Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 459 Nursing Home (4k)

However, compared to the Seventh Fleet's "welcoming" mission, the refugee interception fleet's mission is more focused on combat, deterrence, and warning.

"Dealing with refugees requires demonstrating force; they fear power but do not appreciate kindness—that's the nature of refugees!"

—This is what Commander-in-Chief Qian Mengjian said at a fleet conference.

Before assuming the post of the new NATO Supreme Commander, this former NATO commander had extensive experience in dealing with refugees. He even oversaw the large-scale Mexican refugee riots codenamed "The Way of the Journey" at the Texas border during the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has a wealth of experience in dealing with refugees.

They're the kind of people who've gone back to their old profession.

Originally, public opinion around the world was already showing signs of polarization regarding how to deal with these refugees.

In particular, a female leader of a popular non-governmental organization who is quite influential among the people of the Common Era frequently advocates for the humane treatment of refugees and Trisolaran prisoners, which has generated considerable public attention.

In recent months, with the Three-Body Crisis resolved and the future of light-speed spacecraft promising, developing other star systems has become a priority for humanity. However, the Universal Declaration of Space stipulates that resource development outside the Kuiper Belt must be conducted within the framework of the federal government. Among these developments, DX3906, after being confirmed to possess Earth-like planets, has become one of the targets of attention for the Solar System Fleet due to its potential resource value.

But by sheer coincidence, due to certain historical factors, this star system actually has an owner, and it just so happens to belong to this female leader of a grassroots organization.

The Solar System Fleet had no choice but to reluctantly spend a huge sum of money to buy it, in order to prevent legal conflicts when developing the star system in the future.

The story of someone becoming incredibly wealthy after being gifted a star has gone viral on Earth, bringing the person worldwide attention.

Taking advantage of the situation, this person made many demands, such as treating the tens of thousands of captured Trisolarans well, not mistreating the refugees of the First Fleet with Earth's GDP, and treating the coming God well, etc.

She attempted to interfere with the internal decision-making of the Solar System Federation government and the Solar System fleet by manipulating public opinion.

Commander Qian finds this kind of person annoying, but Earth and Jupiter are completely unrelated and he can't control them. After all, they haven't actually done anything 'bad'; they're just following mainstream public opinion that aligns with human values.

Moreover, it is irrational and sensitive for military personnel to 'criticize' leaders of civilian organizations, and Commander Qian is not in a position to speak out.

The only recourse was for the spokesperson for the Solar System Fleet to offer a veiled criticism of the other side.

Those Trisolarans launched degenerate matter bombs to destroy the entire solar system, yet they treated the prisoners well? The fact that they didn't immediately hang those Trisolarans is purely due to the slow efficiency of the federal government's procedures.

It's really annoying.

After buying back the star system ahead of time, ensuring that it wouldn't leave any problems for the solar system fleet hundreds of years later, Qian Mengjian stopped paying attention to the other party.

At the latest fleet meeting, Commander-in-Chief Qian Mengjian overruled public opinion on Earth, effectively defining the fate of the refugees from the First Earth:
Military deterrence, comprehensive diversion, forced labor, and mandatory transformation; if transformation is not possible, annihilate them on the spot outside the solar system.

If the modification is successful and indeed harmless to the solar system society, then we can consider releasing it into the solar system society on a limited scale.

Moreover, Earth 200 light-years away is also one of the potential enemies of the solar system fleet. If the light-speed spaceship is conquered, then Earth will sooner or later become one of the targets of the human light-speed fleet.

With human productivity, supporting dinosaurs, mushrooms, the Trisolarans, refugees, and even God would not be a problem.

However, it depends on their contributions. Currently, extraterrestrial life forms that can be recognized by humans are either symbiotic with humans like mushrooms, or dinosaurs who consider Earth their ancestral home, or those that have contributed to Earth, such as Listener 1379.

Even if it is a civilization of God, it is still the ancestor of life on Earth, and at least the ancestor of amino acids. What right do these refugees from two hundred light-years away have?

The Trisolaran Crisis, the Doomsday War, and the Victory War (the Second Fleet Annihilation War), which have lasted for two centuries, were all for their own good, not for the refugees two hundred light-years away to have a good life.

Qian Mengjian, who has lived since the Common Era, clearly understands this point.

Fortunately, the current federal government is also in the hands of elite politicians who are relatively clear-headed and supportive of the Solar System Fleet's work and independent decision-making.

Currently, through the Large Circular Telescope, humanity has observed a considerable number of both retirement ships from the God civilization and refugee ships from the First Earth.

According to data from the Carbon-Based Federation, the Gods have 21513 ships, a number that is approaching the total number of ships in the solar system fleet.

The refugee ships from Earth One were clearly visible to humans due to their proximity. Even excluding the ships that were broken or damaged, there were still a full ten thousand ships remaining.

The number of people carried by both warships should be roughly the same, whether refugees or gods, it's at least a billion people. And based on the speed of both sides, they will arrive one after the other in about 33 or 34 years.

According to federal government statistics, there are currently 20 billion intelligent beings (humans, dinosaurs, mushrooms) in the solar system. The vast majority of them live on Earth and the surrounding environment. The number of dinosaurs is slightly less than the 10 billion humans, only slightly over 9 billion.

These nine billion dinosaurs mostly lived on the Great Ring, but due to Earth's carrying capacity, the number of dinosaurs was less than ten million.

—In fact, the Great Ring's dragon population peaked at 110 billion dragons, but during the Devouring Empire's invasion of the solar system, Shan Qing and Luo Qing directly slaughtered over a billion noble carnivorous dragons, leading to the annihilation of the Devouring Empire and the establishment of the Devouring Federation. The deaths of these over a billion noble carnivorous dragons can be seen as revenge for the hundreds of civilizations devoured by the Devouring Empire, and for the Bojiang civilization.

As a result, only over nine billion herbivorous dragons and a small number of advanced carnivorous dragons remained, all of which were intentionally preserved by Luo Qing during the Pluto catastrophe.

For the federal government, the sudden surge of billions of intelligent beings and the maintenance of a stable multi-civilization symbiotic relationship in the solar system presents a tremendous challenge.

Currently, the interception fleet has set sail, with five hundred planetary-level warships directly locking onto those slow-moving iron coffins 0.3 light-years away using their weapon systems.

Based on repeated observations by humans, the current interception fleet is far superior to the refugee fleet of the First Earth.

A researcher from the First Earth refugee fleet stated that the technological level of these refugee fleets is at most equivalent to that of humans before the Fifth Industrial Revolution, and they are far from threatening the current solar system fleet.

At least these refugee convoys will still be stranded due to interstellar meteorites, while human strong-interaction warships are basically immune to the effects of meteorites and interstellar dust.

At a speed of 20% of the speed of light for a planetary-level interceptor fleet, the Seventh Fleet would only need about a year and a half to reach the vicinity of the refugee ships from Earth 1, and then conduct risk assessments and disarmament operations on these 'refugees'.

Twenty sophons set sail three months ago and are expected to arrive near these refugee ships in about a month.

Based on human observation, these refugee spaceships should have a very small number of weapon systems, mainly laser weapons and interstellar nuclear missiles, most likely for dealing with interstellar meteorites.

While these weapons pose no threat to the solar system fleet, placing them within the solar system does indeed carry some risk.

Since the Crisis Era 200 years ago, the explosion of human technology has been far too exaggerated.

At the beginning of the Crisis Era, this fleet of refugees, capable of traveling at one percent of the speed of light, would have been enough to crush all nations and plunge humanity into despair. Even in Crisis Era 160, they could have clashed with the solar system fleet before its ships were destroyed. But now, they can't even defeat a few planetary warships. Technology is not like cultivation; in cultivation, there's the possibility of a lower-level genius defeating a higher-level one. But in technology and theory, a difference of even one level is almost an insurmountable gap within a civilization.

Based on a total of 40 billion refugees plus God, humanity has already built numerous refugee cities and retirement cities in places such as Australia, Utopia Plain (Mars), Etalanta Plain (Venus), and Anvil Plain (Greater Ring).

Let's not talk about God; let's hope these refugees are qualified to live there.

In fact, compared to the vulnerable refugees, humanity is more worried about the spaceship of God's civilization.

Despite being three light-years apart, humans can still see the appearance of the more than 20,000 God ships through the Light Cone Telescope. However, the more than 20,000 God ships do not look as dilapidated as the refugee fleet, and they are extremely large.

The God Civilization's fleet of 20,000 giant spaceships is the size of the moon and is on par with the Carbon-Based Federation's warships. Humanity's largest star-class warships are like ants under a football in front of the God Civilization's spaceships, which makes humanity deeply worried.

Unlike the standardized spaceships of humans and the Trisolarans, the God spaceships seen through the Light Cone Telescope vary in shape, including spheres, rugby balls, cylinders, and cuboids, resembling building blocks. Some scholars have suggested that the diversity of the God spaceships may stem from the passion for exploration during the peak of the God civilization.

In short, the technology of God's spaceship seems to far surpass that of humans, making the Seventh Fleet, which went to meet them, look more like beggars.

If these giant spaceships were to enter the solar system, it would add more than 20,000 moon-sized celestial bodies to the solar system out of thin air—the potential gravitational influence alone would be enough to plunge humanity into serious trouble.

Moreover, these giant spaceships are constantly propelling themselves at 10% of the speed of light in a way that is incomprehensible to humans. However, humans have no doubt that these spaceships can reach the speed of light at any time; they just don't know why the gods haven't done so.

Hopefully things won't get too bad.

...

Large circular orbit, research station for the three-body light-speed spacecraft.

Dr. Matthew Lee has been staring at the patterns on the inside of the warp drive ring for six hours straight. As one of the world's top space physicists, he leads the warp drive reverse engineering team.

“When the curvature engine is activated, the spatial ripples on the surface should be meaningful, such as sharpening the curvature,” he told his assistant.
The assistant looked at the intricate, wavy patterns with a puzzled expression. "You mean, these fine lines and the curvature of space are compatible?"

“It’s more complicated than that.” Matthew pulled up a high-resolution scan. “The ripples themselves are at the atomic nucleus level, purely mathematical. I suspect that this texture should be able to sharpen curvature to some extent, but how exactly, we’ll have to put it in a space curvature lab and ‘blow it around’ to find out.”

The assistant received a message and suddenly spoke.

"Doctor, Dr. Guan Yifan is looking for you."

"Hmm?" Dr. Matthew Lee was a little puzzled. "Isn't Dr. Guan in charge of research on four-dimensional space fragments? How did he end up here?"

Four-dimensional space, warp drive, force field tentacles, and antimatter research—these are some of the most critical fleet technologies, which are basically developed in isolation and do not interfere with each other. It is strange that researchers specializing in four-dimensional space would come to him.

"Hello, Dr. Matthew Lee!"

The call was answered, and a young scholar appeared. This young scholar from the Institute for Four-Dimensional Space looked to be no more than thirty years old, which made the silver-haired Matthew Lee somewhat envious.

“Dr. Guan.” Matthew waved. The two had briefly interacted at a symposium, so they had met a few times before.
"I heard you've been researching the 647th four-dimensional fragment. What brings you here to see me?"

Guan Yifan's image flickered slightly: "Dr. Matthew, I'll keep it short. We've gained some inspiration about spatial curvature from the four-dimensional fragments, which might be helpful to you."

He lightly swiped his finger, and a four-dimensional projection unfolded between the two of them.

"This is a low-light-speed black hole phenomenon that we accidentally formed in our four-dimensional laboratory. Although it is only a few tens of centimeters long, it directly caused the instantaneous collapse of the four-dimensional space fragments."

Matthew's expression turned serious.

"what do you mean……"

“We all know that warp drives leave ‘traces’ in spacetime, and these traces spread continuously in space, forming a chain reaction that cannot be stopped,” Guan Yifan said calmly. “Our team speculates that if warp engines continue to be used on a large scale, it may cause a massive decay of the speed of light in the solar system. I have heard that your department is planning to conduct a super-powerful warp test. Please consider this carefully, or perhaps…”

"Go on," Matthew said, shooing his assistant out.

“Imagine if our warp drive were powerful enough to build a giant warp field generator…” Guan Yifan’s hands danced in the void, constructing a complex field equation, “We could create a self-sustaining low-light-speed region in a specific airspace.”

Dr. Matthew Lee: "What does this have to do with our work? Are you suggesting creating a black hole?"

"It's not a black hole... well, calling it a black hole is fine too," Guan Yifan said with a smile. "I was just wondering what you thought of the prospects you described for this technology."

Matthew Lee shook his head: "Not good. I don't want to be trapped in a low-light-speed black hole. I will suggest to my superiors that the energy level of the warp drive experiment be reduced, based on the dangers you mentioned."

"It's not about harm, oh dear, it's about security. Don't you feel a strange sense of security when you're enveloped by a slow-light-speed black hole? Think of it as a light-speed prison. But instead of imprisoning us, it's imprisoning threats from the outside world. Just imagine, if we could enclose the entire solar system in such a low-light-speed barrier... wouldn't that be an excellent means of defense?"

A sophon suddenly popped out.

[Dr. Matthew Lee, Dr. Guan Yifan, please end your conversation.]

Dr. Matthew Lee was a little confused.

Dr. Guan Yifan seemed thoughtful: "Eavesdropping? So the federal government already knew something and was just playing us techies for fools."

Just then, the laboratory's loudspeaker came on.

[Technical researchers of LV5 level and above are requested to proceed to the nearest conference hall to await the Sophon Conference—this is part of the plan.]

Upon hearing those eight words, everyone knew that Luo Ji had arrived.

"See you later." Guan Yifan ended the communication.

In the Zhizi Broadcasting Room, Luo Ji sighed as he organized the intelligence he was preparing to release, including the 'Deadline,' 'Slow Fog,' 'Security Statement,' and 'Black Forest Law.'

"Now I've told you everything, so don't cause any trouble."

(End of this chapter)