The stars, but they become the gray wind

"Whenever necessary... the Corrector's Shell can directly alter its own microscopic physical form, transforming itself into a gaseous or liquid state, or even into a collection of discrete elementary particles."

"So powerful? And... I'm quite curious, how did you get this thing from Cabot in the future?" Yuki asked thoughtfully.

"Unfortunately... no... I didn't bring back the future Corrector's Shell when I came here. The Corrector's Shell before you is the Corrector's Shell at this point in time, and it has actually been on your ship all along."

"Wait, now? On the ship? This thing has always been on the ship? How come I didn't know there was such a thing on my ship?"

The purple-haired girl's future self asked rapidly.

"It's always been there... you just haven't noticed. It's stored in a secret compartment on the ship. That compartment itself has certain antimemetic properties. Even if your brain is connected to the entire ship via neural cables, you will subconsciously ignore the area where that compartment is located."

"I can't even find it...then how did you get in?" the purple-haired girl asked again.

"Nothing much... It's just that in the future, during the long-term use of the Corrector's Shell, I've learned some methods to restrain the antimemes that allow you to selectively ignore certain things."

"After all, this involves the Age of Miracles and Fantasy, as well as the higher-level technologies of the Combined Fleet regarding consciousness. It's still a bit too complicated for you right now."

"In particular, this antimemetic influence has been enhanced specifically to target the enhanced sensory abilities of nanomechanical aggregates like Gray Wind."

"Besides its antimemetic properties, the room containing the Corrector's Shell doesn't have any special protective measures. As long as you can overcome the room's inherent invisibility due to the inverse magic sound effect, even you can easily enter it. As for Cabot's reaction, I can't say. I ran into her when I was secretly trying to retrieve the Corrector's Shell."

"How did she react when she caught you stealing her vest?"

"Not really... She just talked to me about the whole story and let me take it away. Maybe for her, a shell that is only occasionally used as a multi-functional drone today is not a very important thing?" The future Calisi recalled the strange smile of Cabot when she took away the Shell of the Corrector at this point in time. The purple-haired girl in the future always had a bad premonition.

Unknowingly, several months passed by in a flash. During these months, almost all parties were busy with their own affairs. The Sky Star civilization was accelerating the construction of wormhole networks in existing galaxies. At the same time, in the orbital docks of various galaxies, expedition ships were continuously rolling off the production line. Since the Sky Star civilization has always been relatively steady in its expansion and development, the scale of this exploration and expedition fleet is unprecedentedly large. In order to officially launch the exploration plan of the center of the Milky Way in a few months, the Sky Star civilization has prepared more than hundreds of thousands of ships in just a few months. These ships are equipped with comprehensive and complete functional facilities such as scientific research, scanning, ecological recycling systems, celestial engineering construction modules, etc. Among the completed huge fleet parked in the orbit of Sky Star, you can also see the huge figures of large colonial ships of the same model as the Salem, which accounts for nearly 20% of the entire fleet.

"Speaking of which...how is the progress of the wormhole network construction in various star systems of the Sky Star civilization?" Anna scratched her cheek and asked Xiao You beside her.

"Slightly faster than expected... but still not fast enough. This is the estimated time required to establish a complete FTL infrastructure in all galaxies."

"It can be completed in three months... doesn't seem like too much?"

"It's actually a bit slow for us."

"Is that still slow? It took less than a year to complete the construction of those large anchor wormholes in over 5000 star systems. Isn't that fast enough?"

"Besides... it's not like a galaxy can just drop a large stargate or a wormhole at the edge. Besides the large stargates used for transportation, there are also various micro-wormholes throughout the galaxy for material transport. For example, the strange quark clusters extracted from the neutron star cores of neutron star power stations, including A001, are basically transported to the various galaxies in need through small anchored wormholes operating near the stellar energy wells. Otherwise, without those neutron stars and so many high-dimensional space jump engine ships, the total amount of strange quark cluster matter required would be a huge amount. This is also thanks to the abundance of neutron stars within our civilization. Otherwise, this material, which naturally only exists in the cores of neutron stars, would be extremely expensive to produce. Without so many neutron stars, we would have to use the Datong Wuba Bar Neighboring Qi Fusion Theory Verification Machine particle accelerator to produce it at a loss."

"What's more... in addition to the high-dimensional gravitational wave communication that uses the same principle as the high-dimensional space jump engine, the current means of maintaining superluminal communication between galaxies are the numerous micro-wormholes that serve as superluminal communication transmission channels within each galaxy. In addition, each spacecraft equipped with a high-dimensional space jump engine also has a micro-wormhole inside it. The other end of Tongtong is connected to the neutron star energy well facility that collects and stores strange quark clusters. Through the micro-wormhole, it supplies the strange quark cluster matter consumed by those spacecraft during the operation of the high-dimensional space jump engine."

"Although the large star tunnels connecting various galaxies are the largest part of the entire wormhole network project, it is also the most time-saving part of the entire project. The most time-consuming and costly part is the layout of the micro-wormhole channels used in various fields, especially the micro-wormhole channels used to transmit strange quark cluster matter to neutron stars. In the entire wormhole network construction process, this part is definitely the longest part to build." Elena explained to her sister.

"Due to the special properties of strangelet matter—its unusual density and mass—transporting it places considerable pressure on the microwormhole channel. The neutron star collection facility must carefully control the flow of strangelet matter through the microwormhole channel. Otherwise, if the flow exceeds the channel's maximum mass capacity, it could easily cause the channel to collapse."

"Since the mass of matter that can pass through the micro-wormhole used to transport strange quark clusters is limited each time, why not use a larger wormhole to transport this kind of thing?" Anna asked puzzledly.

"Let me answer this!" Xiao You said before Elena spoke again.

"If a large wormhole is built near a celestial body like a neutron star, whose gravity and magnetic field are too extreme, the wormhole will inevitably be disturbed by the neutron star's gravity. The greater the mass of the wormhole itself, the more serious the interference of the neutron star's gravity and magnetic field on the wormhole. Therefore, all large artificial stargates and wormholes in neutron galaxies are built at the edge of the galaxy, far away from the influence of neutron stars. Otherwise, if a large-mass anchored wormhole is too close to a neutron star, it is very likely that it will not be able to maintain its stable existence due to the interference of the neutron star's intense gravity and magnetic field. For a wormhole like a neutron star to stably maintain its existence at extremely close distances, only small wormholes with smaller mass can remain undisturbed."

"If the diameter of the wormhole interface at a close distance from a neutron star exceeds one kilometer, it will be difficult to maintain its own stable existence."

"This is why you rarely see any massive wormholes with interface diameters exceeding one kilometer near neutron star power plants. For massive wormholes, the size of 1500-kilometer artificial stargates, to maintain their stability, they must stay away from extreme celestial bodies like neutron stars. The smaller the mass of a wormhole, the more stable it is near an extreme celestial body. Conversely, the larger the mass of the wormhole, the further away it must be from extreme celestial bodies like neutron stars or massive black holes."

"Both wormholes and warp travel are easily affected by various extreme astronomical phenomena in the universe. Although they are excellent and more cost-effective methods of superluminal travel compared to high-dimensional space jump engines, which require the consumption of large amounts of strange quark clusters and are expensive, they are also relatively less safe. Warp travel may collide with celestial bodies in its path, and wormholes can be affected by various extreme celestial bodies or astronomical phenomena, causing the entrances and exits at both ends to become unstable. Only high-dimensional space jump engines are completely unaffected by the various astronomical phenomena or celestial bodies in the three-dimensional universe and can carry out superluminal travel."

"But... I'm curious about another point..." Anna said slowly.

"Which point?"

"It's the high-dimensional space jump engine. Although its performance is very advanced, as a relatively cheap superluminal engine, its manufacturing and operating conditions are too harsh. The cost-effectiveness is too low, and the technical requirements are extremely high. If there are civilizations like ours that have just crossed the light speed threshold and do not have as abundant resources as we do, will they voluntarily give up the high-dimensional space jump engine, a means of superluminal travel that is powerful but too cost-effective?"

"If it's just about cost-effectiveness... I don't think a civilization that has already entered superluminal speed would give up high-dimensional space jump drives. This is a more advanced and superior technology, but not every Type II civilization has enough neutron stars to support the consumption of strangelet matter. I think... before a method of stable and large-scale mining of strangelet matter from neutron stars can be found, a normal Type II superluminal civilization probably won't deploy high-dimensional space jump drives on a large scale, right?"

"Perhaps we should consider something like a time bridge? You know, the wormhole channel that makes up the time bridge can transmit not only information from the future, but also matter. What if we can use the time bridge to directly transmit the various materials and even more advanced and complex technical equipment needed by our past selves?"

"A civilization like the Sky Star civilization, with a large number of neutron stars within 20 light-years of its home star system, is definitely an exception among exceptions. Furthermore, the Sky Star civilization has never lacked resources. However, for most civilizations that were born and developed in a natural state, the nearest neutron star is often far away. Lacking the resources provided by neutron stars, perhaps they are forced by reality and cost-effectiveness to choose the other two routes: wormholes and warp ships?"

The purple-haired girl from the future pressed her palm onto the Shell of the Corrector. As the surface of the shell changed with strange light and dark waves, the originally lifeless shell started to activate after a very regular pattern briefly emerged on the surface of the shell.

"Okay... My identity information and operating permissions have been entered. As my past self, you should be able to use this Corrector's Shell directly." The purple-haired girl waved to her past self, motioning her to step forward.

"You press your hand onto the shell to connect directly, and then try to control it."

The present Kalisi walked forward silently, and under the guidance of her future self, she pressed her right hand on the surface of the shell. The moment her skin touched the shell, Kalisi felt a brief dizziness. After the dizziness, her perspective came to the angle seen by the shell.

"How is it? How does it feel?"

"It's very strange... It's like... an enhanced version of my holographic vision. I can see all wavelengths of light in the air, including those invisible to the naked eye. I can also perceive the motion laws of all fundamental particles. All photon movements seem to be completely visualized. I seem to be able to control them in some way, and it seems that I can also read the thoughts of everyone present? This feels a bit weird..."

"The Shell's perspective is essentially an extremely comprehensive observation and scan of the entire world, transmitted to your brain. This includes even information as small as the motion states of all the microscopic particles that make up everything you see. Of course, your current perspective is still filtered to a certain degree. The Corrector's Shell filters out information that's useless or harmful to you at the moment. But even so, you still feel like you're overwhelmed with information, which is why you felt dizzy when you first connected to the Shell."

Chapter 156: The Magical Artistic Cells of the Giant Structure Fans

"The shell also has a number of additional functions, such as the ability to modulate the thoughts of intelligent creatures. This allows carbon-based intelligent creatures, which possess complex brains in the biological sense, to suppress or rewrite their thinking abilities without them even noticing. In stealth mode, the creatures are completely unaware that their thoughts and thinking have been artificially altered."

"In addition to this, the shell also comes with a technology called the Nebula Probe, which is specifically designed to disrupt and interfere with the unconscious collective subconscious of an entire civilization."

"The Nebula Probe is a device that allows the user to read the target's mind memory data at a short distance without any physical contact with the Nebula Probe itself.

By penetrating the collective subconscious nebula of civilization, it captures the subconscious information flows and thoughts of all life forms in the target area, as well as a small amount of declarative memory. "The purple-haired girl from the future operated the shell. Under her command, a silver-white probe, made of the same material as the Corrector's shell itself, with a double helix at its tip, detached from the shell's surface.

"As a technology for interfering with the minds and thoughts of an entire civilization, the Nebula Probe has many advantages."

"First, it's a microscopic technology, highly secretive and doesn't make macroscopic physical contact with the target life form. Even the high-tech sensing equipment of the Sky Star civilization can't detect the nebula probe. Secondly, the nebula probe can autonomously filter the information the user needs and most urgently needs. The nebula probe itself is powered by a miniature antimatter reactor and has an offensive protective wall. Even if it is destroyed, the damage can be prevented."

"The nebula probe's impact on the target life form during the process of reading the consciousness of an intelligent being is minimal, and it will not cause any harm to the intelligent being itself."

"In short, we can use nebula probes to safely and reliably obtain effective information about an entire civilization."

"Is it so convenient? Doesn't this thing have any technical shortcomings?" The present Calisi asked her future self curiously while touching the nebula probe.

"Yes, we do. The only technical drawback is that we can't produce it... or more accurately, you can't produce it right now. In the future, when our technology has developed to a more advanced level, we will successfully reverse-engineer a nebula probe technology suitable for the Sky Star civilization's own version."

"This technology must be very advanced, right? Even a Type 2.7 civilization that can build a grand unified theory particle accelerator and mass-produce strangelet matter can't do it?"

"This is not just a technical issue..." Future Carlisle shook her head.

"The technology carried on the Corrector Shell is a black box that I cannot understand, even for someone like me who has been using it for quite some time. The Nebula Probe is the non-black box technology that I almost completely understand. The Corrector Shell itself is a genuine product of the transition from the Age of Miracles to the Age of Fantasy. Even though the Sky Civilization before I came was already a civilization in the early stages of the Age of Miracles, the technology used by the Corrector Shell still has a large number of unexplained technologies and principles. According to analysis, the complete technological system for manufacturing the Corrector Shell means fully understanding, applying, and even rewriting the basic laws and logic of the entire universe. This is not something a closed time-like curve computer can do." Future Calisi spread her hands helplessly and shook her head.

"I'm basically able to use most of the Corrector Shell's features that surpass the technological level of the Sky Star civilization, but I don't understand the specific principles behind them."

"After all, most of the time, for me, the Shell of the Corrector is just a multi-functional drone and a robot for remote control. Most of its functions are basically useless when encountering those civilizations. The only time I really used its weapons on intelligent life was at that time, and it was still too early for you." The future Calisi said and glanced at her past self.

"What's still early?"

"Don't worry. If you were in my current situation, you might take a more gentle approach. After all, as my current self, you would prefer more acceptable solutions."

“???” The present-day Calisi saw her future self playing dumb with herself again and felt a little dissatisfied.

"Hmm... you still have quite some time before that incident happens... Actually, it's not a bad thing. Judging from your personality, you will definitely intervene, and in a relatively gentle way. From a future perspective, I think I should be thankful for the past period of time. I've lived in the Sky Star civilization for a while, and my views on certain things have become more moderate. Otherwise, you might have just started shooting at those hopeless guys."

"Ah? Can you explain it more clearly? I don't like playing tricks..."

"When the time comes, you will understand." In this regard, the future Calisi did not say much, but just patted her past self on the shoulder and told her to stay calm.

…………

"Are we making too much noise?"

On the bridge of the Salem, which had returned to the sky above Sky Star through the anchored wormhole, Kylias, while drinking coffee, looked at the screen in front of him. More than hundreds of thousands of spaceships were gathering in the orbital ring of Sky Star. These spaceships were part of the exploration fleet that the Sky Star civilization intended to send to the center of the Milky Way. As of now, the size of this fleet is still expanding, and more large-scale scientific research ships, engineering ships, cargo ships and other types of spaceships are still being produced in a steady stream and assembled in various docks in the orbital ring.

"Not many... As of now, there are a total of 101,220 ships docked in various spaceports in the orbital ring, preparing to explore the center of the Milky Way. Compared to the heyday of the Sky Star civilization's interstellar expansion in the past, this number is only about 1% of the ships that set sail for other star systems during that period."

"But... to visit the civilization living in the neutron star system at the center of the Milky Way, they seem to be called glass eels, right? Isn't it a bit too much to have so many spaceships? I always feel a sense of showing off." Kailias said to the holographic projection of the red-haired cat girl standing next to him.

"As a diplomatic and first contact mission, sending hundreds of thousands of spacecraft all at once to someone's home could cause misunderstandings, right?"

"You're worrying too much... In reality, the fleet responsible for this diplomatic mission only has about 100 ships. The other ships won't directly participate in contact or diplomacy with the glass eel civilization. They won't even go to the neutron star system where the glass eels are located."

"Huh? Not going to the other star system? Then where are most of the over 100,000 ships going?"

"It's simple... We're going to the center of the Milky Way, the most densely packed region in the galaxy, to build infrastructure. We'll also leave behind a series of stargates and anchor wormholes in all the galaxies along the way to facilitate our subsequent exploration and development of those galaxies."

"Of course, this is only the mission of a portion of this fleet of over 100,000 spaceships... The other portion will choose to continue advancing towards the center of the Milky Way, until they reach the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way."

"Going to the central black hole? Such a large number of fleets heading there should not only be for scientific observation and investigation of the central black hole, right?" The pink-haired elf girl, Kylias, leisurely shook the coffee cup in her hand.

"As you can see... the fleet heading to the Sagittarius A black hole region this time is mostly engineering vessels, with only a small number of research vessels used for scientific observations."

"Their mission this time is more about investigating the energy and material utilization value of Sagittarius A and carrying out large-scale astronomical engineering projects on the Sagittarius A black hole."

"After all, this is a giant black hole with a mass equivalent to 400 million times that of the star in our home galaxy. It would be a waste if we don't make good use of its energy value."

"We might as well guess what kind of celestial project we will finally build on this black hole after a detailed field investigation of the black hole?" The red-haired cat girl said jokingly to Kellyas.

"What else could it be? It's either a coil that uses the black hole's magnetic field to harvest energy, or a Dyson cloud built around the black hole. Even more outrageous, it could be a giant ring world like the Niven Ring built around the black hole. It's impossible to build a giant Shkadov thruster on a black hole and take the entire galaxy away, right?"

"Hmm... I think with the density of matter at the center of the Milky Way, it's not impossible to use Shkadov thrusters to carry away the entire black hole..." After hearing Kylias's joking words, the red-haired cat girl carefully used the Salem's quantum computing hub to perform some calculations. The Salem's optical quantum computer's calculations showed that using Shkadov thrusters to carry away the entire black hole at the center of the Milky Way and propel it to sub-light speeds is not impossible from an engineering perspective. Even for today's Sky Star civilization, given enough time and the ability to effectively utilize the dense material resources at the center of the Milky Way, they could use Shkadov thrusters to accelerate the black hole in a certain direction to approximately 25% of the speed of light in a few tens of thousands of years at most. (Note 1)

"Hmm... this level of engineering doesn't seem too difficult for today's Sky Star civilization, from an engineering perspective. Anyway, the density of matter in the center of the Milky Way is very high, and the von Neumann self-replicating machine can also use dense matter to achieve faster reproduction. Assuming that a Shkadov thruster capable of propulsing the entire galaxy is truly built on the Milky Star black hole, the entire project would take no more than ten thousand years to complete..."

"The entire final acceleration process...will take approximately 50,000 years. On a cosmological scale, this time is negligibly short. In just 50,000 years, the galactic black hole can be accelerated to 25% of the speed of light. At the same time, by leveraging the gravitational influence of the galactic black hole on all celestial bodies in the Milky Way, it's not impossible to carry the entire Milky Way across the universe..."

"Well... although this kind of project is completely feasible for a Type 2.7 civilization, it's just time-consuming. But why does this method feel a bit too much like relying on force to achieve miracles?" The pink-haired elf girl scratched her cheek awkwardly.

"If you think this can be considered a miracle...some of our compatriots have come up with even more outrageous ideas."

"Their idea is that since we can now create ultra-high-strength materials that completely reflect light across all wavelengths, why not just build a Penrose sphere around a galactic black hole? This is the concept known as a Birch world."

"That kind of thing would require more engineering effort than the Shkadov thruster and the Ni Wenhuan, wouldn't it? While it's feasible from an engineering perspective, it's still a long time before it's completed. Furthermore, the time distortion effect caused by the black hole's gravity would cause the speed of time on the surface of this thing to be different from that of the outside universe, right?"

"The flow of time is slower than that of the outside world. This kind of thing is no big deal to us, right?" The holographic projection of the red-haired cat girl said nonchalantly.

"We've adapted to this time reference system due to our long-term use of lightspeed spacecraft. We don't mind the difference from others... The Sky Star civilization doesn't need to live on the surface of something like this, but I really can't imagine the need for such a thing. While it's possible that some of our compatriots, fascinated by architecture, might throw a von Neumann self-replicator near the Silver Star black hole, allowing it to multiply continuously and eventually build a celestial megastructure of this scale that encloses the entire black hole in tens or hundreds of thousands of years, even if such a thing were built, aside from significantly increasing the energy output of the Sky Star civilization, it wouldn't seem to have much significance. Who would have the time to build something like this on the surface? Even if they wanted to raise animals on it, the speed of time flowing on the surface of the Birch World would cause the time reference system of those animals living on it to be significantly misaligned with ours."

"Kelias... do you remember something I mentioned to you before?" the red-haired cat girl suddenly asked.

"what's up?"

"You're just not good at art, especially art on such a large scale."

"My hobby and job are both astronomy. I like observing various natural stars, planets, and other celestial bodies. Man-made celestial megastructures are not my area of ​​expertise, right?"

"That's true... Is it because of this... that you often fail to realize how rich the artistic talents of some of our compatriots are?"

"Artistic talent? The kind that creates all sorts of bizarre space habitats and celestial megastructures?"

"That's right... Although our fellow compatriots with artistic talent often create things that are eye-popping... they also create a lot of huge works that can really brighten people's eyes."

"You don't mean to say?"

"Don't underestimate our compatriots' dedication to creating artistic celestial megastructures. Something as important as the Milky Way's black hole is definitely a great creative material and foundation for them to unleash their imagination and creativity."

"I believe they could do something really interesting with the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, just like the super particle accelerator on the gas giant planet at the outermost edge of the galaxy."

"Okay... then I'll wait and see what kind of surprises our fellow celestial megastructure design enthusiasts with artistic talent can bring me." Kailias drank the drink in the coffee cup in his hand.

.........

On the other side, on the surface of the Arctic continent of Sky Star, a couple from an alien planet is having an intimate date here.

"The air here is so clean. It doesn't feel like a planet that has been developed by an advanced industrial civilization for 100,000 years." Charlotte took a deep breath of the clean and pollution-free air on Sky Star.

"They said that the Tree of Life and the nanomachines in the air can quickly evolve to eliminate any harmful substances or particles in the air. Therefore, this planet has never encountered any problems such as atmospheric pollution in the past 100,000 years." Angel held her lover's hand and sat on a piece of grass, looking at a forest of black leaves not far away.

"It's completely different from London or any other city on Earth that has large-scale industry and is full of industrial pollution..." Charlotte also sighed while sitting on the grass.

"But... a tree with black leaves... looks a bit strange, doesn't it?"

"It is said that this is because these plants have the ability to convert light and heat into electricity by absorbing sunlight, and storing it inside the plants. The color that absorbs light the most is black. Because black does not reflect any light, most bands of light are absorbed, including infrared rays, so the energy obtained is the greatest. Therefore, the plants on this planet that have the ability to convert light often have black or nearly black leaves to improve their efficiency in using sunlight." Anjie explained to her lover caringly.

"What a strange planet... No wonder they call it Planet Gaia. Everything on it exists solely to provide the perfect environment for life. For example, even though it's near the North Pole, it's not cold at all."

"Maybe it's because of the tree behind us..." Anjie, who was sitting on the lawn, looked back at the giant tree behind her, whose crown reached into the sky and stood tall.

"This tree is just as huge as the World Tree in Norse mythology. I never imagined that a plant of this size could actually exist in this world."

"Calling it a plant isn't quite accurate. They say it has self-awareness, and it's precisely because of that plant that civilization on this planet has been able to develop so smoothly and perfectly."

"Yeah...from our perspective...this place really feels like heaven..." Anjie also took a breath of fresh air, leaned back and lay on the completely pollution-free lawn with Charlotte, and the two of them looked up at the orbital star rings in the sky.

"Angie?" Charlotte called out to her lover.

"what happened?"

"It seems like living here wouldn't be so bad... The Sky Star people we've met recently have expressed their welcome to us settling here."

"Well...as long as I'm with you...it doesn't matter where I am."

"Long time no see! Elena! And Anna!" Alicia hugged her two daughters in her arms and gave them a close hug, and then kissed each of them on the forehead affectionately with her lips.

"Welcome back, Mom and Mother." Elena smiled and greeted her mother who was holding her and Frina who was behind her mother.

"I heard that you get along well with that alien lady?" Alicia asked, touching Elena's head.