For a moment a brilliant star appeared in the corner of the view, the sunlight attenuated and filtered to keep from piercing the eyes of those on the bridge. Hao Ren let the data terminal adjust the lens of the external monitor, and saw the situation around the stars.
The so-called "Erym Planet" has long since disappeared. That planet was gradually dismantled into pieces thousands of years ago. Now it is a continuous space floating island orbiting the original planet. It seems that a series of fragmented and similarly sized pointed stones are floating in space. In order to extract the last bit of resources from the bottom of the planet, and to supplement the dwindling energy cycle on the planet as much as possible, those elves resolutely decomposed their entire planet, turning it into a place that can receive the sun's energy to the maximum, and at the same time A fragmented state that can accommodate more people. After the rock formations deep in the mantle were dismantled and reshaped into this kind of floating islands, they got the precious living space, and even more precious—the testing ground.
Those floating islands in space have obvious traces of artificial shaping. Their main body is the rock of the planet itself, but around the floating islands, huge artificial "hoops" can be seen. The artificial structure not only maintains the shape stability of the floating island, but also creates an energy shield to protect the land below, and the energy shield itself can be used to filter sunlight. One side of the floating island is flat, and the other side is a huge and ugly rock foundation. Between the uneven and overhanging mountains, you can see ancient and huge mechanical structures. They are the power device and gravity generator of the floating island. energy station. and material recycling factories. Those mechanical structures are probably thousands of years old, and I don't know how many damaged places there are, but it is clear that their manufacturers have no energy and resources to repair them.
"Those are our homes," Hilda calmed down at the moment, she stood up and pointed to the screen on the holographic projection, "Some floating islands far away from the main residential area are testing grounds, we used to test the space-time core and Super-powerful magic accelerator. If we don’t dismantle the planet like this, we can’t even find this kind of test site. The magic accelerator needs to be built on a solid and huge foundation, which cannot be carried by conventional space stations, and it Once an explosion occurs, it may even tear half of the planet, so it cannot be placed on the parent star. In history, a generation of scholars built a huge space platform as much as possible to carry out this dangerous experiment, but a fusion furnace exploded It caused the platform to crash and almost destroyed the ecology of the entire northern hemisphere. These experimental projects were suspended and restarted until the planetary reshaping was completed—but that was also in the past tense. Now the tests of the space-time core and magic accelerator have been stopped. We really have no resources."
"Those floating islands with bright energy shields are ecological islands, and there are ecological domes under the shields. We have preserved the ecosystems of the planetary age as much as possible, and transplanted them under the huge artificial circulation system. These ecological domes provide us with Precious and complex organic matter. At the same time... the only remaining luxury for my people. Each Aerym elf can rest in the dome for fifteen days a year. But no more, those domes have a limit to the carrying capacity, and any As some key systems age, they are actually about to shut down. If they shut down, I'm afraid we will have to rely entirely on factory synthetic materials to survive, and this will kill many people: Aerym elves are a slow-evolving race, healthy Individuals have a lifespan of thousands of years, and the rate of environmental degradation far exceeds the rate we can adapt to. Whenever an ancient facility shuts down, a large number of old elves...even mature elves will die."
"Those floating islands connected by bright light beams are residential areas. Most of the elves live on those islands. They are specially designed, with the lowest energy consumption, the most stable circulation system, and more reasonable architectural planning. In other words, … can last longer, most of the synthesis factories are on those floating islands, even if other floating islands—such as the test site—are accidentally destroyed, these residential areas can continue to exist as much as possible.”
The spaceship gradually approached those space islands in the low-speed cruise mode. Hao Ren found that there was a group of special individuals among the floating islands: they were wandering around the edge of the island chain, and the whole was dim. After disappearing, the remnants of man-made buildings can still be vaguely seen on the floating island, but the energy shield above the land has obviously been extinguished, and the land without a trace of light appears lifeless, like a dried up space rock.
"what is that?"
"The place of death," Hilda sighed, "we have shaped these seemingly magnificent space entities, but it does not mean that we are highly skilled—these floating islands are made in a desperate way The technology is not mature enough, and even the theory is not perfect enough. The structure of many islands is different, because the original designers themselves did not know which island can last longer. And many floating islands were constructed at the beginning of construction. There are defects, and they cannot be repaired if they fail later, so there will always be floating islands that are damaged, extinguished, and then it becomes like that.”
Even Lily is quiet now, she is even a little afraid of the weird scene in front of her, her tail is between her legs, but her ears are straight up: "Then where are the people above?"
"Most of the time it can be rescued and transferred to other islands," Hilda nodded, "This will increase the ecological pressure on other islands, so a period of resource restrictions will be imposed after each rescue transfer." The bill is mainly to limit newborns and reduce per capita supplies, and some old people will take the initiative to enter the "Praying World" to allow their bodies to undergo euthanasia to make room for other young adults. There is no way, we always have to make the entire race as possible stay alive."
"This place..." Hao Ren opened his mouth, and it took him a long time to know what to say. "It's more serious than I imagined."
As an earthling, a rookie inspector who hasn't had time to experience too many events, Hao Ren can't imagine how many unbelievable things are happening in the vast void. It cannot be compared with the chain of space islands in front of us. Before he came here, he had imagined how to help Hilda and her people—for example, borrowing the empire's world gate system and his contacts at Kuiper Station, to see if he could send some supplies here, or from those The merchants of the Fiali Void Consortium bought some technologies or spaceships that did not exceed the provisions of the "Civilization Non-Interference Act" and gave them to these Arim elves. As a review officer, he has a certain amount of "Imperial Distribution Points" every month, but He hasn't used these things yet, but he just heard that these ration points can be exchanged for extremely plentiful supplies from major civilizations in the macro world, so he came up with the above idea.
It's just that now it seems that all his plans have to be revised.
These Erim elves are far from being assisted by a little material or a little belated technology.
"Your creativity and tenacity are really commendable," the data terminal couldn't help but want to say something, "it's just that you failed to discover the mystery of the hyperdrive - sometimes a fork in the technology tree can destroy a civilization, especially For a race like yours whose innate conditions are not enough, as long as a technology fails to develop in time, there is often no chance of turning around. It can be seen that you have worked hard, but... in the end it still failed."
Hilda sighed: "Yeah, the final space transmission test also failed."
When the Giant Turtle Rock Terrace approached those island chains, it obviously attracted the attention of the Erim elves. Hao Ren noticed that the communicator suddenly reported a large number of unknown contact signals. The back of the island circled around and quickly approached the spaceship. After the camera zoomed in, Hao Ren could see clearly that they were triangular aircraft with blunt edges and shone with off-white metallic luster. Bright runes flashed on the shell of each aircraft. Obviously, it is not the same as the spaceship in the general impression. Those should be the spaceships made by the Erim elves, but it's a pity that they can't cross the long distance of tens of millions of light years.
These off-white triangular aircraft quickly came to the vicinity of the Giant Turtle Rock Platform. Hao Ren slowed down the spacecraft to almost a standstill, and then the tens of meters long "small spacecraft" stopped, and did not make any rash actions such as rapid detours. . The drivers inside them must be in a state of great shock and tension, and everyone on the bridge can even feel this emotion pervading through the cold space and several layers of starship armor. (to be continued~^~)