Hao Ren was stunned when he heard the report from the data terminal: "The swarm of drones? What did they find?"
"A group of unmanned aerial vehicles in the LB-35 exploration sequence found traces suspected to be left by the original hypervelocity engine on the cruise route. Judging by the degree of dispersion of the traces, it was left decades ago."
Hao Ren suddenly became serious: "Decades ago? Are you sure?"
"All the information reported by the drone swarm has been strictly calculated, and it is unlikely to make mistakes," the data terminal said while projecting the detailed information reported by the drone swarm. "The swarm thinks that we may have found the surviving Exiles—the kind that still retain a high level of civilization."
Hao Ren focused his attention on the screen displayed by the data terminal. He saw a vast expanse of space on the screen, with strange nebulae and cosmic landscapes shining in the distance, and a dim and distorted discontinuous band could be seen between these stars. , the discontinuity itself does not have any color, but it acts like a lens to change the surrounding light, so it appears observable. The data terminal explained the phenomenon on the screen: "The original super-light speed engine propels the spacecraft by changing the curvature of space, but due to the immaturity of technology, this kind of engine cannot restore the curvature of space near the start and end of the voyage, so they are entering or leaving hyperspace. After the state, distorted lenses like this are left behind, and it usually takes tens to hundreds of years for these lenses to dissipate on their own."
Hao Ren remembered that he had seen several advantages and disadvantages of the original FTL engine in other technical materials, and he still knew about the "lens trail" mentioned by the data terminal, and he also knew that at a lower level In the civilized circles of the world, people will track the target ship according to the distorted lens just formed-mercenaries and pirates are very good at this. However, other people at the scene should not study this aspect much.
Lily was surprised after hearing the terminal's explanation: "Wow, if this low-tech engine spaceship is running around, wouldn't it make the universe look like a sieve?"
"The universe is huge, and it can't be broken with this kind of primitive engine," the terminal shook itself. "Isn't there a circle of space junk around the earth? Humans are still launching spaceships into the sky, as long as you can use more powerful technology in the future." To solve the mess left by the predecessors, all long-term problems are not a problem. This is a short-sighted idea. But many civilizations have come this way. However, the lens trail caused by the original engine is really troublesome, so the civilization that travels faster than the speed of light has just developed There are usually some rules. For example, no spaceship is allowed to enter the hyperspace state around the parent star, and it is only allowed to accelerate when the sublight engine travels to a certain safe distance. Anyway, they have to find a way."
Hao Ren is quite familiar with this knowledge, so he is only paying attention to the phenomenon of lens left in space: this is exciting evidence, if these trails are really produced by artificial engines, it means that at least decades Before, there were still higher surviving civilizations active in this universe!
Different from the civilizations like Holleta and Zhuom who are in a state of severance or material extinction, what left behind these lenses is a race that can travel faster than the speed of light and has the ability to operate in the deep space of the universe!
Hao Ren felt a sudden sense of excitement. He asked with a little urgency: "Are you only finding these wakes? Can you pinpoint where they went?"
"At present, only these trails have been discovered. The LB-35 exploration sequence is a fleet that has just completed the construction of the sentinel. It is active millions of light years away. They have not had time to carry out large-scale proliferation in the local area, so there is very little information that can be collected. But more fleets have jumped past the nearest support node, and a wider search should turn up some clues. Now we should expect these lens trails to be traces of jumping out of hyperspace rather than jumping in."
Nangong Wuyue couldn't respond to such a profound question all of a sudden: "Why?"
Hao Ren explained: "If it is the wake left by jumping out of hyperspace, it means that those spaceships are currently traveling at sub-light speed or lower speed, which can be directly observed in the material universe and is easy to track. But if it is The traces left when jumping into hyperspace, those spaceships may be there, they may have been sailing at the speed of light for decades. The search range will be astronomical, and it may not be found yet."
Nangong Wuyue thought about it. Bow your head and continue to eat: "I'm just asking, you guys continue..."
Hao Ren raised his forehead, and turned to the data terminal a little worriedly: "Which area is the detection sequence of L or something active? Is there any trace left by the eldest son or other guardians around it?"
The terminal floated up and down: "A star area that has just been included in the exploration plan. The drones were originally sent to find the original coordinates of Purgatory Planet. This time it was discovered by accident. No eldest son activities were found in the local area. There is no sign of the past, and there are no other ruins of destroyed civilizations. It can be considered a safe desert. If the exiles flee in that direction, their chances of survival are very high-provided that they are not attacked by the black warships of the guardian giants. Tracked it down. How about arranging the spaceship now? Let's go and see the situation?"
Hao Ren stood up without saying a word. While setting off, he yelled: "Go, go, this matter cannot be delayed."
Lily looked up from the noodle soup bowl. Holding her noodle and chicken drumsticks in one hand, with a pitiful face: "Then what, can you wait until I finish eating?"
Hao Ren: "... You eat your food, and you're not so anxious that you won't even be allowed to eat."
So the husky girl immediately changed from cloudy to sunny: this girl's emotions are really easy to understand.
The data terminal quickly prepared the spaceship, so everyone set off for the UAV frontier without delay after eating. This time, the number of people who followed was unprecedented: because it happened when everyone was free, all the people present followed, not only Yu and Mao, but even Nangong Wudi and his wife.
Hao Ren remembered that Nangong Wudi and his wife were still running the restaurant at home, so he asked, "I used to wait there for at least three days regardless of whether the drone swarm made any progress. Is your restaurant okay?"
Elsa smiled and shook her head: "Business has slowed down since the beginning of winter. There are mostly elderly people in the southern suburbs, and it has been snowing for the past two days. After the elderly do not go out, sometimes there will not be ten people in the restaurant all day. Just rest." A few days."
Hao Ren thinks about it, Nangong's restaurant is a sight to be found in such a ghostly place in the southern suburbs. It usually looks like an activity center for veteran cadres. The people who go there all day are those who want a plate of peanuts. Old men and old ladies who can sit and talk for a long time. Originally, they didn't expect to make money from the business, and Nangong and his wife were willing to rest for a few days.
Although I don't know if they go out with Hao Ren to take risks or not if they count as "rest"...
Nangong Wudi also smiled: "And more importantly, our husband and wife also want to be active. We are bored at home all day long, watching the children go out in the wind and rain. We, as elders, feel sorry."
Vivienne immediately said: "Speak up, take me out of the pile of children."
Lily glanced at Vivienne with a strange expression: "It's not easy for someone to say that you are young, aren't you happy?"
The idlers started to talk about their daily life on the bridge. Hao Ren saw that there was no topic he was interested in, so he took advantage of this time to connect to the database of the drone group, intending to see how the drone organization at the destination was.
He still remembers the scene when he released the first batch of drones two years ago-at that time, there were only a few stupid, coffin-like primitive fleet modules, and they set off from the giant turtle rock platform, as if they were ignorant Like the worker bees who understand, they plunged into the cold and vast universe, and began to use Hao Ren's eyes and ears to understand this indifferent world after the disaster. The drone swarms at that time were so weak and isolated that Hao Ren could hardly imagine how far they would develop in two years. He even wondered if those solitary drones would be in danger at the beginning of the mission. It was too late to expand and wasted due to various reasons, and a lot of alternatives and alternatives of alternatives were formulated for this.
Like many novice employees, he didn't have much confidence in his ability to work at that time.
But today, those "worker bees" have become an extremely powerful force in this universe, and Hao Ren's arrangement that day proved to be one of the wisest decisions he made.
He opened the star map, and saw that within millions of light years, countless light spots representing information nodes were shining brightly. Different from the randomly distributed and chaotic natural nebula, these light spots were neat, dense, and well-organized. order, forming a huge matrix with its wonderful sense of symmetry and regularity.
It's an empire: the empire of drones. (to be continued~^~)