The stars, but they become the gray wind

"The new generation of space stations and space cities generally have a flat dome structure with a built-in degenerate gravity generator that can generate a stable gravity toward the bottom of this plane. Alpha VII is one of the few relics from that era that has survived to this day. Although Alpha VII is indeed a relic, the interesting thing is... as a civilization and race that did not even have death in its development process, all the Sky Star people who lived in that era are still alive and well. They are all older than Alpha VII itself." Anna said jokingly to Luoying.

Chapter 132: Kalisi: I think it can be built like this? (5000 words)

"In general, Alpha Seven is a fairly old space city, and the number of residents living in it is pitifully small, only around 300 people."

"Such a large space station, but only so few people?" Luo Ying watched the Alpha 7 growing larger and larger as the relative distance between it and the Runner spacecraft shortened.

"How many people do you think a cultural relic-level space city would have?"

"These 300-plus people are more like the small staff responsible for guarding artifacts in a museum. Furthermore, thanks to the nanomechanical automated maintenance system, these museum staff responsible for guarding Alpha VII usually don't have to do anything. Alpha VII's normal use is like those warships in your civilization that have been converted into museums. Aside from the occasional visit from tourists from other galaxies, it remains nearly idle for long periods of time."

"But... if this event is held here, and there are only a few hundred people usually, won't we be too busy to host an event of this scale?" Luo Ying asked.

"Don't worry about this...Although Alpha 7 is a cultural relic, it has all the necessary functions, such as this..." Elena said as she zoomed in on an area of ​​the real-time image of Alpha 7 captured by the spacecraft's external sensors. That area was located at the root of the cylindrical body of Alpha 7. A series of docking ports and berths were distributed on a huge and slender main structure extending from the root.

"This is one of Alpha VII's primary outer space ports. As an old port with a history of nearly 100,000 years, although its structural design is quite outdated, its design capacity is definitely not small. From the beginning, Alpha VII's space port was designed to be able to berth over hundreds of large and medium-sized cargo ships over 20 kilometers in length simultaneously. There are nearly 10,000 berths for small ships under 100 meters in length, such as the Runner. In addition, Alpha VII has a complete production and assembly 3D printing dock, which can manufacture and assemble complete ships from raw materials obtained from asteroids. As an old model space city that has long been retired, Alpha VII's assembly dock is capable of simultaneously constructing dozens of medium and large ships over 20 kilometers in length."

"Although these shipyards... have never reached full capacity in the past 100,000 years, even during the period of the Sky Star civilization's largest expansion into other star systems, the vast majority of shipyards and spacecraft assembly plants within the Sky Star system never reached true full capacity. The energy and productivity provided by the Dyson Cloud have indeed caused the entire Sky Star system to be in a state of overproduction of matter and energy, resulting in the shipyards of most space cities and space facilities operating at low power and low efficiency for a long time."

"By the way... this gathering and race only allow retro spacecraft that don't use any inertia-free drives or space control drives like Alcubierre engines. In other words, those that propel themselves by expelling working fluid backwards at high speeds. So the Runner clearly doesn't meet these regulations and standards..."

"Then how do we participate?"

“The answer is: DIY on site, that is, hand rubbing”

"Ah?" Miss Luoying looked confused.

"Don't be so surprised. Although Alpha VII's dock and spacecraft production and assembly facilities are antiques, building a spacecraft with a retro style and technology is still no problem. These kind of antique-level retro spacecraft are readily available in the Sky Star people's spiritual perception network and galaxy data network. Just find a design and upload it to Alpha VII's automated manufacturing dock. If it's a small spacecraft under 100 meters like the Runner, it can be manufactured and assembled in less than an hour... and then..."

"Then, we can drive this old spaceship to participate in the retro spaceship racing competition." Anna continued Elena's words.

"Although our main focus this time is participation...but what if we win? We can get close to the mermaid girls who are the organizers." Anna said with a smile on her face.

"I think even if we participate this time, the chances of winning are low. You know, those retro spaceship enthusiasts are all artists who have spent a long time studying how to create new things on these spaceships that use obsolete technology. Who knows what they will come up with in this competition? I have a hunch... The spaceship they make is definitely not a simple work medium propulsion spacecraft." Elena poured cold water on her sister Anna mercilessly.

"Forget it, let's not talk about this for now, let's just dock first..." At this time, a signal from the Alpha 7 Spaceport's artificial intelligence control system appeared in front of the Runner's driving seat, informing everyone on the Runner that they could dock the spacecraft at the corresponding port berth.

"Berth 999 in Area A? That number is quite...unique, isn't it?"

Ying sighed after seeing the message.

"Maybe I can observe other contestants' spaceships during the docking period?" Anna muttered.

"Perhaps... but I think it's better not to pin our hopes on it. You saw it before. Fran's spaceship clearly looks like it uses an outdated nuclear pulse propulsion system. God knows how she managed to stuff a tidal stacking inertia-free engine into it."

"It's very likely that the other contestants' spaceships are also those weird things that look very backward at first glance, but are actually very advanced inside." Elena pressed a holographic button on the operating position and started the spaceship's automatic parking program.

…………

A moment later, under the control of the automatic parking program, the Runner docked steadily in its own berth. On both sides of the Runner's berth, there were two spaceships parked on the left and right. In Elena's opinion, the shapes of the spaceships were ancient and peculiar.

"These two at berths 998 and 1000...are really...classics?" In the cockpit, Elena looked at the spaceships on both sides of her through the holographic images constructed by the Runner's external sensors and used a very euphemistic evaluation.

"Uh... this thing looks familiar. The bell-shaped nozzle structure at the tail is hollow? Could it be a magnetic confinement nozzle? And such a slender engine body... and such a huge and regular heat sink, this thing... can't be a magnetic mirror fusion reactor thruster, right?" Luo Ying asked while observing one of the spaceships with great interest.

"You guessed right... This spaceship really is a magnetic mirror fusion reactor. If nothing unexpected happens, and the owner hasn't made any unusual modifications, its reactor should be fueled by deuterium-helium-3 or pure helium-3, using liquid hydrogen or water as a propellant. Magnetic mirror fusion reactors of this configuration generally use deuterium-helium-3 or pure helium-3. Of course, we can't be completely certain just by looking at the appearance, and we can't rule out the possibility that the owner has made some unusual modifications."

"But... isn't the acceleration of the magnetic mirror fusion engine particularly ugly?" Luo Ying asked curiously.

"It all depends on your definition of decent acceleration... The magnetic mirror fusion engine used on this spacecraft once had a unique variable specific impulse and thrust version, capable of achieving a specific impulse close to 200 km/s while maintaining 0.3G acceleration. If you consider increasing acceleration at the expense of significantly reducing exhaust velocity, you can increase acceleration to 1.5G. Similarly, by giving up higher acceleration to increase exhaust velocity, you can increase exhaust velocity to nearly 230 km/s."

"But this... isn't it still a torch ship after all?" Luo Ying complained.

"Actually, this engine was more of a supplement at the time. With the widespread availability of nuclear saltwater engines using 90% enriched uranium and exhaust velocities reaching 1.5% of the speed of light, this magnetic engine was essentially used as a propulsion system for slow and bulky unmanned cargo ships, where the total time required for a single voyage wasn't a concern. Furthermore, these ships generally used variable-ratio fusion magnetic mirror thrusters as an auxiliary engine. After all, its acceleration and the time it took to reach maximum speed were too low for a flare ship."

"I think... your demands and requirements for the torch ship are a bit too harsh?" Luo Ying felt a little embarrassed.

"It's not so bad… Although the people of Sky Star naturally have a long lifespan, that doesn't mean we can tolerate the long interplanetary travel time required by inefficient engines. Since the birth of Sky Star civilization, we have been very concerned about efficiency."

"According to the view at the time... if a spacecraft's interplanetary voyage within a galaxy couldn't be completed within three months, then the propulsion system used by the spacecraft was considered extremely inefficient."

"Uh... based on your perspective back then... you must have looked down on electric propulsion systems that have high specific impulse but terribly low thrust, right?"

"We don't really despise ion propulsion, after all, we used it quite a lot back then. However, it was mostly used to maintain orbits for space stations or spacecraft. As for interplanetary propulsion systems, we almost never used electric propulsion. Although we did attempt a few interplanetary transfer tests using fusion electric propulsion, the thrust and specific impulse of fusion electric propulsion spacecraft clearly couldn't meet our needs at the time. So, although a batch of nuclear-powered electric propulsion spacecraft were produced at the time, they were mostly just toys for the public, just like the various bizarre modified cars commonly seen in your civilization. Nuclear propulsion was just seen as an interesting toy by some Sky Star people and groups at the time."

"Hmm... Let me ask you first, what was the performance level of your fusion electric propulsion engine at that time?"

"Well... if it was over 100,000 years ago, shortly after Alpha 7 was built, the fusion propulsion exhaust velocity at that time could have reached about 47 km/s, with an acceleration of 0.01g?"

"Specific impulse of 4700 seconds? ! This performance is better than most fission nuclear thermal engines, right? The NTR solid core fission nuclear thermal engine's data of only 1200 seconds is nothing compared to this thing, right? !!" Luo Ying shouted in shock.

"Why are you so excited? The performance of this engine was abysmal at the time, okay? A mere 4700 seconds of specific impulse, and the inference and acceleration were so low. It wouldn't even be enough for an unmanned cargo ship or a small unmanned probe. With that kind of acceleration, how long would it take to reach top speed?"

"If you have that much time, you might as well... use a nuclear saltwater engine. At least it only takes a very short distance to accelerate to maximum speed. And the V of a ship equipped with a high-concentration nuclear saltwater thruster at the same total mass is much better than this crappy fusion electric propulsion."

"Hiss... I think there's a billion-point... deviation between our definitions of interplanetary navigation efficiency?" Luo Ying said with a headache, holding his head.

"Back home, a specific impulse of 1200 seconds per second is considered impressive. For example, the prototype NTR nuclear thermal propulsion system, in my civilization's opinion, is efficient enough for preliminary Earth-Mars orbital transfers and interplanetary travel. Engines with a specific impulse of over 20,000 seconds per second and an acceleration of 0.01g are considered excellent torch engines, but they are only dreamed of and remain only on paper designs. And propulsion systems with exhaust velocities that can easily reach a percentage of the speed of light are basically considered to exist only in the concept."

"But when it comes to you... there seem to be some... uh... very serious... deviations in our definitions of the torch engine and the efficiency and time of interplanetary orbit transfer?" Luo Ying said almost word by word.

"Speaking of which, according to your definition... if the time required for an interplanetary orbital transfer within the entire solar system is longer than three months, is it considered inefficient?"

"Almost, but this was actually a relatively low standard for that period of time," Elena replied.

"Wait a minute... a lower standard? What's the higher standard?"

"The high standard at the time was that for something like a flare engine, we should pursue an upper limit, rather than a relatively low lower limit as a benchmark for efficiency calculations."

"At the time, a widely accepted high standard specification was that as long as the maximum speed an engine could reach was less than a percentage of the speed of light, that is, less than 1% of the speed of light, then the engine was relatively inefficient."

"Ah...this?" After hearing the high standards mentioned by Elena, Luo Ying was speechless for a moment.

"Are you sure this is the standard for torch ships?"

"The standards for your torch ship are too high... How can this be the standard for an interplanetary torch ship? This is the standard for an interstellar spacecraft, right?" Luo Ying complained, holding his head.

"No... This was the standard for interplanetary torch ships that prevailed at the time. Later designs and construction of interstellar colony ships used a higher set of standards."

"Uh... taller than this? Are you crazy?"

"Not much higher. After realizing that the exhaust velocity and specific impulse limits of a nuclear fusion engine might only be a few percent of the speed of light, we began developing more efficient antimatter propulsion devices. The efficiency of the several nuclear fusion interstellar navigation test ships we've built in the past has been less than ideal."

"The engines on these test ships are fusion propulsion devices you call Daedalus engines. While pulsed thermonuclear engines can indeed achieve impressive speeds, reaching nearly 13% of the speed of light in several unmanned test flights, the acceleration distance required for this engine is still too long, and the dry-to-mass ratio of these test ships is indeed not very good."

"After a series of practical tests, we concluded that any engine based on nuclear fusion, even with a certain amount of positron-antimatter fusion propulsion, is still insufficient compared to the vast distances required for interstellar travel."

"That's why we developed and manufactured a propulsion system that was later based entirely on the annihilation of matter and antideuterium. Although this propulsion system had problems in its early development, the thrust and acceleration provided by the gamma-ray jet were too small. It often required the installation of an additional fusion engine on the spacecraft to provide high thrust and high acceleration to compensate for the long time it took for the antimatter engine to accelerate to a maximum speed of 0.7 to 0.8 times the speed of light."

"How should I put it? Your starting point in torch engines is indeed very high. If there were other civilizations, they would probably envy you to death, right?" Luo Ying sighed.

"What the hell is this?" Yuki's eyes twitched as he looked at the drone in front of him that had been modified almost beyond recognition. He turned around and asked Calisi behind him.

"Considering the drone's insufficient ability to destroy armored targets, I made some 'small' improvements." The purple-haired girl replied with her hands spread out.

"You call this... a small improvement?"

"yes…"

"What are those four incredibly long, glowing green gun barrels on this drone?"

"Gauss weapons."

"You're putting Gauss weapons on a drone?"

"Yeah... those four original plasma cannons aren't very effective against targets like bunkers and armor. I was thinking, why not equip the drone with some weapons that can render all armor useless?"

"Then?"

"Then I came to a conclusion. Since the goal is to make any enemy armor as brittle as a piece of paper in the face of drone fire, then Gauss weapons that can ignore all armor in principle are naturally the best choice."

"I'm thinking...are you a greenskin? Giving a drone a Segos weapon? This thing looks weird no matter how you look at it."

"I think this thing looks pretty good, both beautiful and delicate. Look, these four translucent gun barrels match the white shell of the drone very well, don't they?" Carlisle said confidently.

"What the hell is this background? This thing is glowing green. There's a green thing floating around in the air. It looks weird no matter how I look at it!!!"

"You are Grey Wind, not Greenskin. Don't ask me to combine two things with completely different styles together!!!" Looking at the purple-haired girl with Greenskin tendencies in front of him, Yuki held his forehead with a speechless look and shouted angrily.

Chapter 133: Artificial Intelligence That Doesn't Like Physical Carriers? (5000 words)

After arriving at Alpha 7, in order to attend the party, Elena brought Luoying and Anna to the spacecraft production and assembly area of ​​Alpha 7, and uploaded a design drawing of an old model spacecraft here.

"Okay, next we just need to go to the restaurant to have a cup of coffee and some snacks, and then wait a while, we can go to the physics station to pick up the ship." After uploading the blueprints, Elena took Luo Ying and Anna to a restaurant next to the zero-gravity dock. There happened to be a huge transparent floor-to-ceiling window in this restaurant that could directly see the scene inside the zero-gravity dock. Luo Ying lay on the glass with some boredom, looking at the spaceship in the dock that had completed the keel printing and was being sprayed with nanomaterials to fill the outer shell and internal structure. The outer shell of the spaceship sprayed with nanomaterials and the keel formed atomic-level adhesion the moment they came into contact at the material level. After the main body of the spaceship was formed, the self-replicating machinery of the micro-structural blocks that constituted the spaceship itself changed its own basic particle structure according to actual needs, and shut down its own micro-antimatter reactor to ensure the stability and safety of the main structure of the spaceship.

"Hmm... a spaceship made of nanomaterials? This scene looks really magical..." Miss Luoying muttered softly as she looked at the spaceship.

"In fact, regarding self-replicating machines at the nanoscale and smaller scale, the Sky Star civilization has had some special ideas in history..." Elena brought a cup of coffee with sugar and handed it to Luoying who was lying by the window.

"What idea? Didn't you say you still haven't figured out where the original self-replicating machines on your home planet came from?"

"That's not the point. Although we don't know the origins of the first von Neumann self-replicators on Jupiter, it doesn't affect our ability to use them to explore the unknown... and... the universe..."

"The other idea I was talking about was actually... at that time, the Sky Star civilization was discussing whether to launch such a von Neumann self-replicator or a completely unmanned automatic detector with similar functions to other galaxies in the Milky Way..." Elena shook the coffee cup and stirred the foam in the coffee cup with a spoon.

"and after?"

"We didn't do that... We have no way of knowing for sure whether a completely harmless von Neumann self-replicating probe, to the Sky Aliens, would cause damage to or even exterminate any life that might exist in an alien environment."

"Even the earliest versions of nanomachines that exist naturally on Sky Star... their ability to adapt to and assimilate the environment is incredibly strong."

"We have imagined all sorts of alien life forms, and of course we've considered the devastating consequences of launching a von Neumann self-replicating probe into the more distant regions of the Milky Way..."

"But... haven't those nanomachines on your home planet existed for billions of years? They shouldn't have had any problems during that time, right?"

"That's because of the Tree of Life, the control center. In the history of our civilization, we conducted an experiment to test the direction in which primitive nanomachines on the mother planet would evolve in a natural environment without any external control center and without any human interference."

"Ideally, if there were sufficient energy and resources within the reach of the nanorobots, the original nanorobots from their home planet would simply multiply and replicate themselves infinitely by harvesting energy from surrounding resources. Furthermore, these nanomachines should be able to identify and avoid living organisms, consuming only inorganic matter to replicate themselves."

"But the experimental results..."

"What happened to the experimental results?"

"It was very unexpected... and terrible... After the Tree of Life voluntarily relinquished control of the experimental nanomachines, the nanomachines placed inside a hollowed-out asteroid completely devoured the organic matter that served as the basis for life and had been cultivated outside of Sky Star's ecosystem. These substances had no connection to Sky Star's ecosystem itself, along with the surrounding inorganic minerals and rocks. The entire asteroid, serving as the experimental subject, was completely hollowed out in a remarkably short period of time. When the completely uncontrolled nanomachines had gnawed away the asteroid, leaving only an empty shell, the Tree of Life regained control of all the nanomachines within.

"However, this and subsequent experiments have also revealed something strange: the original nanomachines born from the mother planet of Sky Star, and the subsequent series of improved self-replicating machines, will instinctively avoid and disperse all kinds of animals, plants, and Sky Star people from the Sky Star biosphere, even when they are completely out of control."

"Are these nanomachines programmed with some kind of safety program that won't harm the flora and fauna or the people of Sky Star?" Luo Ying asked, leaning against the glass window while stirring the coffee with a spoon in her hand.

"No... It's not that these nanomachines have some kind of security program. It's simply that in their recognition, all living things or organic matter born from Sky Star itself are considered to be of the same kind. Driven by instinct, the nanomachines will not expend extra energy and material to decompose and devour beings that are already "of the same kind."

"It's precisely because of this... that we dare not launch the nanomachines containing the birth words from the mother star, Sky, as interstellar probes to other regions of the Milky Way. Far away from the control center, the Tree of Life, these replicators will only act on instinct. In other star systems far from the Milky Way, there are no plants, animals, or organic matter from Sky itself. If there is some form of life there, the probability of our probes causing a disaster is almost 100%."

"So... all the probes we send to areas outside the local bubble are not capable of self-replication. For safety reasons, these probes do not have any strong artificial intelligence programs."

"Safe" means for possible extraterrestrial life?

"It's not just one-sided. It's about the 'safety' of both us and extraterrestrial life. The Sky Star civilization can't guarantee that it's the most advanced civilization in the entire Milky Way, or even the universe. If the probe we launch discovers a civilization more advanced than ours, or is discovered by another more advanced civilization, we don't want to risk the probe's self-replication capabilities sparking hostility from that civilization."

"So the probe you sent out..."

"They are all programmed with a complete automatic destruction program."

"From 100,000 years ago to now, how many probes have you launched?"

"Countless. If you want a more accurate number, it's probably around this number." Elena raised one hand to Luoying and spread out her five fingers.

"500? No... Considering that you now occupy more than 5000 star systems, it's impossible that there are only this many." Luo Ying first reported the number almost subconsciously, then shook his head, denying this obviously unreasonable number to himself.

"Then... considering the territories of more than 5000 galaxies, is it 5000?" Luo Ying asked Elena uncertainly.

Elena shook her head calmly.

"5000 isn't right either? It can't be 5, right?"

After hearing Luoying's answer, Elena still shook her head in denial.

"How much is that?"

"The correct answer is more than 50 unmanned probes." Elena revealed the answer.

"so much?!"

"It seems like a lot, but in reality, the vast majority have never ventured beyond the Local Bubble. Remember? Our civilization's territory has spread to over 5000 star systems within 300 light-years of the home galaxy. But in reality, we've launched unmanned probes into almost every star system within the 1000-light-year diameter of the Local Bubble. Although the Sky Aliens' own activity area is limited to a 300-light-year spherical space centered on the home galaxy, the probes we've launched have mapped nearly every star in the Local Bubble. It was only after these 50+ probes had flown through nearly every single star system in this abnormally negatively charged Milky Way Local Bubble that we were able to confirm the absence of any trace of life within 1000 light-years of the home star."

"There's nothing within 1000 light years? So... maybe you're truly alone in the universe?"

"Yes... Even the most primitive microorganisms don't exist on planets within 1000 light-years. This caused us to drastically revise our estimates of the density of intelligent life in the universe during the early days of space exploration. It's said that those in charge of extraterrestrial life exploration at the time were quite frustrated, searching the skies but finding nothing... until..."

"Until I showed up?"

"Well... although you are indeed an accident, after spending 100,000 years without verifying the existence of alien life, you unexpectedly verified the possibility of the multiverse theory in quantum mechanics."

"So, regarding my... time travel? Have you figured out anything?"

"Unfortunately, there isn't one yet. Although many of my compatriots have proposed a multitude of possible theories, you're the only case, so there's no way to verify it."

"Oh... is that so?" Luo Ying seemed a little disappointed.