe as a barrier to resist invasion, is not bad either.”

The scientist who posed the question slowly nodded.

At this moment, Xu Junpo, who had been silent all along, stood up.

“I think I have probably found a way to connect the two universes.”