A Colossus rushes in at the start

Chapter 255 The Industrial Base Is Too Lagging Behind

The mother civilization of the luminous body waged war in a simple way: after completing its self-modification, it recklessly altered the cosmic environment in the galaxy.

Other civilizations, if they want to survive, can only adapt to the times or escape the galaxy.

The latter is impossible. If it were possible, there would be no need for the various interstellar civilizations within the galaxy to wage interstellar wars.

During the period when the swarm was expanding across its galaxy, these interstellar civilizations within the galaxy had already begun to transform themselves for the sake of their survival and were actively and indiscriminately modifying the cosmic environment within the galaxy.

These are the invisible vacuoles that the bee colony later saw. Strictly speaking, those vacuoles did not devour matter, but rather transformed it into a kind of dark matter relative to the current universe.

Of course, dark matter is relative to the swarm. In the eyes of interstellar civilizations that have completed self-modification, it is ordinary matter that can be utilized.

This indiscriminate modification of the spacetime environment is fatal to civilization. The essence of the modification is a physical decay from an excited state to a ground state. Civilization is a combination of ordered information. Once decay occurs, the ordered information will be disrupted, thus becoming an undecipherable jumble of code.

To put it simply, it's the destruction of civilization, and the kind of destruction where even a last word can't be left behind.

Moreover, this is a transformation of spacetime from an excited state to a ground state, a process that is irreversible. This is why various interstellar civilizations completed their self-modification early on, migrating their entire civilization into those more ground-state spacetimes.

However, these interstellar civilizations never expected that a bizarre and extraordinary civilization like the Tower of Babel bee swarm would emerge from a certain star system.

Without understanding anything, all the modified areas, along with these interstellar civilizations, were imprisoned in a frozen cycle.

As for those light-speed strike platforms that fly around the galaxy.

They themselves did not possess industrial capabilities. Having lost the industrial and logistical support of their mother civilization, the means of attack they could use were dwindling. In the end, after the swarm of creatures either directly withstood the attacks without understanding the current state of the galaxy or evaded them using faster-than-light speeds, these attack platforms enveloped by light cones were all laid flat.

Aside from being able to move at the speed of light, they all became harmless.

I was expanding cautiously, racking my brains to find your weaknesses, but in the end, all of you whom I was on guard against were captured by me.

What an interstellar joke!

"I never expected this, I can only say, I never expected this..."

"Having fought so many space wars over the years, this is the first time I've seen something like this," Lu Shang complained as he pondered the swarm's next move.

The next step is to expand and occupy several more galaxies, and then use these galaxies as springboards to begin a full-scale exploration of the entire Mother Universe. Finally, we will re-establish contact with the Mother Universe and complete the transition to an inter-universe civilization.

The most crucial factor in this process is the swarm network.

The swarm network is too important for the Babel swarm. If any civilization in the universe could threaten the swarm's new swarm network, the consequences would be no different from when they lost their psionic powers.

Lu Shang didn't want to fall into the same trap twice. "Is the new type of swarm network stable and reliable?"

One of the mainframes answered Lu Shang's question seriously: "Strictly speaking, no swarm network is stable and reliable. Everything that exists has its weaknesses, and the swarm network built by psionic energy in the past is no exception."

"So, what's unreliable about this new type of beehive network that the bee colony is currently using?" Lu Shang nodded slightly, then continued to ask.

The mainframe replied, "The unreliability lies in the fact that it is a faster-than-light network constructed from microscopic wormholes and radio waves. The transmission of information is not real-time; it is only because microscopic wormholes are incorporated into the network structure that large-scale faster-than-light communication is achieved."

"Radio signals are a type of public information that anyone can receive. The only difference is whether they are encrypted or not. If a microscopic wormhole is discovered by a civilization by following the radio signals and then invaded, the swarm could very well collapse completely."

The mastermind explained its concerns to Lu Shang, stating that if it were an enemy of the swarm, it would certainly choose to do so.

Once this is done, the swarm will have no choice but to surrender, because every swarm member is connected to the hive network, and as long as it is connected to the hive network, its faster-than-light communication organs have a stable microscopic wormhole as a channel for faster-than-light information transmission.

If this were discovered by the swarm's enemies, it would be fatal for the Babel Tower bee swarm.

Previous swarms also had this problem, but back then they used psionic energy, which the enemy couldn't detect, making it difficult to find microscopic wormholes in the trace space.

"Yes, that is indeed a problem. Have you thought about how to solve it?" Lu Shang asked.

The AI ​​immediately replied, "The solution is already in place, but it seems that the swarm's current capabilities are insufficient to achieve it."

Lu Shang asked疑惑地问道, "What are you planning to do?"

The mainframe replied, "Create tiny exploratory bees, small enough to pass through microscopic wormholes. They can exist as a type of communication particle in the bee colony that can travel faster than the speed of light."

Lu Shang's eyes lit up. He shrunk the concept of the exploration bee to the level of a particle. Wasn't that a superluminal particle controlled by the bee swarm?

Information exchange is nothing more than the interaction between particles. If we can use the explorer bee as a faster-than-light communication particle in the bee colony, we can solve both the problem of concealment and the problem of the speed of light limitation.

Because the exploratory bees actually move at speeds exceeding the speed of light, and combined with the current microscopic wormholes, the performance of the swarm network will inevitably be closer to the original psionic version of the swarm network.

Lu Shang didn't understand. Since the main brain and the hives had come up with a solution, why did they say it was impossible to achieve?

In his view, it is not very difficult to achieve. Bee colonies already have microorganisms, which can serve as biological templates for this particle-based exploration bee.

Lu Shang asked, puzzled, "Isn't there microscopic organisms as a template?"

The mainframe explained to Lu Shang, "There are templates, but being able to design them is one thing, and being able to manufacture them is another. In the past, the bee colony relied on psionic energy to create microorganisms. After losing the use of psionic energy, the actual physical industry of the bee colony cannot reach that level."

So that's how it is... Lu Shang stroked his chin, realizing he had overlooked the industrial base.

The industrial base of the swarm is currently only at the atomic nucleus level, while the industrial base of the particle-based exploration bee needs to reach at least the level of processing individual neutrinos.

Lu Shang pondered for a moment, then said to the mainframe, "I have some ideas about micro-industry; I'll take charge of this matter."

"You will prepare the war resources for me. The swarm will soon launch a full-scale invasion of other river systems."

"Okay," the mainframe replied.

(End of this chapter)