A Colossus rushes in at the start

Chapter 268 The Spaceship AI is Too Optimistic

The edge of the Great Vortex star region.

On the large scale of the Mother Universe, a spiral supercluster of countless galaxies can be seen, with a diameter of more than two billion light-years, making it the largest celestial system in the entire Mother Universe.

At the edge of the vortex lies a sparse region of galaxies. The galaxies here have an average minimum distance of tens of millions of light-years. They are like isolated islands, not easily disturbed by outsiders. Even though there have been more than one cosmic war between the various intergalactic civilizations in the mother universe, it has not affected the edge region.

The vast distances of the universe act as a natural barrier, making it difficult for war to spread to the outer reaches of the stars.

But today, the tranquility of the outer star systems is gone.

A blinding flash of light suddenly appeared at the edge of the vortex, the high-frequency electromagnetic waves released at the end of the faster-than-light journey. After the light dissipated, a pitch-black spaceship shaped like a donut emerged in the light, like a work of art meticulously sculpted from obsidian.

The spaceship's annular diameter is 6 x 10^6 km, and the cross-sectional diameter of the cylindrical annulus is 500 km. Its surface is black yet reflective like a mirror, making it difficult to distinguish the front from the back of the spaceship from its appearance alone, as it does not have anything like a propulsion nozzle. However, despite the lack of a propulsion nozzle, the rear end of the annular spaceship in the direction of its movement emits an extremely distant annular jet. The jet is conical, and the further away from the annular spaceship, the more concentrated the jet becomes, converging into a sharp point at the farthest end.

Upon reaching the destination coordinates, the ring-shaped spaceship stopped, and the circular structure began to roll clockwise.

At this moment, the interior of the spaceship is experiencing a massive flow of information.

"The reactor is operating normally and the output power is constant."

"The internal circuitry has been calibrated, and the high-energy pulser is operating stably."

"The operation status of the tractor has been verified. We request the main control station to deploy the tractor wormhole."

"The main station has approved the application and is deploying the tractor wormhole."

As the final command information was input into the node of the high-energy pulser inside the ring, an extremely dazzling white light suddenly burst out from the center of the inner side of the ring. If one's eyesight is good enough, one can vaguely see through the stars in the background that spacetime is gradually distorting.

Before long, a pitch-black sphere appeared at the center of the blinding light in the center of the ring, and it continued to expand in size. A wormhole gradually unfolded in this light.

Inside the ring-shaped spaceship, different nodes were exchanging information rapidly after the wormhole was formed.

"The spacetime curvature is confirmed to be negative, and the wormhole unfolding configuration is stable."

"The second-stage reactor is now operational, increasing the high-energy pulse power."

"The third-stage reactor is now operational..."

"The fourth-stage reactor is now operational..."

……

"The spacetime expansion has reached the peak value of the safe passage standard, and the spacetime expansion is constant, and the wormhole deployment configuration is stable."

One after another, enormous warships, each tens of kilometers in size, emerged methodically from the other end of the wormhole. Upon passing through the wormhole, they immediately assembled into an interstellar fleet, centered around the ring ship, and began a faster-than-light cruise.

On the main platform of the tractor, the chief commander was browsing a three-dimensional model composed of various numerical values.

"Unexpectedly, we, who originated and grew up with magic, will one day be forced to abandon magic and instead use technology to fight against it."

The commander-in-chief adjusted the constantly changing three-dimensional model in front of him, trying to stabilize it in a spherical state.

While these adjustments were being made, the commander-in-chief asked the ship's AI, "Max, what are the chances of our success in using technology to combat magic?"

"Shouldn't it be feasible for technology to defeat magic?"

The AI ​​inside the ship replied: "Too many unknowns, unable to answer. Please add enough fixed variables."

The commander-in-chief transmitted the effects and information of the spell magic to the ship's AI, and then added: "Now that the mother civilization's magic has been sealed and can no longer be used, while the enemy can still use it, they will inevitably use the convenient power of magic to attack us. We can only rely on technology to resist. I want to know the success rate of this."

"The success rate is 50%," the ship's AI replied.

"Oh? So optimistic?" The commander-in-chief was taken aback. He hadn't expected the ship's AI to give such optimistic data. "Tell me the reason for this conclusion."

The ship's AI replied, "The application of spell magic mainly lies in manifesting physical phenomena to varying degrees. It has virtually no effect on intelligence gathering. As long as enough unknowns can be created using technology, spell magic cannot comprehensively and devastatingly strike the mother civilization."

"Technology has a growth potential. In the short term, it cannot compare with spell magic, but as long as the mother civilization can exist, in the long run, technology will surpass spell magic, thus making up for the disadvantage against the enemy."

"Subsequent deductions have entered the unknown realm of the future. Due to a lack of sufficient data related to spell magic and technological development, it is impossible to make a more accurate judgment. The success rate is estimated to be 50%."

To counter the Babel swarm of civilizations in the universe that can still use spell magic, intergalactic civilizations must use the unknown to buy time, and then use that time to advance their technology.

To elevate technology to the same level as, or even surpass, spell magic.

Therefore, all intergalactic civilizations that decided to fight the Babel swarm to the death, based on rational thinking, adopted almost the same strategy even without communication with each other—to prolong the battle lines and expand the battlefield to the maximum extent possible, ideally turning the entire universe into a battlefield. In such a chaotic environment, the increased entropy would inevitably breed the greatest degree of the unknown, and the more unknowns there were, the greater the chance of victory for the intergalactic civilizations.

However, these intergalactic civilizations, which are spreading throughout the Mother Universe at faster-than-light speeds, are unaware that their every move is being monitored by the swarm.

Of course, in order not to trigger the anti-observation alarm systems of these intergalactic civilizations, the swarm monitors the mother universe by reporting on the coordinates at which those unusual faster-than-light mass objects warp spacetime.

One of the bee creatures asked in confusion, "Why aren't you attacking yet?"

One of the hives explained, "The swarm intends to absorb these intergalactic civilizations as satellite civilizations. If it were just about destroying them, it wouldn't be so troublesome. But if it wants them to be more obedient and well-behaved in the future, the swarm needs to inflict the greatest possible despair on them."

"So there's no rush. Let them take their time to plan. We'll act when the time specified in the swarm announcement arrives, and show these intergalactic civilizations how cheap and insignificant their efforts are."

……

As time went on, these intergalactic civilizations, which had previously confined themselves to a single star system, gradually expanded their footprints across the entire universe in the face of the military threat from the swarm.

(End of this chapter)