The stars, but they become the gray wind

"This is a spacecraft with nuclear saltwater thrusters... I thought it would have some giant, insane radiator structure."

"Well... several early nuclear saltwater spacecraft did have relatively large droplet-type heat sink structures and designs. However, the one before you is an improved model of a nuclear saltwater propulsion spacecraft. Thanks to the use of sub-external electron-bonding materials in the heat sink and tail nozzle, this ship's heat sink can maintain normal operation of the entire spacecraft at temperatures close to 40 Kelvin, and prevent other parts of the spacecraft from overheating. In addition, the water used as the propellant is ejected at high speed, which also removes some heat. Coupled with the further improvements to the magnetic confinement nozzle technology at the time, this type of nuclear saltwater spacecraft has shed the rather bulky droplet-type heat sink structure and instead adopts a new heat sink grid made of sub-external electron-bonding materials and a more advanced hull heat dissipation circuit."

"I see... a heat sink that can still function properly at temperatures of hundreds of thousands of Kelvin?"

"Oh right... didn't you mention earlier that there's a biological spaceship made from the Tree of Life? The heat sink material on it is said to be able to operate normally at temperatures in the millions of Kelvin range?"

"You mean the Explorer? That's a bit of a shame... The Explorer isn't placed in this museum. After completing a series of missions and retiring, the Tree of Life originally planned to dismantle her and recycle her useful resources. However, at our request, the Tree of Life deliberately preserved her hull and stored it in a man-made facility at the top of the Tree of Life's canopy. A separate exhibition hall has been built for this ship. As the first spacecraft in the history of our civilization, it holds special significance to the Sky Star civilization and deserves a separate memorial hall."

"Alas, can't you see it? What a pity. So, when can you take me to the exhibition hall at the top of the Tree of Life to see that biological spaceship?"

"Actually, you can come anytime. Although you can't see the Explorer itself here, there is another item related to the Explorer in this museum."

"Another related one? What what? Tell me now!"

"An unmanned biological probe dedicated to the Tree of Life, using the same design and configuration as the Explorer, but scaled down 100 times."

"In terms of design, it can be considered an extreme miniaturization of the Explorer's hull. However, its overall propulsion method and design structure are similar to the Explorer's."

"Is that so... Then take me to see it right away!" With his eyes shining, Luo Ying couldn't wait to grab Elena's wrist and ran towards the depths of the museum.

"Don't be so anxious..." Elena said helplessly as she was being pulled by Luoying who had Lamia's face.

…………

A few minutes later, the two arrived at a special exhibition hall in a transparent dome building. A spacecraft shaped like a jellyfish emitting blue light and made entirely of bio-based materials was suspended in mid-air, fixed by tractor beams embedded in the walls on both sides.

"It looks exactly like a jellyfish with blue stripes on its body..." Luo Ying exclaimed in surprise while standing under the tentacles of the jellyfish floating in the air. The blue jellyfish in front of him had a main "umbrella cap" part of its head that was about ten meters long and about 20 meters in diameter. Countless tentacles with propulsion nozzles at the ends extended from the bottom of the "umbrella cap". The length of each tentacle was almost four times that of the main part of the umbrella cap. At the propulsion fluid outlet at the end of the tentacle, hundreds of bio-based tentacle nozzles gathered together, just like the secret methane engine nozzles at the bottom of some chemical rockets that used a large number of engines connected in parallel.

"It seems a bit incredible... It's hard to imagine... Can a living thing grow this kind of structure, create an opening at the end of each jellyfish tentacle, and then eject the propellant out through this opening?"

"Each tentacle is a small thrust engine, and the nozzles of the countless small thrust engines at the ends of the tentacles are connected in parallel to produce sufficiently high thrust and specific impulse?"

"This small unmanned biological ship has a total of about 240 such tentacles and propulsion devices at the end, which means 240 small thrust engines in parallel. At the same time, these small thrust engines can be partially shut down and fine-tuned to more precisely control the thrust and specific impulse." Next to Luo Ying and Elena, Xiao You, who was floating beside them in a holographic projection state, was also explaining the biological spacecraft on the booth to Luo Ying.

"The jellyfish-like canopy at the front houses the unmanned vessel's reactor and control system, as well as serving as a storage container for the propellant and fuel. The propellant is heated to extremely high temperatures by the fusion reactor encased within the canopy. It is then ejected at extremely high speeds through the micro-fluidic magnetic confinement nozzles at the ends of the tentacles, providing the spacecraft with recoil force in the vacuum."

"In addition, the front canopy itself provides the majority of the heat dissipation. Although the tentacles themselves will dissipate some heat in the form of radiation as the working fluid flows through the hollow tentacles inside, the main heat dissipation function still lies with the canopy, which occupies the largest part of the main structure."

"Don't underestimate this seemingly insignificant canopy. Although it's made of some kind of bio-based material, it has the ability to ensure sufficient heat dissipation efficiency at temperatures approaching millions of Kelvin and maintain the normal operation of the entire spacecraft."

"If the ship doesn't need to use bulky heat sinks to dissipate heat by relying on the sub-outer electron bonding material or even materials with super heat resistance, then how did the Tree of Life, as a living organism, design a spacecraft with such high heat dissipation efficiency?" Luo Ying asked curiously, resting his chin with his right hand.

"This has a lot to do with the nanomachines that make up the microscopic cells of the Tree of Life. When the original nanomachines that made up the Tree of Life absorbed external energy and matter to replicate at high speed, they generated a large amount of heat. As the active nanomachines changed their molecular structure and created certain complex things, their temperature would rise. The waste heat generated was efficiently dissipated by the nanomachines in the form of radiation. The advantage of these nanomachines in heat dissipation is obviously unparalleled. The same principle is applied to this bio-ship and other similar models of self-produced bio-ships of the Tree of Life. The nanomachines' efficient heat dissipation performance during self-replication also gives this bio-ship extremely high heat dissipation efficiency."

"Furthermore, because the material that makes up the Tree of Life is a room-temperature superconducting material manufactured by nanomechanical biological cells, the entire Tree of Life, whether it's the trunk, branches, roots, or leaves, is made of this room-temperature superconducting material. With the support of this room-temperature superconducting material, the structure and heat dissipation pressure of the reactor itself are further reduced. Because this superconducting material has zero resistance, it does not increase the temperature of the conductor when transmitting energy."

"The bio-based shell of this spacecraft is essentially the same as the room-temperature superconducting material that makes up the Tree of Life, possessing excellent physical and chemical properties."

"It is also thanks to the existence of this natural room-temperature superconducting material that our research and development in fusion engineering-related technologies has become much smoother. Because we don't need to go to the trouble of manufacturing expensive low-temperature superconducting magnetic confinement coils like your civilization does, the Sky Star civilization has made remarkable progress in magnetic confinement nuclear fusion reactors. From the initiation of the project to the completion of large-scale construction and grid-connected power generation, the Sky Star civilization took less than ten years."

"Natural room-temperature superconducting materials... I'm a little envious... If there were such a thing, there would be no need to work so hard on magnetic confinement superconducting coils." Listening to Xiao You's story beside him, Luo Ying continued to look at the biological spacecraft on the booth in front of him, sighing silently.

"And... the number of these thrusters... uh... reminds me of some of the ridiculously shaped products from the history of the civilization I used to live in..."

"Oh... N1 rocket or starship?" Elena, who had carefully observed and studied Luoying's memory before, also guessed what Luoying wanted to say after Wu Iqi brought Lingqi to her.

"I'd say it's a bit of both... Whether it's the N1 rocket's 30 NK-15 engines or the Starship's 33 Raptor engines, they both function similarly, stacking and paralleling a large number of low-thrust engines. This thing is even more massive, with 240 engines connected in parallel at once. The computing and control capabilities of this thing are absolutely insane, otherwise it wouldn't be able to coordinate the changes in thrust and specific impulse of so many engines."

"By the way, Elena, you said before that this thing has the same design and configuration as the Explorer?"

"Hmm... so, is the Explorer's propulsion structure similar? 240 larger tentacles acting as parallel thrusters?"

"Not really... The Explorer's structure is similar to the unmanned spacecraft in front of us, but its propulsion system is much larger in both number and volume. The Explorer's tail is dotted with 25000 propulsion tentacles that serve as engine nozzles. These 25000 tentacles can precisely change its exhaust velocity and acceleration, and adjust its posture."

"Pfft! 25000?! Is that a lot?"

"Also... synchronizing and coordinating 33 Raptor engines is so difficult, what would it be like to coordinate 25000 smaller thrust engines? And they're all reunited and powered by variable power. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it would be."

Thinking of the dense distribution of the 33 raptors at the bottom of the starship's first-stage booster and the 240 thrusters connected in parallel at the tail of the biological spacecraft in front of him, a scene that could make people suffer from claustrophobia, and then thinking about the picture of 25000 such thrusters connected in parallel, Luo Ying couldn't help but shudder.

"25000 engines connected in parallel... This is enough to kill people with trypophobia on the spot... If our aerospace engineers and flight control technicians heard of this requirement, they would probably die on the spot. The flight control of 33 engines in parallel is already difficult enough to control, and 25000 engines will be enough to kill the flight control, right?" Luo Ying was very ashamed of this.

"By the way... in addition to these thrusters, subsequent bio-ships manufactured by the Tree of Life, including the Explorer, will also carry laser sails made of bio-phosphide materials as a complementary means of navigation. Although the acceleration of laser sails isn't particularly impressive most of the time, since they don't consume working fluid, light sail spacecraft and ships are a very suitable choice for interplanetary material transportation that doesn't require speed or time. To this end, we have also built a large number of laser irradiation stations and laser emission units on various celestial bodies within the galaxy and on the Dyson Cloud of stars. These laser emission units help accelerate and decelerate ships powered by light sails within the galaxy."

"Although we also use laser sail propulsion to a certain extent, we use it more as a supplementary means of propulsion. After the completion of the stellar Dyson Cloud, the Tree of Life began to apply this propulsion method on a series of biological spacecraft it had built."

"Of course, this method of accelerating a light sail using laser irradiation can not only be used for interplanetary transportation, but can also provide a certain initial acceleration during interstellar travel, thus saving the spacecraft's own propulsion fluid and fuel to a certain extent."

"By the way, this nanomachined light sail is incredibly thin. Most bio-spacecraft's light sails are only a dozen or so molecules thick. With a reflectivity of 99.999 percent, this film can reflect electromagnetic waves with exceptional efficiency. Using high-powered lasers to illuminate the light sail provides sustained acceleration for the spacecraft."

"Speaking of which... this galaxy has a Dyson cloud that absorbs over 65% of the star's energy. But if this Dyson cloud, created by self-replicating machines, was built hundreds of thousands of years ago, why has it only utilized around 65% of the star's energy after so long? Logically, with so much time, the self-replicating machines should have formed a Dyson cloud or Dyson sphere that nearly 100% envelops the entire star, right?"

"And if I remember correctly, my friends named Kalisi and Renlong mentioned this to me."

"She seemed to say something like this: We probably can't even imagine how quickly a Dyson cloud built by a von Neumann self-replicating machine could multiply. Given sufficient raw materials, even machines with today's technology could cover a G-type yellow dwarf star like the Sun within a few hundred to a thousand years. This is because these von Neumann self-replicating machines are the inevitable result of exponential growth."

"At the time, she also mentioned that even if this technology were available, there would still be some potential bottlenecks during the construction process. For example, after demolishing the low-gravity asteroid belt, removing larger and denser celestial bodies would be limited by surface area, unless there was a way to blow them up. However, the efficiency of collecting the debris blown away in the explosion would be very low."

"Kallissi also gave an example. At the level of human society, how long would it take for a piece of steel parts to be produced with its own quality?"

"Sixteen hours. In other words, even if humans could create self-replicating machines, they could still achieve exponential growth. Although the technology of my civilization probably wouldn't be able to create such a machine..."

"And the main limitation on the replication cycle of this self-replicating machine in the solar system is actually the time it takes to transfer orbits.

It's only on the order of years, because in the solar system, if you want to obtain sufficient and easily minable minerals other than Mercury, you can only go to the asteroid belt, and the time consumed by orbital transfer between Mercury and the asteroid belt is obviously measured in years."

"So I have a question... that is why it has been 100,000 years since the Sky Star civilization built the Dyson Cloud. Logically, the nanomachines should have wrapped the entire star long ago, right? Why is it only 65% ​​now?" Luo Ying said, turning around and asking Elena and the holographic projection Xiao You beside her.

"As you know... our initial Dyson Cloud construction method was to dismantle the innermost planet, which had an abnormal mass, volume, and density. After dismantling this celestial body, which was close to the limit of rocky planets in mass and diameter, we obtained an early Dyson Cloud facility that could utilize approximately 10% of the star's energy. After the dismantling of Planet One, neither the Sky Civilization nor the Tree of Life allowed the Dyson Cloud facilities that still possessed self-replication capabilities to shift their orbits and begin the same dismantling process on other celestial bodies in the galaxy. Instead, they moved the Dyson Cloud facilities equipped with nanomachines closer to the star, orbiting it in an orbit extremely close to the star itself, periodically plundering material ejected from the star's surface by solar prominences and stellar flare jets, and using this material to further replicate themselves. Although the efficiency of this self-replication is much lower than directly dismantling a planet, the Dyson Cloud modules equipped with nanomachines continue to replicate and slowly proliferate, maintaining a very high exponential growth rate. Ultimately, in just 1000 years, they covered over 60% of the star's area."

"In fact, when the self-increasing Dyson Cloud device's utilization rate of the star's energy exceeded 50%, we discussed with the Tree of Life and decided to limit the replication speed of the growing Dyson Cloud composed of nanomachines. This prevented the Dyson Cloud megastructure from enveloping and blocking the entire star's sunlight in just a few hundred years. The Tree of Life sent a restriction command to the growing Dyson Cloud, causing the replication speed of these nanomachines near the star to drop from its original exponential growth to an extremely slow rate. Although the size of the Dyson Cloud has continued to grow since then, it has slowed significantly. Over the past hundreds of thousands of years, this value has only increased by 15%."

"But if we just want to prevent the planet from receiving sunlight, we only need to leave a gap of less than one thousandth, right?"

"Is it even possible to change the transparency of the Dyson cloud unit or replace it with artificial lighting?"

"Or is it because of cultural reasons like the Sky Star people prefer natural light?"

"But if you prefer natural light, why not let the Dyson Cloud change its transparency or simply adjust its posture to the side and face the target you don't want to be blocked?" Hearing this, Luo Ying asked in some confusion.

"In fact, the main reason is not that the overly dense Dyson cloud will block the light from the planet, but another reason..."

"Uh...what's the reason?"

"Because...the Sky Star civilization has always had a serious energy surplus."

"Unlike human civilization, whose energy needs have always been somewhat insufficient and strained, Sky Star civilization has, throughout its 100,000-year history, consistently created and stored a significant surplus of energy. Sky Star civilization has had an excess demand for energy and materials since its inception. This problem has become even more pronounced since the advent of the Space Age. Even with this massive demand, the energy created by both the orbiting star rings and the Dyson Clouds remains in significant excess."

"In fact, after the planetary orbital ring was built, the Sky Star civilization had so much energy that they didn't know what to do with it. And after the Dyson Cloud was built, although the Tree of Life absorbed a considerable portion of the stellar energy obtained by the Dyson Cloud, the remaining energy was still too much to use. Even with the solar particle accelerator that consumes a huge amount of energy to produce antimatter, it still couldn't handle the excessive energy that was seriously excessive for the entire Sky Star civilization at that time."

"In contrast to humanity's long-term energy shortages, Sky Star has produced a severe surplus of energy and matter since entering the space age. This has forced us to undertake even larger-scale interstellar expansion to consume these severely excessive energy and material reserves. Only through large-scale economic expansion and the construction of megastructures of comparable scale in other star systems can we consume these severely excessive energy and material production and reserves."

"For the same reason, we have to limit the self-replication rate of the Dai Zengyun facility."

"During the hundreds of thousands of years of interstellar expansion, we have also built more stellar-scale celestial projects in other star systems. The various resources consumed in the construction of these projects have alleviated the problem of excess energy and material output of the Sky Star civilization, and have also further explosively increased the scale and speed of development of the Sky Star civilization."

"You actually have an overproduction of materials and energy? This is truly a happy trouble... and your overproduction is far better than the overproduction caused by capitalist economic crises in human history." Luo Ying sighed helplessly.

Chapter 123: Alcubierre Engine and Inertialess Propulsion (5000 words)

"Even if we could completely and unlimitedly satisfy the material and spiritual needs of every individual in our civilization, the Sky Star civilization would still produce a severe surplus of material and energy. No matter how much the individuals that comprise this entire civilization increase their own consumption, it would still be a drop in the bucket to offset the loss of this excess production capacity. We can only invest this excess production capacity, regardless of the time cost and total amount, into plans for interstellar expansion and the construction of large-scale celestial projects in other star systems."

"Haven't you tried to increase the total population?" Luoying asked.

"Of course we tried... When this situation first emerged, the total population of the entire Sky Star system was approximately 200 billion. Over 70% of them lived on the home planet, and the remaining 30% were distributed across various celestial bodies within the galaxy and in large and small space habitats. After this problem arose, we began to attempt to massively increase the population and accelerate the rate of interstellar expansion. Many newborns during that period were born in artificial incubators. They were born with innate genetic memories and a wealth of knowledge and practical experience input through brain-computer interfaces. Almost immediately, they began consuming the excess production capacity and total material energy of Sky Star civilization."

"At the same time, we are also accelerating the pace of interstellar expansion. More and more probes are passing through the two Kerr black holes that are rotating around each other at high speed. Leveraging the slingshot effect of the two black holes, they are being launched towards the target star system at near-relativistic speeds. After the probes approach the target star system and confirm the detailed conditions within the star system and transmit the corresponding information and scanning data back, a series of interstellar immigration ships will be quickly constructed and assembled into an entire fleet. These ships are over a hundred kilometers in length and have a 1:1 artificial ecosystem inside that is a complete replica of the Sky Star ecosystem. They can reach speeds of 0.8 times the speed of light. They will fly to the target star system in the form of a massive fleet and construct new planets and stellar-class celestial projects there."

"Through this massive population increase and the unconditional fulfillment of all the material and spiritual needs of the new population to consume excess production capacity, while accelerating interstellar expansion, in just 200 years, the entire civilization's population increased more than tenfold, and the entire civilization's control area expanded from a single star system in its home star system to nearly 100 star systems within 50 light-years. In these 200 years, the territory of the Sky Star civilization expanded 100-fold. After arriving at the target star system, those compatriots who left either used fully automated industrial systems to transform planets, making them habitable, or began to dismantle the usable materials in the star system to build new star-level celestial projects, or even explored the unknown in new star systems."

"Due to the extremely advanced strong artificial intelligence technology, no matter whether it is the mother galaxy with the longest development time and the most complete, or the most distant frontier star field, every individual Sky Star does not actually have to participate in any form of labor and production. All production and management activities in society are completely taken over by the strong artificial intelligence program born and differentiated based on the Tree of Life. In this society that is close to the state of out-of-control servitors, the strong artificial intelligence program will almost unconditionally meet all the material and spiritual needs of the Sky Star individuals. Coupled with the great abundance of productivity, the Sky Star civilization society, which was already in a utopian state, is even more..." Having said this, Elena paused and tried to find a more accurate word to describe this historical period.

"Communist society is fragmented, right?" Luo Ying continued Elena's words.

"Almost... Although within your civilization... there are many different interpretations of this term... but if you look deeper, the social state of the Sky Star civilization during this period was very close to the meaning of this term."

"If I were to judge by my understanding... your society at that time... could be said to be on the verge of entering a communist state. Although whether it could be considered a runaway robot-servant society, where artificial intelligence completely controls all production and management activities, is another matter."

"Anyway, we don't really care about the dominance of the Sky Star civilization. All strong artificial intelligences originally originated from the consciousness of the Tree of Life itself, or from the digitized manifestation of a portion of consciousness within our spiritual perception network. Furthermore, the Sky Star people themselves are not opposed to transforming their life forms into other states. During this period, a considerable number of Sky Star people completely digitized their consciousness, constantly uploading and activating it in different bodies, achieving a near-immortality."

"Even now, even individuals like Anna and I, whose transformations are minimal, have undergone a high degree of mechanization. All the memories and consciousness in my brain can be uploaded to other bodies in digital form at any time. It's better to say that the reason why a considerable number of Sky Star people still choose to retain their original bodies is actually because even without any transformation, the bodies and functions of native Sky Star people are incredibly powerful."

"As for those compatriots who have chosen to digitize and spend long periods of time in the virtual world formed by the Tree of Life and the spiritual perception network, this kind of life is also quite popular. Even if the material world can already meet all their material and spiritual needs, as long as they remain in the material world, they are inevitably restricted by the laws of the universe and physics. In the virtual world, they can truly enjoy being completely unconstrained by any basic laws and freely engage in actions that violate the current laws of the universe."

"Ah, I'm getting off topic... Let's get back to the history of this period of interstellar expansion."

"The result of this period of interstellar expansion is that the entire Sky Star civilization has once again ushered in a technological singularity. In just a few hundred years, the construction of hundreds of neutron star power generation projects and extragalactic Dyson cloud projects has exponentially increased the energy output level of the entire Sky Star civilization, and the lifespan of all individuals in the Sky Star civilization has effectively reached infinity. With the advent of a new round of technological singularity, the maximum speed that antimatter engine colony ships can achieve has been further increased from 0.8 times the speed of light. During this period, antimatter-driven ships can maintain ultra-high acceleration while keeping the exhaust velocity constant, allowing ships to accelerate to nearly 0.999 times the speed of light within a few astronomical units. As the ship's speed increases, our expansion rate between stars has also accelerated further. And it is not just the ship's speed that has been improved, but also the energy aspect."

"We've finally designed a usable zero-point energy reactor that amplifies the Casimir effect. By generating energy level differences at the quantum level, and thus generating vacuum energy, we've achieved truly unlimited energy. While the total energy output of the Sky Star civilization was previously only severely excessive, now that the zero-point energy reactor is designed and production has begun, the total energy available to the entire civilization is truly unlimited. As long as proton decay doesn't occur in the universe, the energy provided by this vacuum zero-point energy reactor, based on amplifying the Casimir effect, will be enough to sustain our entire civilization for eternity."

"Wait, you said zero-point energy reactor? You created real negative energy? That means Akuberi engine and wormhole..." Just when Luoyang hadn't finished his excited words, Elena stretched out her hand to signal Luoying not to get excited, and ruthlessly poured a basin of cold water on him.

"If you're talking about the Alcubierre drive, which travels faster than light, and wormholes propagated by negative-mass exotic matter, we haven't actually achieved either of those things to this day. The zero-point energy reactor we've created uses a microscopic black hole spinning at high speed within the reactor's core to generate an extremely high rate of change in gravitational potential energy, causing a small-scale distortion of spacetime. In this process, vacuum energy is converted into gravitational potential energy, generating gravitational waves that propel the spacecraft. Because gravity is essentially the effect of spacetime distortion, it's equivalent to the spacetime within which the spacecraft is located moving. Our zero-point energy reactor doesn't actually create a true vacuum."

As we all know, the zero-point energy of a vacuum is actually a tiny, non-zero positive value. The pseudo-vacuum we create is simply smaller than this non-zero positive value. Through the energy level difference generated by the gravitational potential energy of the black hole, we are able to use the infinite energy of zero-point energy. However, because this pseudo-vacuum is still a positive value, we do not obtain true negative energy and matter. Therefore, Alcubierre or warp drive based on negative mass exotic matter is still impossible.

"The prerequisite for a superluminal Akubei drive is to make the negative energy flow itself superluminal, so as to construct a stable warp bubble."

"This means that you need to actually make the negative energy flow faster than the speed of light before you can create a superluminal spacecraft, which in itself becomes a chicken-and-egg paradox."

"And because the energy produced by our zero-point energy reactor isn't true vacuum negative energy, even though the value of this energy is very small, it's still positive. Without negative energy or negative mass exotic matter, we can't create a true superluminal Alcubierre drive."

"Similarly, without truly negative energy and mass, we cannot use them to expand and maintain quantum states in microscopic wormholes."

"Although the technologies of the Sky Star civilizations scattered across various galaxies flourished over the following hundreds of thousands of years, and the entire civilization experienced rapid growth amidst the exponential explosion brought about by the technological singularity, the speed of space travel remained almost completely limited to the insurmountable threshold of the speed of light. Over these hundreds of thousands of years, the speed of the Sky Star civilization has long since truly approached the speed of light."

"The engines and propulsion technology used by the Sky Star civilization today are no longer the early recoil propulsion engines that relied on high-speed discharge of working fluids. Although superluminal Alcubierre drives are unfeasible, the Tiantian Star civilization has not given up on this. We have chosen the second-best option, the sub-light Alcubierre warp drive. Due to the lack of negative mass exotic matter and negative energy, we cannot construct a truly closed warp bubble. We have to use a warp loop that is not closed to the outside world as an alternative. The price is that at a speed close to the speed of light, the spacecraft's time will become extremely slow relative to the outside world. After each near-light-speed journey, the spacecraft must recalibrate its time with the outside world. Fortunately... because the individual Sky Star people have almost infinite lifespans, the problem caused by this difference in time flow is not serious."

"Although severe relativistic effects will cause the time in the spacecraft's reference frame to become out of sync with the time in the departure point's reference frame, since it doesn't need to carry large amounts of fuel and working fluids like a work-medium spacecraft, the spacecraft's volume and mass can actually be greatly reduced. However, all sub-light-speed Alcubierre drive spacecraft must have a warp ring surrounding the hull, and the entire hull structure must be designed around this functional compartment."

"With the improvement of sub-light-speed Alcubierre drive technology, the spacecraft uses the curvature of space to generate anti-mass vibrations during navigation. This reverses the curvature of space, allowing the spacecraft to slide forward in a safer and more stable manner, like a slide, towards the front. Compared to the early Alcubierre drive test ships, this method is safer for near-light-speed navigation. When leaving the near-light-speed state, the various high-energy particle jets and Hawking radiation generated, which are also close to relativistic speeds, will also become more controllable.

However, this engine and navigation method are not without disadvantages. Such gravitational vibrations will produce gravitational lenses, and gravitational lenses often expand to tens or even nearly a hundred astronomical units in size, although this is nothing for a planetary system.

"However, if a large number of spacecraft frequently initiate warp flights in the same region of space, it will have a devastating impact on the structure of space. These regions often have continuous gravitational lenses forming. Space buildings and infrastructure surrounding the affected regions will need to be relocated periodically to avoid being trapped in the chaotic region of low-speed gravitational lenses generated by Alcubierre curvature spacecraft."

"Although this shortcoming of sub-light-speed Alcubierre drive spacecraft has been gradually improved in subsequent development, the scale of the low-light-speed gravitational lens generated during near-light-speed travel has continued to shrink. Ultimately, we have reduced the area of ​​influence of the low-light-speed gravitational lens generated by this sub-light-speed warp drive during operation to an almost negligible level."

"In addition, the low-speed regions created by the old Alcubierre warp drive aren't permanent. These low-speed gravitational lens regions will slowly dissipate on their own within tens to hundreds of years. This "cosmic environmental pollution" problem, which caused us some minor trouble for a period of time, has been completely resolved with the development of our technology."

"With improvements in technology, later Alcubierre drives no longer have this problem of gravitational lensing in low-light-speed regions, and we have a deeper understanding of how to apply technology to accelerate spacecraft to near-light speeds."

"So far, we've primarily used three types of spacecraft propulsion technologies. The first is the one you're most familiar with, which uses high-speed jets of working fluid to propel spacecraft. The second relies on the microscopic black holes in zero-point energy reactors to create gravitons, generating anti-mass vibrations and allowing for space curvature navigation. This method of navigation can reach speeds approaching the speed of light."

"The third option, developed later with the development of space curvature technology, is another technical approach: the inertia-free stacked tidal gravity engine. This zero-inertia propulsion device, developed based on space curvature navigation, creates an asymmetric gravity field in all directions of the spacecraft, generating a gravitational drop. This allows the spacecraft to accelerate to near the speed of light in a very short time and distance, while the crew inside the cabin will not feel any effects of gravity acceleration or inertia."

"In the development process, we initially used working fluid-propelled spacecraft, then the sub-light-speed Alcubierre curvature engine, and finally the inertia-free stacked tidal gravity engine developed based on curvature navigation technology. Although these three navigation technologies are indeed becoming increasingly advanced in terms of technological development, we have never been able to break through the speed of light. Today, the spacecraft of the Sky Star civilization are basically equipped with all three engines at the same time. Even though we have navigation technology that can instantly accelerate to near the speed of light, well, this speed is still too slow for the Milky Way, and even the universe."

"Our prolonged inability to break through the speed of light has significantly limited the expansion of our civilization. Although matter and energy have never been scarce throughout the history of Sky News, the speed of light has limited the ability of the Sky Star system and the 5000 surrounding colonized systems to communicate virtually anything other than information. The vast distances between star systems make any material flow impossible. Even with near-light-speed travel technology, navigation and logistics times measured in years are still unacceptably slow."

"Over the past hundreds of thousands of years, the Sky Star civilization, while exploring the universe, has also attempted to find traces of other intelligent life around it. However, research into the 1000-light-year-diameter bubble where Sky Star resides indicates that we are the only intelligent life within this 1000-light-year radius. The highest level of life that exists in this bubble besides us is a few microorganisms and bacteria found on a desolate planet approximately 275 light-years from the Sky Star system."

"12 years have passed, and neither we nor the Tree of Life have found any real clues about the 'Creator'. No trace of any intelligent life has been found within this bubble either. It's as if this universe is completely dead..."

"Until...your accident happened." Elena turned her head and smiled, meeting Luoying's gaze.

Chapter 124: Grey Wind Mothership and Zelli Night Fighter? (6000 words)

"Me?" Luo Ying, who had Lamia's face, pointed at himself in surprise.

"Indeed... your memories reveal a completely new possibility... the specific social structure and history of another civilization. Although, judging from your memories... the development of a civilization that evolved naturally is a typical and complete example of all the negatives."

"Before that, we never knew that a civilization could create so many negative examples in the process of development. Although before you arrived, quite a few individuals in our civilization had put forward the hypothesis... that under normal circumstances, a civilization that evolved naturally without any external interference might have a more tortuous development process than the civilization on Sky Star... But we never thought that a civilization that evolved in a natural state without interference would appear so... chaotic... and... blind." After some consideration, Elena used a relatively euphemistic and appropriate word to describe the development process of human civilization.

"Chaos...? Come to think of it... it's true... thousands of years of human history are filled with bloodshed and death. If these losses can teach humanity lessons for the future, then so be it. But in over 90% of cases, humanity doesn't learn anything from history at all."

"The inherent thinking and genetic flaws that humans have developed over the course of their long evolution and civilization have led to a vicious cycle in human social systems and history. These thinking flaws have accumulated for at least thousands of years since the formation of civilization, and modern humans are forced to patch up this vicious cycle, bad habits, and mountain of code that has accumulated for thousands of years."

"For example, in my hometown, a considerable number of contradictions and problems based on wealth distribution are largely the vicious consequences of various inertial ideas that have accumulated over thousands of years." Having witnessed the fall of countless difficult-to-eradicate chaos in society in the past, I know that the root of these problems lies in the fundamental flaws of human beings themselves.

Moreover, this fundamental flaw is almost unsolvable before humans completely transform themselves through technological means.

"Speaking of which, I never expected humans to be able to create some kind of utopia from this pile of shit-like codes and social systems that have accumulated for thousands of years. The fundamental flaws in human nature make it impossible for humans to truly realize their imagined ideal society." Luo Ying looked up at the sky. Above the clouds, the orbiting star rings were slowly rotating with the planets.

"Are you... so... disappointed with your race?" Elena seemed quite surprised.

"Haha... of course I'm disappointed... If it weren't for the negative side of our nature, why would we need narratives like nation and state to maintain unity? We treat fellow citizens of the same species as enemies, and have been fighting each other endlessly for thousands of years."

"We are all Homo sapiens, the same species, yet we have been able to split into hundreds of nations and ethnic groups on this tiny blue planet. And then these hundreds of nations and ethnic groups are hostile to each other, fighting to the death for the slightest short-term gain."

"The ultimate consequences of these actions are causing civilization as a whole to deteriorate in an unacceptable direction. The impact of conflict and war is radiating across the globe. Impoverished regions are suffering from hunger, natural disasters, and war, while many so-called developed countries and their citizens are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy."

"What's even more ridiculous is that the vast majority of humans still naively believe that this kind of game of back-and-forth is the best strategy for solving problems. Many people go to war with their fellow citizens who live on the same planet just for a little bit of benefit." Luo Ying revealed a rather cynical expression when he said this.

"It has been proven that if human civilization continues to develop in this long-term vicious cycle, it will only lead itself into the abyss of destruction and be trapped in its cradle."

“There have been countless opportunities throughout the history of our civilization to improve this situation, but the choices and actions of all people have allowed this vicious cycle to continue until I arrived here.”