Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

[If you don't believe me, try it out in the new version of Shipbreaker. It's practically a guide to 100 ways for the smartest person to die if they don't follow the safety manual.]

"Black Mole-class..." When Lao Xia received the message from the moon, he was stunned. He vaguely remembered it, and it took him a while to recall, "Isn't that... the thing the president showed us last time?"

The Black Mole-class mobile factory ship, commonly known as the Star Caravan, and insultingly called the Street Vendor Ship, is designed to provide essential industrial goods to colonies that have not yet been established or whose populations are too small to warrant the construction of industrial clusters.

He can produce almost any common industrial product, and can even do space construction work, building space stations and starports (as long as you don't mind his low efficiency), or unfold himself into a temporary space station that sets up shop along the flight path to provide route resupply and maintenance.

The only question is: "This is an ancient relic designed in 2053, why is it here?" It's an ancient relic from more than two centuries ago, a creation from before a single interstellar war even started.

"2053? That's not..."

"Yes, the ship of the United Nations Space Exploration Alliance on Earth..." At that time, the Star Alliance was just a major power alliance under the United Nations framework aimed at monopolizing starship technology, similar to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) or the Asian Cooperation Organisation (ACSCO).

"Spaceships from the era of human interstellar exploration have been lost for at least two centuries, because stargate technology, especially branch stargates, did not exist at that time."

Therefore, relying on long-range logistics to supply resources for colony development was impossible. Thus, this Black Mole-class spaceship was designed as a mobile space factory to provide logistical support to the colonies.

"Oh, so that means this wreckage is useless." Johnny was utterly disappointed; he had thought it was an active Covenant ship.

He discovered that the communication array appeared to be intact, but it turned out to be an ancient relic older than his great-grandfather.

There was no faster-than-light communication technology in that era. The most powerful faster-than-light communication channel was to send a warp-jump unmanned spaceship carrying a hard disk array back and forth, which was quite awkward, wasn't it?

"Not necessarily. Old things have their advantages..." Xia Lin didn't see it that way. "If it were a modern spaceship, we wouldn't need many of the things on it. On the contrary, an old thing means that it's equipped with ancient chemical rockets and nuclear rockets. Even if it crashes badly, you can still use things like attitude control and reserve supplies."

"Can supplies from two centuries ago still be of any use?"

"At the very least, you can use it as raw material, for example, to store carbon and nitrogen. If the damage to the compartment is not severe, there may still be a pressurized chamber, and there may still be some air and oxygen left."

"That's true." The old ship means it lacks modern, high-quality circulation systems and high-speed interstellar travel capabilities, so the supplies on board must be compromised for space travel, storing a large amount of spare supplies.

"Are there any precautions I should take if I want to search inside?"

"Yes, there are many things to be careful about, but I don't know them." Old Xia shrugged, he really didn't know. "As for the engine, I know a little bit, because our boss used it to teach us. But the other parts... In short, be careful."

"What puzzles me now is that there were no stargates in that era; it only had an ancient, low-speed warp drive that could end up in a junkyard. How did this thing end up here?"

"Perhaps we stumbled upon a natural wormhole?" Johnny shrugged. "Neither of us are astronomers or physicists, so there's no point in discussing this, is there?"

"Anyway, I'm ready to set off to explore. It would be best if there was still ice inside." Without ice, the water cycle in the eco-chamber would be ruined. The choice between being blown up by a wrecked ship or dying of thirst is self-evident.

[PS]

The prototype is the Storm from Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Chapter 73 Preparations

Chapter 73

With a "buzz," a glow stick lit up after being shaken a few times, illuminating the twisted and dilapidated passageway of the ship's cabin. Johnny walked step by step through the passageway, surrounded by broken metal and twisted pipes overhead. Various written signs that could be seen everywhere were of great help to him.

"Found it, the recirculation chamber." Looking at the metal nameplate on the locked chamber door, Johnny's robotic arm flipped over, and the ion cutter at its end drew a crooked slit in the chamber door with sparks and lightning.

"Thud!" A glow stick was tossed into the dark cabin, illuminating the huge container-like devices. Lying on the ground were large life support and circulation machines.

The principle is to use the electrolysis of water to obtain hydrogen and oxygen, and then use carbon dioxide and hydrogen filtered from the air through a nanofiltration membrane under high and low pressure difference to produce methane, which is then gradually transformed into other organic matter. This was part of the early Starship cycle technology.

Consuming water, a small amount of catalyst, and a certain amount of energy, it produces oxygen and starch to meet the spacecraft's most basic breathing and food needs. The huge vertical cylinders on both sides are water circulation machines that collect moisture from the air and crew excrement for reuse. The entire system basically only needs to ensure the supply of hydrogen and water to maintain basic survival.

In such a place, there would inevitably be unused water that had frozen at low temperatures, which was Johnny's purpose. "Sizzle—"

The cutting machine moved rapidly across the water tank of the water circulation machine, cutting away ice. Soon, some pale yellow, unpurified ice cubes fell out.

"Concentrated urine containing urea and other chemical components, well, take it back and use it as fertilizer."

Johnny didn't mind getting dirty at all as he packed the ice cubes into his backpack, carefully avoiding damaging the layer of pale yellow crystals that had formed on the surface. In another water storage compartment, there were colorless, slightly whitish ordinary desalinated water ice cubes.

The water tanks were cut open one by one, and soon a large pile of boxes appeared around him. These were standard small folding boxes for interstellar transport, made of high-strength carbon fiber fabric and polymer frames. They couldn't move very heavy objects, but they were enough to carry miscellaneous items.

Aside from water, the starch that was preserved in a vacuum and at ultra-low temperatures two centuries ago is still edible. Well, eating a small amount won't kill you, so it's also part of the spoils.

After spending another two hours moving the crates onto a sled-like handcrafted vehicle outside the wreckage, Johnny continued his attempt to explore parts of the shipwreck.

The wrecked ship was smashed into seven large sections and more than a dozen smaller sections. Johnny had no intention of going into the cabins near the stern. Similarly, he didn't plan to go into the cabins near the bow.

The former is a piece of flammable and explosive material, while the latter is likely still under pressure. If the cutting knife makes a small opening in the door, the decompression explosion will send him flying like a ping-pong ball.

In a wrecked ship filled with protruding metal objects, the probability of instant death is high, and there is a small probability of triggering a secondary explosion of other explosives, which would also result in instant death, just a quicker one.

Therefore, his main search area was concentrated in the middle of the wrecked ship, which is the relatively safe storage area and cargo production area. These areas will automatically depressurize and vent in times of crisis to prevent the spacecraft from catching fire due to malfunction or forced landing, making them relatively safe areas.

"This is the assembly and manufacturing workshop." Johnny was going to check if there was any old, usable production equipment and raw materials. He didn't have high requirements; he just needed to be able to produce a simple lunar rover. Otherwise, it would be too painful to search for ice and resources on foot.

The workshop's explosion-proof door was very sturdy, and it took Johnny more than half an hour to barely dismantle it. "Wow—" The young sailor looked at the scene in front of him with a complicated expression. The workshop was full of semi-finished military equipment.

Three orbital attack drones were hanging precariously on their supports, and judging from the degree of deformation, they were already unusable. The cables and bullet holes on the ground indicated that a relatively fierce conflict had taken place here before they crashed.

A desiccated corpse lay to his right, its head missing, but its armor was still intact, and the insignia and badges were still visible. Johnny wiped the dust off the insignia, revealing a familiar mark: "Mutual Defense Alliance."

This is a military organization under the framework of the United Nations General Assembly, similar to the peacekeeping forces of the past. It was formed after the advent of the deep space exploration era to deal with possible colonial division and outer space threats. Compared with the regular army of the leaders, it can only be considered to be between second-rate and first-rate. After all, no one would put their elite troops in it, but they wouldn't throw in any trash either.

Johnny carefully pulled the heavy rifle from the other man's hand, trying not to damage the body's integrity, and then happily pulled down a new, unworn extravehicular combat suit hanging on the rack.

As someone who had a lot of confidence and hope for the rescue, he felt like he had struck it rich, since these antique equipment weren't very good.

However, the commemorative value is entirely different—because this force was completely wiped out eight months before the start of an interstellar war.

At that time, humans did not have drone forces. Ground infantry often had to defend against enemies twenty times larger and better equipped than themselves in the colonies. After a century and a half of war, very few of these old equipment survived to the postwar period, making them the crown jewels of military museums.

And there's an entire compartment full of them, all brand new. Well, brand new actually has less value; it's not as valuable as the one Johnny got from the corpse—the one with the biometric signature and electronic dog tag.

According to "Detective Johnny's" on-site investigation, it appears that a fierce armed conflict broke out here before the crash, the cause of which is unknown. Both sides were human, one side may have been soldiers, and the other side were sailors, which can be distinguished by their clothing.

The soldiers were likely the defenders, as they guarded the passageway to the bridge, while the sailors were the attackers, possibly due to a mutiny that broke out on the early ships.

After all, early starships were similar in many ways to seagoing vessels from the Age of Exploration.

The food was terrible, beds were scarce, resources were tight, and the journey was long. Apart from the fact that medical advancements would prevent us from contracting any strange illnesses, there was not much difference.

As for the reasons for the defection, they were nothing more than harsh rations, the bad attitude of the escorting soldiers, or simply unpaid wages.

In short, it's best not to argue with these early starship sailors; eleven out of ten of them suffer from varying degrees of mental illness due to prolonged spaceflight.

Why eleven people? Because at least one of them has a split personality.

Conversely, passengers who can sleep for months in hibernation pods are less likely to suffer from psychological problems.

However, Johnny soon remembered his important business: checking the furnaces, automated production lines, and assembly stations.

Of course, the situation was far from optimistic. After a firefight and crash, only a small assembly table in a corner and one of the earliest 3D printers in the entire workshop were found to be intact.

Other machine tools and production equipment are either deformed by impact or have a few bullet holes, while those large production equipment that are so sturdy that they are not afraid of bullets are not large things that can be disassembled by a single person, such as horizontal composite processing tables that are more than 20 meters long.

Compared to the equipment, the biggest find was the huge pile of electronic components and, most importantly, the "data storage device" that was disassembled from the machining control console...

"It must be readable!" The storage interface and encoding rules of two centuries ago have not changed much, but that does not guarantee that the storage device itself can still read data.

The data retention life of a typical hard disk drive is about 50 years, while a solid-state drive, when fully loaded, may only last a year and a half before starting to lose data. And the oldest type of magnetic tape would never be on a starship—it's too heavy and too big, and it's best to have a good idea of ​​how precious the spaceship's payload is.

Meanwhile, on Rhodes Island, which is on its way to Rembiton.

"Kroos, can this thing be repaired?"

"No," said Kroos, the chief engineer of Rhodes Island. "This thing is beyond repair. Let's not talk about the engine for now, I don't understand it anyway. Let's talk about the rest." She spread out the simplified structural diagram that Lao Xia had given her.

"The frames marked with red lines are all model frames, made of polymer, which is engineering plastic. Let alone withstand the propulsion force you need, even the heat from the engine would melt this aircraft like chocolate. At most, it can only last for 15 minutes with the current heat dissipation technology."

"However, Mr. Xia thoughtfully included a list of materials and mechanical properties required for the correct construction. Of course, there's also a simple formula, but..." Without the manufacturing process, it's all for nothing, and Mr. Xia didn't have any answers.

Because it's a very simple principle, he certainly knows how to do these things, but it's of no reference value to the doctor—the answer is: Star Alliance Business Network, find a manufacturer that makes these antique parts, place an order, and buy the sensitive parts separately.

But when you ask him how these "shelf products" in a normal interstellar society are made, that's when things get really interesting. It's like even if you can assemble a phone by hand, it doesn't mean you can mold an entire circuit board with chips out of a bunch of quartz sand and metal.

"What if we used our materials? As long as it can fly, that's fine."

“Not enough, the weight is too high, the power is insufficient, and the entire engine and frame design is based on the materials. If we replace it, it’s basically like we have to start from scratch with the engine. And speaking of the engine…” Kroos rubbed her forehead.

"Boss Xia definitely didn't tell you that although this engine can indeed be started, he actually used a lot of alternative materials and makeshift methods. Its reliability and actual performance simply do not meet his requirements. Otherwise, he wouldn't have given it to us so easily."

As mentioned at the beginning, this is a realistic model with all parts movable and the engine even ignitable. It would definitely be eye-catching at a retro rocket club's model aircraft exhibition. However, a model is just a model and has only reference value.

"Then that's the only way. We'll leave it to Rembiton to study slowly. We have plenty of time, no rush."

The doctor could only sigh. To be honest, this was already a great help, but it was still far from his expectations. Moreover, Terra was in a state that was hard to describe.

Kazdel, the farm. "That's about it. The wrecked ship was too big, so I didn't get to see it all, but the harvest was pretty good." Johnny said with a happy expression on the communicator. He had gotten quite a few raw material boxes, and after spending two days making several trips back and forth, his lunar doghouse was finally a little more full.

Moreover, antique appliances can still be used to some extent. For example, an antique electric stove is better than that rigid cooking machine; at least you can fry a vegetarian steak or something.

With ample water, the greenhouse environment has become quite good. Johnny previously planted potatoes and carrots, and now he has also planted tomatoes and cabbages, which require more water. He has even raised a small group of insects to extract protein.

"Most importantly, I found a 3D printing production blueprint, so I don't have to worry about the spacesuit being damaged now."

Although 99% of the data was unreadable, the attempts to read and repair it from dozens of storage devices eventually pieced together some usable data.

“Beehouses can be used by simply changing the format and structure of the blueprint, but they are not very efficient.”

After all, using light composed of nanobugs to simulate simple laser shaping and cutting functions is a huge waste of production capacity.

“And you’ll never guess what I found!” Johnny stepped aside, revealing a black combat suit he’d salvaged from a wrecked ship hanging on the wall. “The earliest version of the original combat suit, a Mutual Defense Alliance item. I heard collectors were asking for over 50 Star Coins…”

"That has to be a real name with a verifiable history. There are plenty of high-quality fakes on the market."

“Of course—” Johnny waved the electronic dog tag and the graphene battlefield record card in his hand, “Look!”

"Wow, what incredible luck!" Military equipment from the early stages of the One Star Wars and before.

Of course, this refers to the scarcity of surviving individual soldier equipment. The equipment itself isn't worth much; the real value lies in the accompanying battlefield records, dog tags, and other evidence that prove identity and past combat history.

"These antiques may not be as intelligent or advanced as the ones we use, but at least they are still usable."

"Hmm, have you already analyzed the blueprint?"

"No, encryption, though old, is still useful. We are currently forcibly cracking the patented encryption..."

Johnny sighed. The dongle he found was no longer usable, making it impossible to access the blueprint information inside. He hoped it contained something usable.

"I estimate they're all individual soldier firearms, but..." Old Xia thought that if they were individual soldier equipment, they could replace the rifles and exoskeletons he had on hand.

In particular, replace that conspicuous, water-heavy, and water-heavy thing in Mudrock with real power armor, even if it's an old one from before the One Star Wars.

After all, the T-34 and the Bean tank are both old tanks, but they are completely different concepts. In fact, when it comes to individual combat capability, these old guys might be more useful.

About three years after the start of the war, the Covenant began deploying its first unmanned combat groups. In the first decade of the war, the ratio of human soldiers to machines on the battlefield reached more than 1:16. In the middle of the war, human infantry were basically no longer seen except for special operations.

Without infantry, there's no need to develop light infantry equipment. Naturally, Lao Xia's equipment consists of exoskeletons and armor modified from civilian engineering equipment. Whether their actual effectiveness can compare to these old gadgets is hard to say.