The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2695 Strategic Deception
2695. Strategic Deception

Stargate has never been a small thing.

The stargates developed and built by the Kingdom of Dawn with the help of the Vasari, though called the same thing, have actually undergone several technological iterations.

For example, Stargate V1 was the earliest version. This version was the most rudimentary, only allowing one-to-one travel, and overall, its speed was actually slower than that of the hyperspace route. It only appeared to be faster than the hyperspace route because the stargates were point-to-point, without the need for turning around or jumping multiple times.

At this time, the stargate was a huge ring with a diameter of 20000 meters, and at the bottom of the ring was a huge control area that could accommodate 10,000 people to live and work.

The later Stargate V2 version increased the diameter to 30000 meters, and the number of ships that could navigate through it also increased.

Version V3 optimized the living area configuration, relocating it to the left and right sides of the stargate, separating the family area, entertainment area, and work area, thus improving the quality of life and increasing the capacity to 20000 people. In essence, the operation and maintenance of a stargate essentially creates a small town around it.

Version V4 further increased the travel speed between stargates, reaching one-quarter of the speed required for travel within hyperspace corridors. In general, the shorter the distance, the slower the speed relative to hyperspace corridors. However, for long-distance travel, the speed increases exponentially.

The V5 version of the stargate, currently under development, features a revolutionary improvement: the destination that the stargate is aimed at can be adjusted. For example, for Dawn Planet, there are currently four stargates, aimed at Macito, Eliadu, Lundli, and Qisling respectively.

In the new stargate function, the Dawn stargate can initially be aligned with the Lundli stargate, and if not, its direction can be adjusted to align with the Eriadu stargate. However, this technology is still under development, and adjusting the stargate direction requires clearing away any ships currently navigating between the stargates. Therefore, generally speaking, unless there is a large-scale strategic adjustment, such direction changes are unlikely.

The V6 version of the stargate, currently under development, can be aimed at three different directions simultaneously and also supports changing the destination being aimed at.

In other words, Dawn Planet's stargate technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, and it is getting closer and closer to the goal of eventually building a multi-point multi-point stargate network.

At this point, the size of stargates was no longer fixed. There were large stargates built to accommodate large-scale navigation, as well as small stargates built simply to connect strategic locations.

The skeletal stargate that Dunn Wessex found on Od Mantel is actually a small stargate intended solely for military use. Therefore, it is not large in scale and required a shorter construction period.

After all, Ode-Mantel is primarily a military planet; its resources and population are insufficient to make it a thriving commercial, cultural, or industrial center. It's highly likely that after the war, it will simply become a transportation hub.

The stargate's regional divisions and spatial configurations reveal a wealth of information. Furthermore, the existence of this stargate has allowed the Imperial Supreme Strategic Command to deduce some of the Dawn Kingdom's tactics.

They undoubtedly moved this stargate directly to the planet Bilblin. The method most likely involved the Titan Messenger. This is because, in previous battles, the Titan Messenger had demonstrated extraordinary strategic mobility in both hyperspace beacons and hyperspace jumps.

Therefore, it is not impossible to use the Titan-class Messenger to send the core components of the stargate to the planet Bilblin.

The Galactic Empire's intelligence agency, which has been unreliable for a long time, has finally been right this time. Their judgment was correct; this series of strategic deceptions and strategic shifts were achieved through the hyperspace jump capability of the Titan warship, the Divine Messenger!
The explosion that occurred during the military exercise was a staged accident, which gave the Dawn Kingdom military an excuse to blockade the planet Ode-Mantel and make the Divine Messenger Titan warship disappear from everyone's sight. In order to make the accident more realistic, the Dawn Kingdom military actually created an explosion on the Divine Messenger!
The only difference is that the faked explosion occurred in an area consisting of more than 200 blast-proof compartments. Subsequent repairs would mainly involve replacing the main armor belt and the blast-proof compartments, which are modular assembly processes. While the workload is large, the difficulty is very low.

While the ship was being repaired in the dock, the Dawn Kingdom's engineering department began dismantling the nearly completed stargate from the planet Ode-Mantel and placing it on the Titan warship, the Divine Messenger. The location was the area where the large vacant space had been blasted open.

Afterwards, the Titan Messenger used hyperspace jump to first fly to an uninhabited star system, and then from there jump to the planet Bilblin.

At this moment, Major General Luo Huacheng was undertaking large-scale construction on the planet Bilbrin, and the Galactic Empire's focus was not on him. This was because the Imperial Intelligence Bureau believed that the Dawn Kingdom fleet on Bilbrin no longer possessed the capability for strategic offensive operations.

The Titan Messenger, having warp to a very remote location on the outskirts of the Bilbrin system, infiltrated a convoy of mining ships and secretly delivered the stargate to the forward base. The Vasari phase engineers, who had been waiting patiently, immediately began assembling the stargate and installing it onto the single-framed Bilbrin planet's stargate.

This stargate is the most advanced V5 version, allowing for adjustment of the alignment direction. It is precisely because of this technology that moving the stargate is possible. Otherwise, with the older point-to-point stargates, moving them would render them unusable.

Then, they first aimed the stargate at Dawn, and then stealthily brought over the fleet that had gathered there. Only then did they aim the stargate at Macito, receiving another wave of reinforcements from that direction. Afterwards, this stargate will be permanently aimed at Macito.

Putting aside everything else, these two adjustments to the stargate target alone caused the stargate between Dawn Planet and Macito Planet to stop operating for three days, resulting in economic losses of up to hundreds of billions!

But the result was ultimately worth the investment. The northern defense line of the Galactic Empire, Bilbrin, which had been painstakingly built, finally fell! The Dawn Kingdom's fleet finally gained a window to advance into the core of the galaxy!

(End of this chapter)