Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 1452 Derivative Technology Space Folding
As for the Divine Motion civilization, they have a grand plan: to spend 40,000 years upgrading their weapons to a galaxy-level scale of area-of-effect attacks. Simultaneously, before setting sail from the Boötes Great Void, they intend to complete the development of a rule-based shield.

In fact, this is not only the case with the Divine Cube Civilization; all civilizations that experienced the widespread attack on the Observer Civilization's observation station back then have their own goals.

In summary, it boils down to two aspects: offense and defense.

For established technological civilizations, the attack range can actually be extended within the existing system. They can continue to research along the original route and find ways to expand the strike range.

However, this only expands the scope. To make one's attack methods truly deterrent, it is still necessary to start by modifying the rules of physics. After all, once a civilization reaches level seven, its defenses become a rule-based shield, and the original attack methods cannot break through this shield.

Just like the quantum exile strike of human civilization, which used to be a powerful weapon, if the target is a level 7 civilization's spaceship, then obviously it cannot be directly disintegrated, because resisting quantum tides is a basic capability of a level 7 civilization.

As for attacks like the spatial strangulation of neutron war stars, the same applies. When such attacks hit stargates protected by rule shields, they are like water flowing over a duck's back, completely unable to distort the space within the protection range of the rule shields.

Therefore, the only way to break the shield of rules is through the rules themselves.

To break the rule shield, you need to know what the rule shield is.

So what is a rules-based shield?
The various civilizations that have just embarked on the path of cosmic civilization do not know much about this issue. Even some common-sense questions about rule shields have to be explored by each civilization slowly on their own in the darkness. Fortunately, the Starry Sky Expedition Organization has a Starry Sky Defender.

The Star Defenders told the civilizations within the organization that had already embarked on the path of rule research that rule shields are generally divided into two types: rigid rule shields and flexible rule shields.

The rigid rule shield focuses on "reinforcement," which means using incredible technology to strengthen existing or modified physical rules, making the physical laws of the area where the ship is located or its outer shell material itself as solid as a rock.

For example, impact damage and shear damage achieve their destructive effect by breaking the chemical bonds of the target armor. However, if the target armor has a rigid shield, the chemical bond strength of the target armor material can be strengthened, or a tough rule with indestructible shearing can be added to its chemical bonds. In this way, it can block attacks that were originally unblockable without changing its own material properties.

This is one of the development paths of the rigid rule shield. Civilizations with advanced technology can coat their creations with a carefully woven layer of rigid rules, thereby making their creations indestructible, impervious to water and fire, and unharmed by any law.

Another development path is the flexible rule shield. This type of shield does not require any reinforcement of physical rules. It only needs to react in time when it detects that it or its area is being attacked by relevant rules, and make targeted modifications to the modified rules.

It's a tit-for-tat, counter-strategy approach.

However, this method requires extremely high computer technology; whether the shield breaks or not is basically determined by the level of computer technology.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that it's an offensive-defense type.

As the saying goes, children make choices, adults want it all, and capable cosmic-level civilizations pursue both paths simultaneously.

In the research on the rule shield, the Star Defenders only provided this one piece of information, which saved various civilizations tens of thousands of years of exploration time.

A single conversation with you is worth more than ten years of study; this is truly the case.

That said, every civilization now wants to complete the most basic upgrades to their creations before setting sail. Among the requirements for these upgrades, mastering the rules of shields is just an additional research area, merely one of the supporting technologies that everyone envisions for space-class civilization ships.

Mastering the rules shield is only for building better ships; you can still set sail even without the rules shield.

Of course, many civilizations desire to have perfect ships, and therefore want to design new warships only after mastering the rules and shields.

Even the human civilization that had already started its new warship construction program temporarily halted its efforts, because the designers realized that warships designed before the implementation of rule-based shields would inevitably lack rule-based shields, and they didn't even know how to reserve space for them.

In fact, all civilizations have encountered the same situation when designing new ships. However, almost all civilizations do not choose to wait, but instead choose to build a batch of ships first, and then release improved versions and iterate as other technologies advance.

This is how most technological creations are made, just like the development from the first generation of fighter jets to the sixth generation.

For a cosmic-level civilization to create a top-tier warship, it must first develop all aspects of its technology to the pinnacle of cosmic-level civilization.

Just like the flagships of various civilizations at the sixth level of civilization, they were products of the pinnacle of sixth-level civilization technology. Therefore, it is simply unrealistic to create a pinnacle warship at the present stage.

Everyone understands this principle, so in the time that followed, all civilizations focused on technological iteration and the iteration of creation.

The same applies to warp drives and ships.

Designers of all kinds of creations are constantly improving their designs as technology advances, striving to make their designs progress in sync with current technological advancements and achieve the best possible solutions at the current technological level.

Time passed slowly against this backdrop, and nearly ten thousand years went by in the blink of an eye.

Over these ten thousand years, a civilization that had remained largely unknown was the first to master a technology that changed the shape and size of warships of all other civilizations—space folding technology.

That civilization was called the Memoda civilization.

The Memodar civilization already possessed some expertise in space technology, so it's not surprising that they were the first to master this technology.

Yes, first.

In reality, space folding technology could be a distinctive technology of a Type 6 civilization, or it could be a comprehensive derivative technology of a cosmic-level civilization. In this case, it is not a distinctive technology of the Memoda civilization, but rather the latter.

It is a technology developed based on the original Level 6 civilization space technology.

Originally, a level 6 civilization already had a certain foundation in space technology, otherwise it would not have been able to create a miniature universe. After reaching the universe level, with the development of the technology tree and the all-round progress of various technological branches, space technology naturally underwent a qualitative change.

The Star Defenders once told the civilizations under the Great Voyage Organization that the reason why many cosmic civilizations' warships are not large is because of their space folding technology.

As expected, it was first mastered by the Memodar civilization.

The emergence of space folding technology not only verified the words of the Star Guardians, but also led various civilizations to make huge changes in the design of warships.

Its emergence means that the combat power and size of warships will no longer be necessarily related.

Furthermore, with the support of various cosmic-level civilization technologies, the direct proportionality between a civilization's war-making capabilities and the size of its fleet may be weakened.

It is foreseeable that, with the support of space folding technology, the total number of a cosmic-level civilization's fleet may be less than that of a Type VI civilization. The vulnerable, technologically weak clusters of habitable spaceships may no longer be considered "clusters," but rather a single spaceship.

All indications suggest that the advancement from a Type VI civilization to a cosmic civilization is not merely a matter of increased speed, but rather a comprehensive qualitative change.

(End of this chapter)