Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 171 Devourer Spaceship

Luo Qing frowned as she looked at the Pojang crystal in front of her. Inside, a little girl was floating around, her smooth blue hair rippling like water. Her features and body proportions resembled an old-fashioned anime character from the late 20th century, and she didn't seem real.

Beside him were the chairman of the United Government, the commander of the Space Force, and the colonel captain of the USS Infinite Frontier.

Poridion crystal.

Following Sophon and the Risk Remover sensor, this is the third extraterrestrial creation to set foot in the solar system.

This universe is really lively...

Luo Qing scanned the Bojiang Crystal with his divine sense again and again, confirming that the Bojiang Crystal had lost its life, and that the Bojiang Girl had only been a sealed information body from beginning to end, not a living being at all, and sighed softly.

"Since Zhizi dares not approach this place, please speak freely."

Luo Qing waved his hand, and his divine sense gently swayed in the space of the solar system. The twelve sophons were forced to show golden trails visible to the human eye as they flew. For a moment, golden lines danced wildly in the sky above the Earth.

The closest 'golden line' to Luoqing is 500 kilometers away.

Sophons acquire information from the outside world in a way that is fundamentally different from human cameras. Their mechanism is closer to the quantum realm, and they acquire information about their own area by sensing the quantum state of the surroundings.

This means that Sophon does not have 'sight'; the area it operates in is the area it monitors.

Under normal circumstances, an 11-dimensional sophon moving at the speed of light can easily penetrate every corner of three-dimensional space, achieving surveillance without blind spots.

But now, within this all-encompassing surveillance, a surveillance no-go zone with a diameter of 500 kilometers has emerged.

Within 500 kilometers, the Wallfacer has a chance to hit and shatter the sophon by projecting a hydrogen nucleus at the speed of light, and then combine the sophon into ordinary protons through the quark confinement effect.

For the Trisolaran civilization, the production cost of sophons is enormous, and the destruction of each proton is a huge loss.

A distance of 500 kilometers gives the Sophon approximately one microsecond to react. The Sophon's internal 'Micro-Intelligence 1.0' system can analyze the pre-trajectory of the attack, allowing it to evade the light-speed hydrogen nucleus bombardment launched by the Wallfacer.

The colonel spoke first:

"Let me start. The Eridanus girl said that she traveled from the Eridanus constellation to the solar system for more than 7 years. The Eridanus constellation is 10.5 light-years away from the solar system, and the Devourer spaceship was always following closely behind her. We can basically assume that the Devourer spaceship and the Eridanus crystal were traveling at the same speed. I did a simple calculation, and the Devourer spaceship's speed is about one-thousandth and one-fifth of the speed of light."

Luo Qing said, "The speed of light is about 1‰, which is not fast."

The colonel nodded: "Around 1/1000th of the speed of light doesn't sound like much. The 'Infinite Frontier' can easily reach that speed in its second phase. But the problem is, the Devourer ship is too big. Wallfacer, do you know about the 'Wandering Earth Project'?"

"I know, that's just a scientific hypothesis. It's impossible for it to happen because the Earth is essentially a fragile egg that would break if pushed."

The colonel said, "The Devourer Civilization accomplished this. Nearly forty years ago, when you were still in seclusion cultivating, during the fake helium flash crisis created by MOSS, a Chinese person proposed the 'Wandering Earth Project.' Although the project was ultimately proven to be impractical, the current 'Moon Chasing Project' and 'Wandering Mercury Project' are actually variations of the 'Wandering Earth Project.'"

In the initial stage of the 'Wandering Earth Project', 1 planetary engines were to be built to propel the Earth. After more than a hundred years of acceleration, the Earth would eventually be pushed to 1‰ the speed of light to achieve the goal of interstellar wandering.

For a celestial body of Earth's size, traveling at 1‰ the speed of light is already the physical limit. Therefore, compared to that, the Devourer civilization's spaceships traveling at 1.5‰ the speed of light are not actually slow, considering the size of their spaceships.

Their super spaceship is even larger than Earth itself; the outer diameter of its tire could fit nearly five Earths. Most incredibly, this level of spacecraft is built by them, not borrowed from celestial bodies. No wonder they plunder planetary resources.

Here, the colonel uses the term "technological scale".

The colonel said, "This shows that the technological scale of the Devourer civilization is far greater than that of Earth's humans and the Trisolaran civilization."

The chairman of the United Government looked at the Po River girl swimming in the transparent crystal and sighed repeatedly: "How could there be such a big spaceship... There was an old movie from the last century called Independence Day. Back then, before the Three-Body Crisis, the alien spaceship in Independence Day was 15 kilometers in diameter. That was the largest spaceship that mankind had ever imagined."

Even now, the largest stellar-class warship, the European Fleet's 'Paradox Engine', is only 2.2 kilometers long and has a total tonnage of only about one million tons... The Devourer ship is larger than Earth, so how were they manufactured? Are they not subject to the limitations of materials mechanics?

No one spoke; until they made contact with the Devourer's spaceship, no one knew the answer.

Although the Eridanus crystals recorded images of the Eridanus system's destruction, they did not record any data about the Devourer ships.

Or rather, the Po River civilization simply did not have the concept of 'recording data'.

Humans can only repeatedly watch the videos stored in the Poridian crystal in an attempt to deduce more information.

Luo Qing asked, "How far is this Devourer civilization from the solar system?"

The Space Force commander said, "There should still be around 7000 astronomical units left; the previous estimate of 1000 astronomical units was incorrect."

Luo Qing's spiritual sense radius is approximately 60 astronomical units (8976000000 kilometers).

Even if his divine sense expanded a hundredfold, he still couldn't reach it, so Luo Qing gave up. He asked again:
"How was this data obtained?" The Space Force Commander said, "In Crisis Era 96, the Risk Remover civilization told us that the solar system war would occur more than 100 years later. That means the Devourer civilization would need 100 years to reach Earth. Based on its speed of 1.5‰ of light, multiplied by 100 years, we can roughly conclude that in Crisis Era 96, the Devourer civilization was about 10000 astronomical units away from us."

It is now the year 120 of the Crisis Era. 24 years later, the Devourer spaceship may only be about 6000 to 7000 astronomical units away from Earth. We are currently attempting to obtain a precise distance using laser mapping, but due to the speed of light limitation, it will take at least another six months to get the exact data.

7000 astronomical units may sound like a distant number, as it would take light about two months to travel that distance, but in the context of the universe, it is already very close.

In contrast, the Trisolaran First Fleet is still 2.8 light-years away.

"The Devourer spaceship has been traveling for 70,000 years on its journey to the solar system. 70,000 years... Humans were still in the Paleolithic Age 70,000 years ago," the Space Force Commander remarked.

This temporal and spatial scale made Luo Qing frown repeatedly.

The colonel said, "Sir, 7000 astronomical units is not far for us. Taking the Infinite Frontier as an example, with the forward speed of four, the Infinite Frontier can reach the position of the Devourer ship in just over a year."

The Space Force Commander shook his head: "Colonel, this is not a matter of distance. A spaceship traveling at 10% the speed of light is certainly fast, but if we want to get to Trisolaris, it will only take 40 years. Why not do it?"

This is, of course, because we don't have a guaranteed victory. It would be foolish to abandon the defense system we've built up over a century and go to the enemy's homeland for a strategic decisive battle. The same principle applies to dealing with the Devourer civilization.

Luo Qing agreed with this point; given the unknown strength of the enemy, defending the solar system was the wisest choice.

At least the solar system has a defense system and logistical support built by humans, but there is nothing in the deep space of outer space.

The chairman of the coalition government said, "I am more concerned about their technological level than their technological scale, but judging from the spaceships, the Devourer civilization is more advanced than the Trisolaran civilization. After all, the Trisolaran civilization does not have the ability to propel their planets out of the Trisolaran system."

This concern is certainly valid.

The Space Force Commander also said, "The Devourer civilization developed too early. Even if they didn't have a technological explosion, their technological level was growing at a steady pace. Seventy thousand years would have been enough for their civilization's technology to make a qualitative leap. Just look at the scene when the Devourers devoured Eridanus. After the ring-shaped Devourer spaceships encircled the planet, they scattered tens of thousands of resource transport pipes with a length of tens of thousands of kilometers along Eridanus's equator. Each of these transport pipes is equivalent to our space elevator, and has a transport capacity tens of thousands of times greater than our space elevator."

Luo Qing frowned.

Admittedly, judging from the video played by the Eridanus Crystal, the Devourer spaceship is terrifyingly powerful and its technological scale is astonishing, but... the Devourer civilization seems to still be within the realm of human understanding.

Look at those tens of thousands of pipes, and that ancient method of 'swallowing'.

It has the kind of beauty of a cultivator undergoing tribulation consuming large quantities of Qi Refining Pills.

Luo Qing's intuition told him that this Devourer civilization was not as exaggerated as he had imagined.

Does a truly advanced civilization need to acquire resources in such a rudimentary, crude, and violent way?

I'm afraid not.

The Trisolaran civilization's sophons locked down Earth's technology.

A single sensor from the Risk Mitigation civilization could instantly vaporize the entire Einstein Equatorial Accelerator.

In comparison, the way the predator eats is so primitive it's almost endearing.

It gives people the aesthetic appeal of a Dyson sphere.

Moreover, so far, the Devourers have not even conducted a rudimentary exploration of their destination (the solar system).

It just flew straight over there.

The Chairman and the Commander were just frightened.

The colonel in front of them, however, was quite calm and was not intimidated by the vast technological scale of the Devourer civilization.

"Chairman, Chief, Wallfacer," the colonel said solemnly to the three men, "The current problem is that we don't have the same level of detection as Sophon. We must find a way to know the technological level of the Devourers."

"What are your thoughts? Tell me," the Space Force Commander said.

The colonel said, "I suggest that we send a star-class warship to actively fly towards the Devourer civilization. Taking advantage of our speed, we can make contact with them before they break through the 6000 astronomical unit distance and transmit back as much relevant intelligence as possible. If the Devourer civilization is far beyond our imagination, then humanity will have to make other plans sooner rather than later."

“That won’t do.” The Space Force Commander interrupted him: “We will inevitably launch many probes to target the Devourer civilization, but we cannot use a precious star-class warship as a probe, not to mention that the probability of a probe ship going there and not returning is extremely high. If we are to send one, we should send an unmanned ship.”

“I think it’s worth a try.” Luo Qing stroked his chin, showing great interest in the colonel’s proposal.

(End of this chapter)