Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 180 Zerg Space Base
Improved energy units all over the world are accumulating energy for Sass' biological space elevator plan. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Zerg diggers are also doing their best to develop various mineral resources in the ground. .

Stretching tentacles into space may sound unbelievable, but after the initial solution to the problem of survival in space, it is not a fantasy to do so.

However, although the Zerg has experienced 20 years of accumulation, it still has not reached the amount required by the calculation results of Sass.

This is not because the labor efficiency of insect swarms all over the world is too low. In fact, the accumulation of energy is basically enough. The problem lies in the various "materials" required by this special "plant".

This is a unique life, even for the Zerg race, which has all kinds of strange shapes, it is special enough.

There has never been such a worm species before. It will take root on the ground, pass through the atmosphere all the way, and grow towards outer space.According to Sasse's calculations, this requires a huge amount of resources.

Even though the bug swarm already has the preliminary ability to refine all kinds of ores, it is still not that simple to complete this task.

Because in Sass' design, some resources are extremely rare on the planet, but they are indispensable, and collecting them consumes too much time for the swarm.

Nevertheless, two years later, the program was officially launched.

A seemingly weak "seedling" began to rise above the ground, and it looked out of place with plants in the general sense.

It is said to be a "seedling", but it has no similarity to the flow of plant germination. It does not have even a little bit of greenness, just like a dark bug sticking out its head, twisting in the air body.

It seems weak, but in the unobservable underground, the Zerg units that exist as its "root system" have already penetrated into the ground for an unknown number of meters.

These root systems are all insect species specially designed by Sass, connecting the energy units of the Zerg all over the world and all the collected resources!
In theory, this small "seedling" even has a "root system" that is used to absorb nutrients all over the world!
Therefore, after protruding from the surface, it began to grow rapidly at an extremely exaggerated speed, twisting its body and growing taller and thicker visible to the naked eye. With sufficient energy supply, this creature that Sass tried to design was unscrupulous Unleash your potential!
All the activities of the Zerg are giving way to it. It is like a huge vampire, extracting the energy and resources accumulated by the Zerg over the past few decades, turning it into its own nutrients for its own growth.

This is the Zerg's first true giant species. If it can really grow, its volume will be much more spectacular than the tallest mountain on this planet!

That will be at least over 100 kilometers in height, occupying an unknown geometry, an Optimus Prime-like behemoth!
It is said to be a "plant", but in essence, it is one, or even countless living insects!
This is a special enough unit. In the process of its growth, it connects many Zerg units on the surface and underground. It is not a single individual, but a collection of hundreds of millions of Zerg swarms!
Zero watched it grow rapidly like a tree, but it was not green at all, and some were only strong and ferocious. The ugly appearance was incompatible with technological products, but in fact it had the same effect!
As a living life, within its body, based on the original Zerg "immune system", there are a large number of dormant and homologous bug species. If they are damaged during their growth, these bugs will It will wake up immediately, consume energy to start growing, and forcibly heal the damaged part.

They are the first insurance made by Sass for this plan. In addition, there are backup energy and resource pools, and even the "branch" insect species used to support their growth at critical moments are all planned. middle.

After all, it is only theoretically feasible and has not been tested in practice, and the Zerg is the first attempt, so neither Zero nor Sass will naively think that as long as they provide enough resources, they will be free from worries. .

In this process, no matter what kind of difficulties he encountered, Zero was mentally prepared.But in the same way, as long as this experiment is completed and its feasibility is confirmed in practice, then similar activities in the future will no longer be a curse-like obstacle to the Zerg!

Zero closely followed the progress of this ambitious project, and the development of Zerg itself did not stall because of it.

After the start of the plan, Sass divided his mind into two purposes. On the one hand, he also paid attention to the progress of the project, and on the other hand, he also started to implement his own backup plan, that is, the research of space insect species.

After obtaining the complete knowledge system of the octopus, it is not difficult for Sass to add natural resources to the hatching process of the Zerg, naturally use them in the body parts of the Zerg, and strengthen their various abilities.

That is to say, in theory, Sass can even allow Zerg life to complete the combination of biology and machinery, but Zero thinks that this is not very operable.

After all, the Zerg did not have industrial machine tools like intelligent life, and arms like "mechanical synthesis" and physical "mechanical dogs" were unlikely to be produced in a biological structure like a hatchery.

And this is not the development direction that Zero planned for the Zerg from a macro perspective.

The Zerg's application of external substances is only to strengthen themselves, so strictly speaking, they are always flesh and blood, but this "flesh and flesh" will eventually become less vulnerable through repeated strengthening.

How to transform the propulsion technology from the octopus into a power sufficient to propel the Zerg to overcome gravity and pass through the atmosphere is the main research direction of Sass during this period.

The growth of the Zerg "Biological Space Elevator" cannot be completed in a short period of time. Even with a sufficient material supply, its growth rate is very fast, and this time must be calculated in units of years.

After all, it was the first time in the world, and he was quite satisfied with being able to demonstrate success on paper, and he maintained enough patience for it.

As for the research on the Zerg "aerospace unit", Sass mainly refers to the aircraft design of the Octopus. Now it has a lot of specific knowledge about the structure of the aircraft in its mind. On the premise that it has been conquered first, it is enough as a reference.

Sass is already very proficient in the design of the new Zerg species, but this time it is slightly different, because it needs a "container", a "container" that can allow the energy stored by the Zerg to react violently in it and provide power.

Moreover, this container must be inside the Zerg.According to the design of the octopus aircraft, whether it is in principle or technology, Sass has already demonstrated its application to the Zerg. As long as it can solve the problem of the "container", it believes that its backup plan has a fairly high success rate. So big that even the ongoing biological space elevator project would seem wasteful by comparison.

This is of course nonsense. Although the biological space elevator project is a bit more expensive, it is indeed what the Zerg has the ability to realize at present, and if it is really successful, it will not only mean opening the door of the Zerg to space.

In addition to representing the first successful use of giant insect species, it also means the direct connection between the Zerg and outer space, which means that one day, the same "tentacles" can also directly extend from space to the surface of the planet, which means With a safe and convenient transportation channel, and so on and so on.

This is incomparable to the backup plan, and it is also an important reason why Zero insists on the former's continuous advancement.

However, the development of the latter is equally important. It represents the initial exploration of the Zerg in space travel. If it can be successfully realized, then space travel is no longer a distant dream, but a road under the feet of the Zerg. !
The days of research and waiting always pass quickly. Although there are no more flowers blooming here, time will not stop because of the death or existence of anything.

In the blink of an eye, another five years passed. When the first Zerg unit began to stagger and fly to a higher place under the push of the "gas" blown out by the opening and closing of its tail, the giant Zerg species that were originally just "seedlings" had already Become a real Optimus Prime!
Although under the influence of biomass, it looks extremely ugly, if you look at it with zero original aesthetics, it undoubtedly reveals an extremely evil atmosphere, ferocious, ugly, and evil, but it is indisputably huge !

Just the part above the ground covers an area of ​​more than two kilometers in diameter, and its height is beyond sight!
This is the result of the insect swarm gathering the resources of the entire planet. At this moment, it truly took root in the ground and extended its body into the space beyond the atmosphere!

During this process, too many problems were exposed, and all kinds of troubles began to emerge at high altitudes where the swarm had never reached, but they were all resolved by Sass in the end.

——It has sufficient knowledge reserves and psychological expectations for this.

Now that it has grown to this height, this unspeakably huge life has surpassed the exosphere of the atmosphere. At its top, the material here is extremely thin, and it is no longer suitable for biological survival. Only the modified Zerg unit can survive in the atmosphere. Barely unaffected with the help of internal biological circulation.

This place is separated from the planet, and although it is still within its gravitational range, it can definitely be regarded as a real cosmic space.

If you look down from the orbit, this giant pillar-like life is like a needle inserted into the planet from space, tenaciously resisting external damage from all sides, but it will always remain standing.

This is of course related to its structure carefully calculated by SARS, and more importantly, as a living being, as long as these hazards are not enough to kill it, it will not be able to survive under the never-ending supply of energy and resources. will fall!

It has not stopped growing, even at this point, it has already completed the mission of verifying the feasibility, but this is only the first step.

Moving the Zerg base into space is the second step.

This process is not troublesome, just need to continue to grow, reach the lowest orbit around the entire planet, and then "grow" a suitable environment!

All that is needed are some resources and time, and at this point, these costs are insignificant compared to the many difficulties encountered.

But at present, the matter of establishing a space base is not so urgent. There is no other reason. The space navigation experiment of the Zerg unit has just entered the right track, and it will take some time to move it into space.

Sass, who is out of Fuzhi's state of mind, is like being superimposed with the debuff of Intelligence -100. The original research with frequent inspirations has returned to normal speed. In the past five years, he has been able to initially solve the problem of "container". It is not easy to send "Zerg" units into the sky.

The "jet type" is nothing more than the change of energy substances after a violent reaction under the catalysis of biological enzymes. It supplies energy for the Zerg's life activities, and at the same time provides assistance for its aerial activities.

How intense this reaction must be in order to meet the required needs, and this in turn puts forward what kind of requirements for the "container" in the Zerg unit. Under the interlocking, even Sass Compared with the previous knowledge reserve, it is no longer the same as before, and it has not been able to come up with a mature plan in just five years.

However, the appearance of the crooked new-generation Zerg air unit that even fluttered into the sky with its wings at least proves that as long as it continues to study, all this will eventually be realized.

........................

This planet seems to be unable to accommodate them anymore, at least its surface has been completely occupied by the Zerg, whether it is the boundless ocean or the vast land, in order to complete the Zerg flying plan, no matter in the sky or underground, active Zerg can be seen everywhere figure.

Deep underground, a large number of Zerg units are still collecting available resources in a seemingly endless process.

In fact, it seems that it can't hold it, but this is a whole planet, its volume exceeds one trillion cubic kilometers, and its mass exceeds 50 trillion trillion tons. No matter how large-scale the Zerg's resource extraction is, it is not enough for it. Not even scratching an itch.

It's just that for the Zerg who are only active on its surface, it does gradually become a bit crowded.The will of the hive has been strengthened again and again under the current situation of such a large-scale development of resources, and it also represents the further strengthening of SARS's scientific research capabilities.

Huge amounts of energy and resources have been enriched and supplied to all places where there is demand through the underground energy network that now connects almost the entire surface of the planet together!

With such a huge supply of resources, the biological "needle" protruding out of space has rapidly changed its appearance.

At its top, a structure like a giant sarcoma is being formed, which is directly connected to the giant Zerg species that exist as a "pillar" and "channel" below itself, as if absorbing energy from the planet through a "straw". The resources on the surface strengthen itself.

Soon, its urine and feces exceeded the diameter of the giant species under its body, and it was still growing.

This will be the first space base of the Zerg. In fact, it is not completely integrated with the passage below it. These are two independent Zerg lives, but they are connected to each other at this moment.

This Zerg space base that is still growing, because it is directly orbiting, already has enough speed, even without the "support" from below, it can stay here and run synchronously with the planet below.

But for now, this living Optimus pillar that grows into space is the only channel for the Zerg to connect the surface and outer space, and the only transportation channel for matter and energy. Before it has the ability to move freely, it cannot Will not voluntarily leave.

Although above the surface, Sass' experiment process has entered the fast lane, but in order to see the results more intuitively, Zero still instructed to build the first Zerg base in Ori's outer space first, and directly carry out follow-up experiments here.

In the final analysis, Sass's backup plan is to allow the Zerg to have space navigation capabilities. Now that they have the ability to establish incubation bases in outer space, and Sass has already produced a prototype of a new generation of Zerg space units, then There is no reason for its experiments to remain above the surface.

Even if transporting materials and energy from below will result in huge consumption, it is all worth it for the reliability and intuitiveness of the experiment.

Four months later, the huge "sarcoma" with a diameter of more than five kilometers finally stopped growing. On the whole, it was like a mushroom that escaped the atmosphere, quietly staying in space.

Compared to Zerg individuals, its size is extremely large, and it is an indisputably great project.But for the planet Ori, it is inconspicuous.

A large amount of material and energy poured into it from the surface all the way up, huge nutrient pools began to be established in it, and many hatcheries were already in place and started to transform.

—It will come in handy soon.

Gradually, Zerg units began to hatch in this almost airtight space.Here, the gravitational force from Ori has been transformed into the centripetal force that supports the orbiting of the entire space base, so there is no doubt that these Zerg units that are eager to hatch will be in a state of weightlessness.

In order to deal with this, Sass made corresponding adjustments to this batch of Zerg individuals hatched in space, so that they can keep moving normally here.

Of course, this batch of bugs is just an experimental unit, and when they can realize free travel between space and the surface, it will be regarded as initially meeting the requirements of zero.

At that time, the next step of planning and research will start. Zero's requirement is that at this stage, the swarm must at least have the ability to navigate within the galaxy!

Naturally, this ability does not mean that it takes years or even more than ten years to reach the orbit of other stars in the galaxy like a turtle crawling. With the support of the resources above Ori, there is zero hope that they can at least be able to do it like an octopus. Generally speaking, the speed of navigation inside the galaxy can be regarded as barely possessing the ability to move in such a vast space.

(End of this chapter)