Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 1545 No Great Voyage

It is indeed an interstellar empire.

According to data unilaterally stolen by the Galactic Heart civilization, this empire was established by stargates scattered throughout various galaxies, spanning billions of light-years.

Within this empire, they called themselves the Holy, Great, and Glorious Empire—quite a chuunibyou (a Japanese term for someone with delusions of grandeur). When this information reached human civilization, instead of calling them by their own name, humans simply attributed a name to them based on their physical characteristics: the Shell Empire, or Shell Civilization.

This is a vast empire composed of a single race.

According to data obtained by the Silverheart Civilization, this race is covered in hard shells, somewhat similar to the Nair people that humans encountered in the past. However, they are not as large as the Nair people, only about 60 or 70 centimeters tall, and have a pair of beetle-like wings on their hands and feet, making them look round and plump.

Such a life form that can walk upright and fly is quite rare, so when the Galactic Heart Civilization was exploring its database, it also conducted an in-depth scan.

The investigation revealed that the Shell Empire was divided into different "races," somewhat similar to the various skin colors of humans. The crustaceans within the Shell Empire were also divided into many types, including four types: gold, red, green, and black.

They were originally born on the same planet; their different colors are simply due to different gene expression.

In the history of crustacean civilization, they also experienced a period of color discrimination, and even racial wars and genocides. Fortunately, after setting foot in space, they achieved great unity among all races.

Then, the four races worked together to gradually push the entire civilization to its peak, which is the sixth level of civilization they are currently in.

Historical reasons have also led to the development of some unique cultures among crustaceans, such as dyeing culture, which is somewhat similar to human hair dyeing.

According to records, many crustaceans dye their shells other colors during their growth period, such as the purple, blue, and various other colors that are now presented to Yue Yuan. This phenomenon is known as non-mainstream culture in the crustacean empire culture.

There is also a phenomenon similar to human tattoos, where many crustaceans carve various symbols on their wings.

Both cultural phenomena are still quite common in the current shell empire.

During the development of their empire, they encountered other civilizations, but they defeated them all and drove them out of their empire's territory.

The crustacean civilization practices crustacean racial supremacy, believing itself to be the most intelligent and powerful race in the universe. For this reason, almost no other extraterrestrials exist within their empire; even if they are, they are confined to individual planets, used as breeding grounds or tourist destinations.

As for their attitude towards the stargates that exist in various star systems, they know that they are technological creations left behind by more advanced civilizations, but this knowledge is limited to the upper echelons of the empire. Only those at the top of the leadership level or scientists whose knowledge is at the forefront of the entire empire know this.

Within their own civilization, they claim that those stargates were creations of an ancient shelled civilization, but due to the passage of time, the shelled civilization lost the technology to build stargates, yet the stargates continue to function.

Their answer to their ordinary citizens was also very convincing: the Shell Empire had always been able to create artificial wormholes. They had mastered the technology and constructed numerous shuttle wormholes within every galaxy. It was precisely this wormhole construction technology that enabled the Shell Empire to achieve rapid transportation. With the support of this convenient transportation, their empire was able to expand rapidly, reaching an astonishing ten billion light-years.

However, their civilization's development was not always smooth sailing. According to information gleaned by the Galactic Heart civilization, the Shell Empire experienced internal strife about 100 million years ago, which led to the entire empire falling apart.

They called it the Great Divide.

Later, a great shelled being rose up on an ordinary planet and led his fleet, spending millions of years to successfully reunify the shelled empire, which remains to this day.

During the war, many of the wormholes they built were destroyed, so much so that many remote areas have not yet had fast travel routes restored. The long-standing transportation and communication problems have left those planets in a state of temporary isolation.

The Shell Empire is currently working at a breakneck pace to rebuild interstellar passages to planets inhabited by crustaceans. The fleet that the Silver Heart Civilization is tracking is an engineering fleet. They are traveling from the galaxy where the Empire's capital is located to a remote area of ​​another galaxy to rebuild the wormhole transportation system within that galaxy and to re-establish a quantum real-time communication network there.

It's unclear which cosmic civilization left behind the stargate, making transportation in this star system so convenient. From this perspective, the Shell Empire is indeed fortunate; they have enjoyed the convenience brought by the stargate, ultimately allowing the entire race to develop to such a prosperous state.

Indeed, it was prosperous. At least since embarking on the Great Voyage, neither humanity, the Daya, the Silver Heart, nor the Awakeners had ever seen an interstellar empire with such a vast territory, nor had they ever seen an interstellar empire with such a large number of intelligent life forms.

Such a vast empire can be said to have reached the point of avoiding most extinction disasters. Even if the entire star system is destroyed, they will not perish. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a civilization of the same level to destroy them.

However, fortune may be lurking within misfortune.

Perhaps it was the convenience provided by the Stargate transportation that made crossing the galaxy an easy task. In addition, the vast territory of the Empire and the special nature of the Martial Immortal Northern Crown Great Wall region, which had no large voids, led to them losing the motivation to move forward after reaching the sixth level of civilization, and they did not undertake any great voyages.

Because in the worldview of the Shell Empire, there is no such thing as a great voyage, only the territory of the empire.

Technological development has reached the ceiling of the sixth level of civilization. Although there are interstellar passages like stargates that can be described as miracles, the long-term reality of technological stagnation, coupled with the lack of a path to advancement and the fact that other races they have come into contact with are also at the sixth level of civilization, has led them to believe that current intelligent life cannot break through to the sixth level of civilization.

They attributed their inability to master the technology for large-scale extraction of vacuum zero-point energy to changes in the cosmic environment.

The overall environment prevented any Level 6 civilization from embarking on a magnificent voyage, and lacked the spirit of risking the fate of the entire civilization to cross two star systems.

Thus, the Shell Empire, an interstellar empire, came into being.

(End of this chapter)