The temporary base built by Tavel in two days was designed according to the classic structure of the Pioneering Research Station: this kind of site has a relatively dense asteroid as its vertex, and a skeleton made of superalloy, with a large number of take-off and landing platforms and Small ports are used for engineering drones and various ships to dock, while the inner ring of the skeleton is distributed with first-level engineering nodes and second-level engineering nodes. ore debris, and send valuable and roughly processed mineral samples to the material transfer station, which sends the mineral samples directly to the large laboratory in the center of the base through hyperspace equipment. This simple and efficient system can ensure that the entire site is always operating at the highest efficiency, and as the scale of its supporting drones and engineering ships expands, it will continue to extend to the surrounding space. When the development reaches a certain level, the frontier research station can be upgraded into a space bunker or a military node. The modular imperial equipment only needs a little modification to build a space city on those criss-cross superalloy frames. In fact, this is how the Kuiper belt base in the current capital world originally came about: its predecessor was nothing more than a pioneer research station.
Based on the basic pioneering site, the structure is continuously upgraded, and eventually evolved into advanced facilities such as military depots/space fortresses/colonial cities/military nodes. This is one of the common upgrade processes for imperial space facilities.
Of course, our current frontier research station has no plans to upgrade in this way. Although Sandora has considered pulling this remote world into the empire's territory and building it into a military-industrial core universe, the asteroid belt itself as a mining site is nothing. Worth the value of building a base, the only thing that is useful to us is those stones from the home world.
The interior of the large laboratory in the center of the workstation is a honeycomb structure, which accommodates a large number of modular sample analysis rooms. Meteorites collected by engineering drones are sorted and sent here for various tests to determine the time when they cross the world barrier, and try to Judging the current situation of the home world from the clues on these stones—of course, it would be even better if we could find the coordinates of the home world, but this seems hopeless, the flash of space here has been over for tens of thousands of years, even if this The universe once passed by the home world, and now they have also been far away from each other for a long time.
Tavel took us to her current workshop—strictly speaking, it is the current workshop of quality projection, because we know that Tavel’s unit of quantity is now calculated by a basketball court...
This is a vast hexagonal hall, and space expansion equipment may have been used, resulting in a very spacious place. Dozens of gravity-free platforms are neatly arranged in the hall, half of which are suspended with unremarkable meteorite fragments. The distance between each non-gravity platform is about ten meters. The self-discipline machine used for scientific research, which is responsible for handling laboratory chores, flies around these gaps nimbly, checking the working conditions of each non-gravity platform, or assisting those on the platform. A cutting beam dissects a meteorite sample. Small groups of assistant technicians in white uniforms gathered around certain platforms, analyzing data, discussing heatedly, or acting as emoticons: they must have made some important discoveries. In the past two days, every scientist in this site has experienced countless major discoveries: discovering a new hometown substance, verifying a certain footnote in the memory of the ancestors, knowing a little new information about the hometown world, all Enough to get them excited.
Imperial scientists have never been a reserved and steady group, each of them has a fiery heart...
"This is the largest sample analysis room, and one copy of each type of meteorite must be kept here," Tavel led us to the nearest non-gravity platform, "We have discovered thirty-seven substances from our home world , both metal and non-metal. They perfectly match the homeland information recorded in the memory core, look at these things—"
Tavel said, looking around the entire hall: "These ancient things come from my hometown... Our creator used these things to build the ark, and even used these things to create the first Primarch in the fifth generation. Dare to imagine that we will have the opportunity to see these primitive minerals with our own eyes, and the entire research team is now in a state of excitement, this is the second time we have been so excited about our ancestors since the discovery of the original body."
Tavel mentioned the fifth generation-I know this, and Sandora also introduced the history of the apostles of Xiling to herself. They divided the entire Xiling civilization into "generations", from the first Xiling who walked upright to the establishment of the new empire until now, all counted in "generations". The most admirable thing about this chronology is that it records history not from the perspective of a certain race, but from the perspective of the entire civilization. The first to fourth generations are the history of the Xiling people, and also the childhood of the Xiling civilization. It records the years when the Xiling people formed a tribe until they explored the entire universe and realized the edge of the world—the history of this period has long been Incomplete, only a few fragments in the core memory of the Xiling Apostle can describe it.
And the fifth generation is the turning point of this civilization: in this generation, Xiling civilization encounters the abyss and jumps out of the world, the old Xiling people are extinct, new Xiling apostles are born, new races replace the creators, "people" Replaced by "Apostle", the hometown world became a historical term, and "Xiling Civilization" was taken over by a young ethnic group, and stepped into the endless void without hesitation-this is why the number "five" is of great significance in Xiling Civilization s reason.
On the back page of the fifth generation, it is the beginning of the history of Xiling Empire.
The history of any civilization is rarely like this: it is a general history of civilization, but in the middle of the history, the "protagonist" was changed, and the race in the first half of the history was completely replaced, but the history of this civilization did not change its name and continued. Handed down. The Xiling people handed over their civilization to the race they created, and disappeared into the depths of the void with ease. The Xiling apostles took over this civilization from their ancestors, and swore to pass it on to the death, even making it an unprecedented civilization by almost unscrupulous means. powerful empire. Absolute dedication, absolute loyalty, moving towards the goal, regardless of the consequences - this is the factor engraved deep in the soul of every individual named "Xiling", paranoid and terrifying.
It is precisely because of this chronology that the apostles of Xiling also directly referred to the era of the Xiling people's home planet as "our home planet era". Although the apostles were not born at that time, not even a blueprint, they Still think that was the beginning of their own history.
I only thought of this when I heard Tavel suddenly mention the fifth generation, and Sandora obviously thought of more and more specific things. She frowned and looked at the meteorite samples suspended on the weightless platform, then turned to Tavel: "Are all the substances found natural minerals?"
"Yes, natural minerals," Tavel's expression seemed a little regretful, "These materials should come from a broken rocky planet in the universe of their homeland. Composition analysis shows that they were formed in similar ages, so the probability of coming from the same celestial body is extremely high. In No artificial objects have been seen in the material samples that have been discovered. Perhaps the place where the home world leaked was just far away from the place where the ancestors were active. Of course, it is not ruled out that we have not found the possibility of those artificial objects. After all, the engineering team has not cleared the area All searched, and there may be some home matter being pulled into an orbit close to the sun by gravitational perturbations within the galaxy. Theoretically so."
"Do your best," Sandora nodded, "but don't expect too much. The universe is vast, and the creators are unable to leave their own traces on all celestial bodies. It is normal to find their relics."
We have seen various forms of mineral samples under Tavel's guidance. During this period, two newly discovered valuable samples were sent in. After cutting, Tavel obtained two compounds with complex compositions, but the Unfortunately, this compound is still not man-made. I know that both she and Sandora hope to find the "relics" left by the creators in these hometown materials, but the possibility of this situation is too low, and it is estimated from the probability that it is no more than the first Cai and was not killed in the end...
But the information I have in front of me is enough to satisfy: now Tavel is basically sure that the home world is still alive, and it was still very active at least 20,000 years ago. According to the data she collected from the samples, various parameters of the substance in her hometown can be accurately measured, which is of great significance: if a substance can be accurately measured, that is, it has the only measurable physical properties on a macroscopic level, then It must come from a stable universe. Because when the universe is on the verge of "mathematical doomsday", that is, when the chaos of laws leads to the collapse of the universe, everything in the world will fall into an "uncertain state". This uncertainty is not the same as the uncertainty in quantum science. It refers to Everything in the universe loses its "nature" macroscopically. An object will have no mass or infinite weight. It may be solid but it may also flow suddenly. It will become anything in your sight and may disappear suddenly. This is seriously infected by the abyss The state of matter in the universe before its destruction - and the meteorite samples we collected in the asteroid belt are not like this, they look normal.
"Even in the worst case, 20,000 years is not enough time to destroy a universe with such a high degree of stability."
Tavel finally pointed to a light gray ore sample and concluded in this way.
"Wait, I thought of a question," Sandora thought for a moment, then suddenly raised her eyes, "How long has the history of these ores been? I don't mean the age when they came to this universe, but how old they were in their hometown. History after the world was formed."
"Your Majesty, this is the most confusing part," Tavier immediately understood Sandora's thoughts, "We conducted a chronological analysis on all the samples we found, and determined that the oldest element in them was also at 120 Formed billions of years ago."
I thought about it, and found that I still didn't understand, so I tugged on Sandora's sleeve: "What do you mean?"
"The home world has been destroyed by the abyss so far... I don't know how long the exact time has been since now, but it is definitely more than hundreds of millions of years," Sandora exhaled, "and the material samples we found are too young. According to the data analyzed by Tavel, these material fragments evolved normally after the home world was eroded by the abyss. It is a miracle that the home world has survived to this day. It has maintained normal cosmic evolution after being eroded by the abyss. This is simply impossible!"
"Not only that," Tavier added, "There are no traces of the abyss on all the samples we found, as if they came from a normal universe."
"Are you sure?!" Sandora suddenly raised her head and looked at Tavel in disbelief.
"It's absolutely true, my lord," Tavier nodded vigorously, and then pushed the glasses on the bridge of his nose, "After confirming that these substances came from the universe of our hometown, we began to discover various phenomena that were greatly different from the 'ancestral memories'. It is also mentioned by the subordinates before that these homeland substances are "wonderful". First of all, they are very young, showing that the homeworld is still evolving normally today; secondly, there is no abyss reaction on all material samples, and the homeworld should have been theoretically It should be completely soaked by the abyss; secondly, it has nothing to do with the sample, it is the abnormality of the home world itself: the lifespan of a universe should not be so long, even if it is not polluted by the abyss, the lifespan of a healthy and normal universe should not be so long. So long!"
I think of a sentence that Father God said: Any natural world has a beginning and an end, and the universe born in the void will eventually return to the void. "Returning to zero" is the eternal truth of the void. At present, except for the worlds artificially created by the two great protoss and the Xiling Empire, the lifespan of all universes is limited. There may be some unusually strong worlds with super-long lifespans, but it is clear that the home universe of the Apostles of Xiling has far exceeded the time it can theoretically survive.
Even if there is no abyss erosion, that universe should come to an end one day in history—this is the biggest doubt facing Sandora and Tavel.
"The homeworld must be a natural universe. It was not created by gods, and the creators back then did not have the technology to control the lifespan of the universe." Sandora said decisively. Before that, she, like other Xiling apostles, was immersed in the joy of discovering the news of her hometown, unconsciously ignoring the details of this aspect, but now that she has calmed down again, the various abnormalities in the world of her hometown have begun to make people suspicious .
It took me a few minutes to sort out the high-end conjectures of Sandora and Tavel, figure out what the focus of the matter is, and then use my limited brain cells to study how to explain this phenomenon, but I soon gave up: Obviously, I don't have such a magical head as Qianqian, my level of brain supplementation is not at the same order of magnitude as Qianqian...
"There are only two possibilities at the moment," Tavel said suddenly and slowly, "First, something earth-shattering happened in the hometown universe after the ancestors left. The abyss that infected the entire world may have been purified, and then the entire universe was also destroyed by someone. This external force has caused the hometown universe to survive to this day, and all this happened after the ancestors left, and no one knows so far. Second, there may be problems with the memory of the ancestors of the apostles of Xiling. Theoretically, this is the case."
"I don't think there is a problem with the memory of the ancestors," Sandora shook her head immediately, "and the second conjecture can't explain the lifespan of the home universe. I personally tend to your first hypothesis. In any case, we must Find a way to find the hometown, only going there to see the situation can explain everything."
Sandora's proposed goal is definitely not easy to achieve. Without knowing the coordinates of the world, it is necessary to accurately find a specific universe from the vast void. Throwing this job to the Protoss will cause them a headache. It is true that the empire has a super void radar like the Garden of the Dead, but the search range of that thing is still a drop in the ocean compared to the entire void. In the past, we have at least a general range in searching for new worlds: either we know which quadrant the target world is in, or we can It is determined that the target world is not too far from the capital universe, but the "hometown world" of the Apostles of Xiling does not belong to any of the above situations. Although we have material samples from our hometown, these samples have been away from their world of origin for more than 20,000 years, and the information they carry that can be used to locate the hometown is no longer accurate and readable.
This gives me the feeling that an 80-year-old blind man is going to search for his father who was lost when he was two years old among the 1.4 billion people, and he is not allowed to inquire...
"Ah Jun, what are you thinking about?"
Sandora's voice suddenly sounded next to my ear, pulling back my thoughts that had drifted to the horizon. I scratched my head in embarrassment, not ashamed to communicate with her about my long-lost father. I know it's not appropriate for such a serious occasion to wander into the sky, but the topic of Sandora and Tavel is really a bit too high-end. When I encounter such a high-end topic, my ability to wander is almost exponentially strengthened over time—— You see, I lost my mind again during the two sentences.
"What do you think we can do now?" I thought for a while, and asked a very realistic question, "The coordinates of the home world will not be found for a while, and the analysis of the armor fragment will also take time. How about we send How many times do people check on the world barrier? Since there has been a space flash, it means that the two worlds have been very close in history, and perhaps there have been collision marks left on the world barrier."
This is the only solution I can come up with based on my little knowledge. I know it's still equivalent to letting that old blind man find his father, the only difference is helping him get rid of the women...
"That's the only way," Sandora nodded helplessly, "But after 20,000 years, with the self-recovery ability of the world barrier, even if there are traces of collision, there may not be many left."
No matter how effective this plan is, a team of engineers still set off to the world barrier to scan like a needle in a haystack. What we can do next seems to be over-at least the things I can help are over-well, there is nothing I can help you from the beginning, you are satisfied!
In short, the professionals have already started to work on their professional fields, and I, like most of the past, have nothing to do at this time. After wandering around the base for a long time, I suddenly remembered that Qianqian seemed to be staying with the little guy outside. They wandered around, so I decided to go over and see what they were up to. RS