Chapter 913: Transport Experiment |
In this universe, all motion is relative. From that perspective, Xiao Yu moving away from the quasar and the quasar moving away from Xiao Yu are the same thing. However, Xiao Yu could still distinguish between the two.
One of the most important standards of measurement was whether gravitational acceleration was felt. Of course, gravitational acceleration applied to conventional navigation. Expanded to the stage of curvature flight, it should also include whether space was being warped.
Thus it could be said that if Xiao Yu’s fleet felt gravitational acceleration or warped space, then it was Xiao Yu leaving the quasar. If the quasar felt gravitational acceleration or warped space, then it was the quasar moving away from Xiao Yu. And since Xiao Yu moving away from the quasar had already been prohibited by the Logic Weapon, then only one choice remained now, namely letting the quasar move away from Xiao Yu.
In terms of basic principle, transporting a galaxy and transporting a star were not much different. Both involved warping a large region of space and moving the matter within that space along with it. It was only in the concrete operation that there were enormous differences.
An enormous black hole with nearly ten billion times the Sun’s mass, an equally enormous and rapidly rotating high-energy accretion disk, and two powerful jets carrying tremendous energy, enough to spray out over a distance of more than one million light years through the void… this was what Xiao Yu intended to transport.
Frankly speaking, Xiao Yu at this moment did not possess the technology to transport a quasar. But he had the technical foundation. The concrete technological details still required further research before they could be perfected.
“There are many things that need to be considered.” Xiao Yu sighed inwardly. “The power of the instruments has to be considered, the deployment has to be considered, the gravitational influence of the companion galaxy has to be considered, the eruption of high-energy matter has to be considered, the movement trajectory of the star stream has to be considered…”
It was fortunate that Xiao Yu had already remained here long enough before and obtained sufficient data. Only now could he smoothly carry out the related scientific research. Even so, the road of research was still full of obstacles.
The most critical point was that the current environment was too complex. Transporting a galaxy-scale celestial body was already an extremely difficult matter, let alone doing so beside a quasar. Those ultra-high-energy jets that could spray out for millions of light years would destroy even Xiao Yu’s Star Cluster-Class battleships instantly if they were struck. Their energy was simply too high. Near this quasar, there were also irregular high-energy eruptions. The intensity of a single eruption was at minimum comparable to that of a photodecay supernova. At present, Xiao Yu’s farthest distance from this quasar was only 0.8 light years. Facing the powerful force of these energy eruptions, such a distance really counted for very little.
In this environment, a dwarf planet the size of the Moon crashing in would be enough to seriously affect Xiao Yu’s Star Cluster-Class battleships. And a chunk of rock the size of a house would be enough to destroy a County-Class spaceship. Yet house-sized rock fragments, or meteorites of equivalent mass, were simply too common here. They were practically everywhere.
This required that the instruments Xiao Yu manufactured not only have extremely high power, because without sufficiently high power it would be impossible to transport something with such huge mass, but also sufficiently high defensive capability. Every single instrument had to have defensive power at least equivalent to a City-Class battleship. And to transport a galaxy, the number of such instruments required would be at least one hundred billion. That was equivalent to Xiao Yu needing to manufacture one hundred billion City-Class battleships. What an enormous undertaking that was.
And this was only the difficulty of the construction project after the technology matured. The even greater difficulty lay in the technological support itself. Just as Xiao Yu had gained the ability to destroy stars very early on, yet only reached the ability to transport stars after becoming a Level 5 Civilization, similarly, destroying this quasar was relatively simpler. Transporting it was a matter of enormous difficulty.
The Star Cluster-Class battleship Science was, within Xiao Yu’s fleet, the most important ship apart from the Human spaceship. Ever since stepping into Level 7 Civilization, it was the Science that had supported Xiao Yu’s technological progress. Inside the Science were stored countless precious experimental materials and experimental data, and innumerable projects were flourishing there with the Science as their foundation. It possessed only very little combat power, but in defensive capability and mobility, it even surpassed the Dream Star Cluster-Class battleship and could stand alongside the Human warship.
At this moment, the Science once again took on the crucial scientific research task of transporting the quasar. Xiao Yu poured more than fifty percent of the computational power of the new-type computers into the Science, while the remaining computational power was assigned to the massive construction tasks.
Although the technology for manufacturing these instruments had not yet been developed, carrying out some of the construction tasks in advance would at least save time later. Under Xiao Yu’s control, an enormous fleet of warships began large-scale interception of the matter supplied by the companion galaxy outside the quasar’s accretion disk. Vast numbers of factories began to be built, and numerous space bases began appearing in this chaotic and violent star region.
Inside one giant laboratory aboard the Star Cluster-Class battleship Science, there was a quasar model constructed to scale. Xiao Yu’s immense computational power maintained it perfectly. Tens of millions of probes scattered along the edge of the quasar continuously transmitted all kinds of observational data back to Xiao Yu, and after being processed by Xiao Yu, it was displayed upon this model.
Even though it had been reduced proportionally, this quasar model still had a diameter of over ten meters. It floated there in midair within the giant laboratory. The rapidly rotating accretion disk, the rapidly spraying jets, and the huge inflowing matter supply like a flood were all reproduced here in their most realistic form.
According to his own deductions, Xiao Yu continuously adjusted certain physical parameters in his mind, increasing the spatial curvature in this region, decreasing the spatial curvature in that region, trying to complete the task of transporting the quasar within this simulation first.
This was already the several millionth experiment. In these several million experiments, not a single one had succeeded. Transporting a quasar was an extremely complex matter. Any tiny change in parameters, any minor error, or any one of the hundreds of billions of spatial curvature instruments malfunctioning could affect the whole situation and cause the entire plan to fail completely. In simulation, Xiao Yu could simply start over. But in the real operation, after one failure, Xiao Yu very likely would not have another chance to start over.
This was because transporting a galaxy was different from transporting a star. Its density was too high, its mass too large, which required spatial curvature to reach an astonishing degree in order to move it away. It was like carrying a stone uphill, which posed no great problem. Even if one failed, one would not be harmed. But pushing a giant stone ball uphill was different. Once one failed, the stone ball rolling back down could crush the person to death.
Likewise, if transporting this quasar failed, the extremely high spatial curvature might lead to some unpredictable consequence. It might cause the entire quasar to collapse. At that point, the enormous accretion disk, equivalent to the mass of several billion suns, would violently explode outward. Even as a Level 7 Civilization, Xiao Yu had no way to evade an attack of that magnitude.
So Xiao Yu had to be cautious, cautious, and still more cautious. Xiao Yu would very likely have only one opportunity. He had also thought about whether it was worth doing something so dangerous, transporting a quasar, for the sake of an inference. After all, Xiao Yu did not have one hundred percent confidence of success. But after thinking it through, Xiao Yu ultimately decided to do it anyway. This was, after all, the method that most likely would succeed among all the inferences.
Steadying himself slightly, Xiao Yu gave the order, and perhaps the third millionth experiment, or perhaps the fifth millionth, began. At nearly one hundred billion points around this scaled quasar model, Xiao Yu simultaneously issued commands to adjust spatial curvature. Immediately, the reactions that would follow from these adjusted curvatures, through calculation under the laws of physics, were reflected in real time into Xiao Yu’s mind.
Xiao Yu’s spirit focused completely upon this. Based on the current data feedback he received, Xiao Yu issued a new command. Thus the degree of spatial curvature at these nearly one hundred billion points began changing again. Some increased, some decreased, and some fluctuated up and down according to certain frequencies. In all these various ways, among these nearly one hundred billion points, there were almost no two that were exactly alike. Xiao Yu’s mind simultaneously controlled these nearly one hundred billion points, making them continuously change.
Suddenly, this quasar model vanished from the giant laboratory. Without the light source of the quasar model illuminating it, the laboratory almost instantly turned completely dark. And at this moment, Xiao Yu quietly let out a sigh of relief.
The quasar model had indeed disappeared from the visible universe, because it had already entered curvature space. Since it could enter curvature space, then the most difficult step had already been overcome, and the task afterward became much simpler.
“I have been busy all the way until now. Nearly one hundred years have passed, and only now have I finally seen the dawn of success…” Xiao Yu silently lamented.