Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 700 On the Wandering Road

Humans are very interested in studying the amazing phenomena in the universe, so they are reluctant to leave, but there is no other way. They have been here for decades, but they have not learned anything except some phenomena at the beginning, and they don't even have a way to continue their research.

In fact, humans originally had a plan to capture it, but eventually found that they had no ability to capture those glittering bright spots. They didn’t even know what they were, let alone why this huge cloud of hydrogen molecules had such a strange phenomenon.

In this situation, humans can only choose to leave temporarily and continue on the journey to the starry sky.

However, although there has been no substantial progress, it has increased human understanding of the universe and made humans realize that there are such strange phenomena in the universe that they have never seen before, things that even a fourth-level civilization cannot understand.

The universe is indeed magical. It is far from what you see when you stay in one place. There are countless unknown, unheard-of and unseen things hidden deep in the vast sea of ​​stars.

The discoveries here will also make humans realize that being a wandering civilization does give us more insights than staying in a star system or a star field. Although wandering will increase the risk of civilization being destroyed, danger also brings opportunities.

Just like the small universe created by the awakener Huan for humans, it is there, and it also contains two-thirds of the astronomical particle colliders of humans. This is the opportunity of a Level 3 civilization. If it is a civilization that has always stayed near its home planet and expanded outward with its home planet as the center, it may not be able to discover the small universe deep in the starry sky until it dies.

When they discover the small universe, they will find the astronomical-grade particle collider left behind by humans inside. Although it is incomplete, the core components of the collider are still there, because humans only dismantled its acceleration part back then.

To take a step back, even if that particle collider can no longer be used, the resources in that small universe are not enough to support the long-term development of a level-three civilization, but seeing an astronomical-grade particle collider of that length can always give inspiration to a level-three civilization.

At least it will make them think that this may be the necessary equipment for advancing to the fourth-level civilization, so they will make up their minds to try their best. Maybe this is the factor that prompts a third-level civilization to advance to the fourth level. This is the opportunity.

The same is true for human beings today. If it were not for a wandering civilization, humans would never have discovered this nebula. The knowledge and insights gained from discovering this nebula might affect human judgment on certain things in the future.

This is probably what they mean by God's will in everything!

In particular, the conjecture that it is a living thing may provide some ideas for human beings to understand other life in the universe. Human beings have long known that there is more than carbon-based life in the universe, but if the bright spot in this nebula is life, it will greatly expand the direction of human intelligence collection.

Having said that, because to humans, the bright spots in this nebula are still unknown things, based on their vigilance against unknown things, when humans decided to leave, they did not retrieve the probes that they had sent into the nebula, but let them return to the outside of the nebula and then left them in that void.

Yes, they were indeed abandoned by humans in a sense, but they were not abandoned without any value. It was not just the probes, but also the unmanned engineering ship that was sent out to work. Before humans left, they sent a batch of materials and a space work platform over, and then asked the engineering ship to build an observatory outside the nebula to conduct long-term observations of this nebula. At the same time, it is also the maintenance and repair center for the probes to ensure their working life

According to human estimates, the antimatter energy system of this observatory and maintenance center can last about ten years. After the antimatter is exhausted, the heavy nuclear fusion reactor will be activated. After the heavy nuclear fusion is activated as the energy system, the work platform can still last for twenty years. At the same time, the platform will also enter a low-energy working state, that is, it will no longer maintain the detector, but only maintain its own observation of the nebula.

Thirty years later, this makeshift work platform and observatory will be completely extinguished and turned into cosmic scrap metal.

In other words, after humans leave, they can continue to observe the nebula for another 30 years. Naturally, this information cannot be transmitted to humans in real time, so humans have specially placed an unmanned spacecraft on standby to collect information. When the platform dies, it will carry the 30 years of information and start warp speed travel to catch up along the route planned by the human fleet.

In fact, humans can make the life of the work platform longer, but it is meaningless. For example, if we observe for hundreds of years, by then the human fleet will have disappeared, and the spacecraft left behind will not be able to catch up with the human fleet.

Thirty years is just right. Humans plan to stop at the next destination for supplies and build a few planetary spaceships as backup, or provide living standards for the alien races that have contributed to the development of human civilization. If there is time, humans will produce more planetary residential spaceships and other types of spaceships to prepare for the growth of the battleship cluster in the future.

A civilization needs to increase its living space and cannot wait until it is almost out of places to live before thinking about building new spaceships.

Human beings soon arrived at the next destination and stayed there for thirty years. After building a batch of new planetary spacecraft, they continued their journey.

During this period, humans also waited for the arrival of the spacecraft loaded with thirty years of observation data. Unfortunately, there were still no new discoveries. The light spots in the nebula continued to flash there, and no one knew the principle.

Humans have also tried to observe the whole situation. After all, some experts have proposed that the entire new cloud may be a living thing. However, after comprehensive analysis of the flash points in many places, humans have not found any connection between them, and the flash points generally do not show the appearance of transmitting additional information signals to the outside world.

It can be said that nothing was gained.

But it's not a pity, anyway, the location is recorded on the star map, as long as the nebula moves around the center of the Milky Way like other stars, humans can find it again. Of course, finding the nebula again to continue studying it is probably something that humans will do after they reach a higher level.

Previous exploration and research have clearly told humans that the level of Level 4 civilization is far from meeting the standards for exploration. Without sufficient cognition, exploration is useless.

(End of this chapter)