Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

The main structure of the carrier hull consists of four long metal frames that extend backward to the mounting points of the engines and fuel tanks. The six shorter frames in the middle of the four frames, now eight, form the loading area of ​​the carrier hull.

Afterward, individual compartments will be attached to these skeletons, eventually forming a long, robust hexagonal prism-shaped transport ship. This ship will primarily carry Terran immigrants, and will be connected to the main body for water and oxygen circulation and power supply.

The two newly added frames will be on the outside of the hexagonal prism, where attitude engines, folding solar panels, and rotating shields to protect against small meteorites will be installed, allowing it to perform simple maneuvers and operations after detaching from the Ark.

Finally, the outermost six main frameworks will house the Ark's large attitude engines, communication sensors, radar equipment, navigation equipment, and a shield system that traverses the meteorite regions on the outer edge of the galaxy.

If the Ark cannot dock stably, the final solution is to enter the vicinity of the target planet, explode and separate from it, then the carrier hull will enter orbit and the main body of the Ark will launch all escape pods to allow the on-duty and monitoring personnel to escape.

Furthermore, by carrying as much necessary equipment and supplies as possible from the Ark, along with the disassembled and packaged parts and resources in the transport ship's warehouse, the majority of the Ark passengers can successfully enter the target planet.

However, if it comes to this point, it will be a one-shot deal for the Terrans. Regardless of whether the final target planet can survive, they will have no second choice, let alone a chance to back out. If the Ark goes out of control too early and cannot be adjusted again, then there will be no choice at all. The target they chose to accelerate from the beginning will be the final target.

No matter what kind of mess it is over there, the final outcome will be the same. Even if it's a planet worse than Terra, we have no choice but to accept it. This means that the margin for error in the entire plan becomes extremely low. Therefore, if there is any other option, the Doctor does not want to use this alternative plan.

“Therefore, I named this final plan the ‘End of the World Project,’” the doctor said, his hands gripping the edge of the podium. “It means that once it is activated, for the Terrans, that planet will be our final resting place, and for at least several centuries, or even a dozen centuries, we will not be able to have a second ark to reach another home.”

"So, in order for us to actually survive on the target planet when we use this plan, there is a lot of preliminary work we need to do," the Doctor began to assign tasks to the Rhodes Island operators.

"Star Pole, organize your family's star charts and observation records. Although a large part of them is fake, and that astrology is not very useful, it will still help us understand this part of the night sky."

"Ya Ye, you and the medical department's operators are working together with Frostnova to conduct human cryopreservation experiments. I need a definitive result."

“Order, you and the engineering department need to come up with an alternative plan. If we have to activate this plan, permanently moor the transport structure in the target orbit, blow up the ark and escape, then how can we quickly build a colony at the destination?”

"Unlike previous requests, this time the requirement is for a small, unmanned colony. We can choose a long period of hibernation and awaken the personnel in batches." [See, I've even thought of a reason for you to draw cards~ lol]

"The rest will be handled by the Xia Group and Boss Xia for now, but the relevant personnel training will have to be done by you, Kal'tsit. Select suitable hibernation personnel and future leaders or pioneers."

"Also, we need to come up with a new control protocol and an emergency protocol for when the time comes. Chengshan, you work with the others to develop new environmental monitoring and reconnaissance equipment."

"There's also the issue of vehicles. This can only be left to Boss Xia. Our understanding of the alien surface is basically zero. However, if he provides a conclusion, we need to prepare to manufacture and test these engineering vehicles, and then make them as small and convenient as possible."

"So what about the delivery methods?"

"There's no other way but to rely on others." This is a choice made out of necessity. Doing everything yourself gives you confidence and independence, but right now you're running for your life. Refugees shouldn't worry too much about saving face or dignity. You've already fled from home and made up your mind to overcome the toughest challenge, so save your vanity.

Let alone just some kind of cooperation or transaction, even if they were really begging for help, it would be perfectly reasonable. This universe isn't a liberal universe. If refugees act like they're the boss, the bright star hanging on Terra won't tolerate such people. In fact, this universe itself is cold and cruel enough, and it's even less tolerant of such people.

In Lao Xia's words, there are more than 50 trillion galaxies in the starry sky that humans can currently observe that could potentially give rise to life. Of these, about one in 200 million would give rise to advanced life. Here, advanced life refers to relatively intelligent creatures with the potential for wisdom, such as primates, rather than simple bacteria and insects, or reptiles or even early mammals.

Among higher life forms, only about one in 4000 million chosen ones can reach the point of developing intelligence, and less than one in 10 of those who develop into civilized races may have the ability to send something into space.

There are very few truly advanced civilizations among them that can ultimately achieve complete freedom to colonize galaxies and break free from the constraints of planets and most of the natural environment of the universe. Even in a galaxy as large as the Milky Way, there are only two or three such civilizations excluding the Covenant. The Andromeda Nebula, being an even larger galaxy, might be a bit more optimistic, but it is still a handful that can be counted on two hands.

Moreover, this must include planets that have undergone several cycles of destruction and regression, where several generations of life have been born on a single planet, and a towering structure has finally been built on layers upon layers of bones.

It oscillated between early single-celled life and primitive organisms with primitive brains for seven or eight cycles before finally developing to the point of climbing onto the shore or emerging from the soil to look up at the stars and begin to think about things beyond instinct during a relatively warm and stable period.

"In other words, in this universe, within the time it takes us to speak, a civilization or a race may be heading towards its end in despair. Therefore, no matter what method we use, we must seize this opportunity."

This is the doctor's summary of Project Ark. Failure? Failure is normal.

In this universe, every second there may be one or two unfortunate races making a final effort for their survival, and every moment there may be one that fails and disappears from the universe, leaving behind only their desperate creations and meaningless records, waiting for readers who may never come.

"In this world, in this universe, there is no such thing as a foolproof plan, nor is there a shortage of beings who perish while hesitating. Therefore, even if the hope is slim, we must do our utmost, because if we don't, we won't even have any hope!"

This is also why our ancestors built the ark and the protective ring. At the time, no one had high hopes for either of these projects, especially the ark.

Much of the technology was newly developed, much was still in the laboratory, and no one even knew whether the Capricorns could sustain a two-thousand-year voyage, or whether their destination would still be habitable when they arrived after 20 centuries.

Perhaps it was just a barren wasteland, devoid of even organic matter. Our ancestors were merely jumping from one hopeless hell into another, but they did it anyway—just as the doctor and Lao Xia said, in this universe, there is destruction every moment.

Were they all just a mob devoid of fighting spirit? Of course, there were those who had devised foolproof plans, those who fought with all their might, and those who exhausted all their resources—yet many still perished in the end.

This is not an exaggeration, because Lao Xia can easily find hundreds of examples on the public internet for the doctor and anyone with doubts, all of which were discovered by the Star Alliance pioneers.

Of course, the "civilization" mentioned here is mostly at the level of primitive agricultural civilization. The greatest amount of salvation they made was probably building magnificent temples and praying to the gods—don't think they are naive or ignorant, it's just "why not eat meat porridge" from the perspective of advanced civilization.

Civilizations and wisdom that are still in their infancy and nascent stage regarding nature and the world are simply incapable of making decisions beyond their comprehension, nor can they grasp the deeper meaning of these disasters. The only effort they can make is to pray to the unknowable, because that is what they understand.

The disaster that led to their demise could have been resolved by any agricultural civilization that had reached its middle or late stages of development. For example, a devastating wildfire, the drying up of a lake in the desert, the spread of a virus that infects a major crop, or a highly contagious plague.

In the eyes of advanced civilizations, a disaster that can be dealt with using their tools and abilities without even needing to employ high-tech methods, but simply by understanding the laws of nature, is enough to completely destroy a civilization.

Chapter Ninety-One: The Wind Blows Eggshells

Chapter Ninety-One

Inside the Ark, an explosion was inevitable. In fact, even before the gates were closed, everyone knew something would explode, but no one knew whether the explosion would be confined to the "sacrifice" area.

Unlike building a spaceship normally or repairing a spaceship under conditions where it is "repairable," there is no such thing as a "reasonable" configuration or arrangement on the Ark.

It is impossible to supply power without load because once many devices are turned off, no one knows how to turn them back on. It is also impossible to test many integrated, non-removable components buried tens of meters deep inside the hull of the ark. Even if a problem is detected, you can only start work as is.

The reason is simple: you simply don't have any "compliant" parts to replace the faulty component. Not to mention that these devices and electrical components were originally designed to be disposable and non-removable, and no one considered what to do with them thousands of years later when future generations continue to repair this unfinished building.

This is completely different from any power grid or electrical structure that Star Source has ever encountered, because from the very beginning, the Terran ancestors never considered one question: how to use the Ark a second time.

Since it doesn't need to be used a second time, there's no need to consider equipment aging or replacement. The design standard is that it won't explode within the next two thousand years on the road, so it's considered qualified. Replacement? Repair? A ship full of hibernating brains. It would be strange if they even considered this issue when they designed it.

Even for those replaceable and repairable parts, there are five completely incompatible standards. Meeting any of these standards is a headache. To repair them under reasonable and safe conditions, or to keep the risks under control, given Terra's current engineering and technical capabilities, it would take at least another 30 to 40 years.

This is based on the premise that the entire Ark is basically dismantled, fully utilizing Covenant technology, and then assembled in the same way as Lego. If it were to fully conform to Terra's own standards and production methods, it would be a pure dream for over a century.

This question is like the choice between a terminally ill person and whether to undergo surgery with a very slim success rate. Even if they consult foreign experts and use the best medicine, the success rate will not be high. By the time the treatment technology is available, the bones will probably have dissolved completely.

This is why the Star Alliance's outsourcing company chose to refund half of the money after receiving it; they couldn't refuse, as the amendment had too high an accident rate and they couldn't bear the blame.

The current solution, to put it bluntly, is that as long as the core, irreparable, or irreplaceable equipment, or even any non-essential equipment, isn't destroyed, then the rest can just be destroyed. The only difference is how many parts are destroyed, or whether the entire thing is destroyed.

The chances of partially or completely being destroyed are roughly 50/50, but the current situation is that things are on both sides to some extent, because some essential items have also been destroyed.

"The two backup Ark Originium fuel tanks exploded, blowing the entire deceleration engine out and causing a serious gas leak in the entire Sector 2." Kroos said with the ease of someone who had just survived a death sentence. "The good news is that the damage is not significant to the core area, but the bad news is that we simply cannot repair it."

Terra simply does not have the capability to recreate such a massive deceleration engine. If they were to use a Covenant engine, it would mean that one-third of the Ark's structure would need to be dismantled and rebuilt.

Given our current launch and space engineering capabilities, it's more reasonable to discuss this issue in the next century. What's even more reasonable is that in just 20 years, the sun's brightness and radiation intensity will rise to a level that would wipe out 70% of the species on Earth, and over 90% of Terra would become desert in a short period of time.

Coastal areas are shrouded in high concentrations of salt fog. While the fog reduces the intensity of solar radiation to some extent, it also causes all the precision equipment they possess to rust and deteriorate at an alarming rate.

In other words, in reality, Terra would lose more than 80% of its precision industry and 99% of its space capabilities in just 20 years, making it impossible to carry out the Ark Project.

If we take into account personnel relocation and material preparation, they may have less than 10 years left. You have to understand that this patched-up ark dares not set sail during the solar storm, which would be as exaggerated as setting sail during a typhoon. Even a new ship wouldn't dare to do that, let alone this thing that makes noise everywhere except for the horn.

It must embark on its acceleration journey before solar activity intensifies to a certain level, accelerate to the minimum speed required to activate the warp drive before the storm erupts, and then all that's left is to avoid disintegrating during the warp.

In about four years, it will be able to reach the first candidate planet, 37.8 light-years away. Of course, given that the deceleration engine has now exploded, it may also be the last candidate planet.

"Is there any worse news?"

"Yes, that means two of the dome sectors have malfunctioned, so the number of emergency teams that we were originally allowed to maintain in the ecological environment must be halved." This means that half of the space has lost its temperature control and atmospheric regulation capabilities. In order not to increase the load on the remaining equipment, the best way is to shut down these two sectors and then rely on the remaining functional equipment to keep going.

However, because the arks were originally designed for long-distance voyages of two thousand years, a considerable portion of the core equipment and key structures are still quite intact.

Moreover, in the space environment, the aging rate of both circuits and equipment is much slower—of course, those exposed to the particle winds on the surface of the Ark are completely destroyed—but these components inside the particle barrier, in a vacuum and weightless environment, show almost no signs of oxidation or aging.

At least with Terra's current detection equipment, it cannot be detected. In fact, it is hard to say how many years it can last after it is put into operation, especially now that half of the main space is disabled. This means that in the next four years, the redundancy of the available life support systems and subsystems at all levels will be reduced by half or even more, because what was originally enough now has to be replaced by backup redundancy.

"However, that's not the worst part. The worst part is that the largest reactor of the early settlers exploded. Yes, the one that provided the abundant Originium particle stream for building the Matrix. It was completely destroyed. To be more precise, it could have been salvaged and repaired..."

However, the retrieval spaceship couldn't catch up and could only watch helplessly as the module, along with its reactor, crashed into an Originium meteorite, shattering into pieces.

"Overall, if we hadn't failed to discover this hidden backup fuel tank, the overall damage would have been acceptable." In other words, more than half of the wiring was burned. As long as Dorothy's fluid wiring technology can be developed in time, there is still room for repair.

"Remove what can be removed. However, now that the power system is restored, we can make a more flexible plan about what to discard." We didn't dare to dismantle things randomly before, fearing that it would be ridiculous if the dismantled items were not damaged while the undismantled items were burned.

Now we don't have to worry about that problem anymore. We can dismantle all the unimportant parts that can be removed, then report how much the Ark's carrying capacity and self-sufficiency have decreased, and then think of ways to make up for that, or reduce expenses and resources.

"Now let me tell you something happy. The Ark carrier module has been completed. Now all that's left is to finish the final outer protective shell and install auxiliary equipment before this module can be put into use."

"What about the internal equipment?"

"It hasn't been installed yet. Inside, we've installed a large number of capsules and hibernation pods under the pretext of building a large, budget space hotel. Next up is the life support ecosystem."

"What about the engine and powertrain?"

"The engine inspection results show that there are no problems. The missing thrust can be temporarily replaced by Boss Xia's engine, since we only need to accelerate once." Therefore, Lao Xia used the engine that would least conflict with the ancient people's engine—a disposable super-large nuclear explosion thruster—which has no control system and only an ignition button.

You can think of it as a multi-stage nuclear bomb that is over 200 meters long and is independently bound together. Once it's used up, you can just throw it away. It's only used for the Ark to start and accelerate. As for how to start moving to the second planet if the first alternative planet is not in good condition, that's not Lao Xia's problem.

Besides, the brakes are already flying around, so why are you even thinking about starting again? You're lucky if you can even jump off the ship safely.

"The condition of the Ark engines is very good." These super-large Ark engines came from the discovery of Specter 4 and 6. They found the wreckage of the previous Ark 1 and 2 and spent several years dragging over the still usable engines from those two.

The early humans' long-distance acceleration engine still uses the Originium system, but it is a particle thruster. It uses the weak force field effect formed by the interaction of source energy particles in the space environment to propel the target. You can think of it as a super-large version of the Gege.

The thrust was actually quite weak for such a behemoth as the Ark, so it took more than four centuries to accelerate. In contrast, the deceleration was much more brutal. The Terran people believed that other stars also emitted energy particles, so the closer they got to the target, the more abundant the energy particles in space were, and the greater the deceleration resistance would be.

Therefore, their planned route is to directly approach the sun's orbit, enter tangentially, and use the strong force field effect generated by the high-energy particles near the star to slow down the spacecraft. After circling the star once, they will then fly towards the target planet.

With the plasma braking engine and the super-large directional engine that the early inhabitants originally planned to install, they could quickly find the target planet. If it was not suitable, they could resupply briefly, use the sun for orbital acceleration, and then fly to the second target. This time, since they didn't need to rush, they could spend more time using the energy of the star to accelerate, and the speed would be faster.

However, the early inhabitants only had one chance to make a mistake, because the Ark could not possibly start a third time. If the second alternative star system was still not ideal, then there was nothing that could be done, as all the equipment, including the engines, would be at the end of their lifespan.

Now the doctor's situation is even worse. He doesn't even have a single margin of error. In fact, it's possible that not only is there no margin of error, but the thing might also fail as soon as it takes off. In that case, the only option is to separate the launch module and see how many can get off the ground.

If that's the case, the spacecraft can carry very few people, and if the destination isn't a planet where life can naturally exist, these people will still face certain death.

"Doctor, now that the Matrix of Leadership is gone, we must develop a portable equipment and system for the construction of the destination colony," said Nian, who had regained the full operational capabilities of the entire Sailboat constellation. She could now access almost all data and information, and her abilities were much stronger than before.

"So, we now need to develop an integrated industrial device and the necessary standard manufacturing processes, right?"

"Yes, Doctor, there's no need to panic. In fact, this part..." This part can really be outsourced entirely, as long as Originium technology isn't used. As for the Originium-related processing and power generation systems, those can be left to the pioneers to develop by hand. That's why the ancients modified the Terrans to have Originium Arts—it was for use in situations like this.

"Moreover, we have already achieved initial results. However, there are not many facilities designs and blueprints that can complete the construction of STC. Dr. Xia does not recommend that we outsource this part." Because the fees are very expensive, and the Terrans will not need them at all. That's secondary. What's worse is that he may also receive a meeting with the union because of this.

Why? Look at Xia's own airdrop cargo hold, and the standard colony configuration that he theoretically has with the network and equipment. It's practically a luxury design for Terrans, but they don't need such a luxury design at all.

A Covenant colony's forward base can have only five or six people, and tens of thousands of square kilometers of resources can support them. Even if it is designed to be more luxurious, it doesn't matter. However, Terra must deploy a large number of people in the initial deployment area at once to reduce the pressure on the transport ships, which are not capable of long-term self-sufficiency.

"But if we were to design it ourselves..." Then we would have to make the standard interface and development tools public, and start training the relevant personnel now to familiarize them with the standards and usage of the Covenant Integrated Industrial System. This kind of thing is not only a great tool for alien exploration—it's also a great tool for building frontline bases in Terra for fighting wars.

“Let’s go public. Now is not the time for this. If they see this as a threat…” The doctor pondered for a moment, “then let them know the truth in advance.”

A few days later, at the research institute, Little Bluebird, finally free from facing those damned blueprints, finally began her formal work: developing a remote power transmission system using Originium. The relevant standard protocols and interface protocols had been issued, including development and simulation testing tools that were completely unfamiliar to her.

Besides StarSource, other researchers from Columbia University also arrived one after another, so the research institute on the ground was not so deserted. Every day there was endless work to do, and they also had to take time to discuss and exchange ideas with others. They lived a very fulfilling life, and it could even be said that they were busy to the point of being dizzy.

"An integrated, airdroppable industrial manufacturing core..." The outsourcing company's contact person looked puzzled. "I'm not trying to nitpick, but can you apply for a professional industrial intelligent core staffing?"

"Ah, no, no, it's just a small-scale, regional integrated industrial core, not what you're thinking," Old Xia quickly interrupted, sending over the requirements outlined by the doctor, "like ultra-small mining stations and exploration camps."

"For those that don't require an industrial core, I recommend our company's integrated airdrop exploration station..."

"No money, can't afford it!" That thing can indeed be sent by the research team's spaceship through their channel, but it's ridiculously expensive and can only be used by a few people. Moreover, most of the configurations inside are just flashy and gimmicky to Terra and the Doctor.