Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 181 Cerebral Worm - Dagos
Ori's natural satellite, Zero still habitually calls it the moon, even though it is completely different from the moon in his impression in terms of volume, appearance and quality.

A long time ago, Zero imagined that one day he would lead the swarm to board it to have a look. It was so far away from Ori that when it was observed on the surface of the planet, it was only one-third the size of the moon in Zero's memory.

Landing on the moon is a bit of a simple wish, and it is also a part of his development plan for the Zerg.And this has gradually become possible under the rapid development of the Zerg.

The Zerg swarms that came to space have improved their mobility step by step through Sass’ continuous experiments. They are updated very quickly, because every generation of Zerg units hatch, Sass will quickly find the crux of the problem and quickly carry out improvements. and update.

After having the initial navigation ability, it has solved more than 90.00% of the problems of the swarm in space navigation, and the rest is just to improve on this basis. Although it is not simple, the biggest difficulty has been eliminated. solve.

And this process only took Sass 15 years.

From zero waking up on the initial island, with only one ant queen in front of him, to the first time the Zerg landed on the mainland, and then to the first Zerg unit hatching in space through giant species, this process took only three days. Just over a hundred years.

In just over 300 years, they have almost completed the development of the octopus people from the ancient ignorant age to the tens of thousands of years in space!

How magnificent it is to develop from an ant to the present scale!
So far, everything seems to be going well, and it won't be long before the Zerg will be able to embark on a journey to the stars for the first time.

However, many problems also began to appear at this time.

The Zerg Swarm that landed in space is not in a hurry to expand, because it is obvious that Sass’s improvement of the Zerg Swarm’s ability to move in space is still on the rise. Before it encounters a bottleneck, Zero does not plan to expand the Zerg on a large scale Quantity, that doesn't mean much.

In addition to this, there is another important reason, which is also the main external factor that forces Zero to control the scale of the Zerg as much as possible.

It's ridiculous to say that after such a large-scale activity, the Zerg's energy acquisition above the surface gradually began to make ends meet.

Energy and matter are transported from the surface of the earth through the giant Zerg species into space, and the energy consumed in this process is extremely huge.

Before that, Zero almost exhausted the energy accumulation of the Zerg for hundreds of years, forcing the development of the biological space elevator plan, and this huge life was consuming extremely huge energy every moment!
Zero can't let it go dormant, because in its current state, it can only defend against various threats from the external environment if it remains active.

And nearly [-]% of the energy collected by the energy units of the insect swarm all over the world is used for their daily life activities, not to mention that it also shoulders the heavy responsibility of transporting materials, which is a huge expense.

Sass didn't think of this beforehand, and even Zero didn't care.It's not that they were careless. The total amount of energy accumulated by the Zerg over the past hundred years was an extremely terrifying astronomical figure, and at the beginning of the plan, Sass also kept a large amount of reserve energy as a backup.

But no one thought that after it grows up, the consumption of energy can be so terrifying!

The natural damage from the high-altitude outside world requires a huge amount of energy and material to fight every moment, and its own huge size to maintain its own life activities is also an extremely terrifying resource consumption.

Coupled with Sass’s almost uninterrupted space experiments for more than ten years, until now, the Zerg energy units on the surface of the entire planet have accumulated less and less energy from their own energy. Until now, the Zerg The energy reserves of the country are basically no longer growing.

It is really a bit whimsical to rely on this surplus to navigate the interior of the galaxy.

It's not that Zero never thought that after the Zerg unit initially possessed space navigation capabilities, they could directly transport the required materials into space, thereby avoiding the waste of resources caused by the direct transportation of giant species to space, but it's just a simple The test made him give up this choice.

It is true that this method is more economical than the previous one, but it will be much inferior in terms of transportation speed and transportation volume.Most importantly, he discovered that if the energy consumption required by the giant Zerg species to defend against the environment was excluded, the latter would consume more energy than the former!

This sounds unbelievable, but it is true.If we put aside the energy consumed to defend against environmental threats, and transport the same amount of resources to space in the same period of time, the final material and energy consumption of the latter is more than [-]% more than the former!
This further highlights the importance of the giant Zerg species. For it, Zero has been planned at the beginning of the design. It is not just a fulcrum, and it will never be what it is now. With the further development of biotechnology, the energy consumed to fight against environmental threats and even maintain its own survival will be optimized, and its advantages will be preserved forever, so Zero will not give up this method easily because of this.

But then again, with such a level of energy consumption, even Zero himself felt a little absurd after learning about it, which is too exaggerated.

That is a huge planet with a radius exceeding several thousand kilometers and a surface area of ​​nearly [-] million square kilometers!
The Zerg energy unit does not say that it completely covers the entire planet, but that it occupies [-]% is definitely considered modest.

A large part of the energy provided by such a vast area is supplied to the daily consumption of a "needle"?If all these resources are used to incubate Zerg units, how many individuals can be produced!
But that was the way it was, and no matter how absurd it felt, it was there.

It was once thought that the Zerg energy units all over the surface of the planet could make it no longer worry about energy issues before launching interstellar voyages, but now it is only in the testing stage, and it has already begun to be stretched.

Although it will not go bankrupt, the Zerg still has a considerable amount of energy reserves today, but it is obviously unrealistic to use it unscrupulously like in the past.

To put it bluntly, the Zerg's conversion efficiency of energy from the sun is still too low.

When receiving the theoretical knowledge of the octopus, Sass made a major change to the energy units of the Zerg, so that they no longer simply rely on photosynthesis to accumulate chemical energy, but to a certain extent have launched a direct use of solar energy. Obtain.

However, in that state of blessedness, Sass focused most of his energy on how to overcome the swarm's ability to adapt to the space environment and how to complete the flying plan, and neglected the follow-up improvement of energy units. This is what caused the current situation.

The greenery that seems to cover the sky and the sun on the surface of the planet has become a shortcoming of the entire barrel for today's Zerg, and it needs to make up for it again.

If this problem is not prioritized, it will be difficult for Sass to maintain a high frequency of replacements for the space worm species.

After all, the Zerg units on the entire planet are now in an active state, providing resources for the activities of the Zerg in space, and rarely enter a dormant state.

Therefore, they themselves are also a large energy consumption, and it is impossible to stop them to save energy.

So in the future, it is inevitable that Saas will focus on solving energy problems.

As for the zero moon landing plan, it would have to be delayed for a period of time because of this.

The technological theories from the Octopus people have been thoroughly understood by Sass for decades. With these theories as the basis, the transformation process of the Zerg energy units will be much faster.

Using the energy from the sun is the simplest and most convenient way Zero can think of at present. The energy technologies such as nuclear fission developed by the octopus people once provided a lot of convenience for their civilization.Although Zero is quite greedy, it is undoubtedly very practical as a conventional energy source, but the current mortal body of the Zerg is really difficult to complete the various pre-technologies it needs.

That requires extremely complex core equipment, quite high-end material technology, and even the collision between microscopic particles, etc., no matter the process of its occurrence or the final containment, it is definitely not something that the current Zerg can afford.

In terms of the use of solar energy, it is completely different. The gift from the stars is gentle and long-lasting. In contrast, it is much simpler to do this, and it is very easy to obtain.

Most importantly, the Zerg's development of this energy source is only in its infancy.From the photosynthesis of the first generation of algae, all the way to the present, using the inspiration from the octopus to transform the "biological battery" that belongs to the Zerg, the Zerg has only taken the first step in the application of stellar energy .

Of course this is not enough, far from enough.

Both conversion efficiency and storage loss are not so satisfactory, otherwise there would not be such an embarrassing scene as it is now.

Fortunately, the technical support from the octopus people is sufficient, and Sass will not have to start all over again, so this improvement process will not take too much time.

During this time, the scale of the Zerg's experiments in space would be greatly reduced, focusing Sass' energies on this one matter.

Speaking of which, since the octopus became extinct, the Zerg has not had any threats from the outside world.After going to space, even a devastating disaster on the surface will hardly endanger the survival of the Zerg.

It stands to reason that in this case, time can even be said to be infinite for the Zerg, but for some reason, in the faint, Zero always feels that he has an inexplicable sense of urgency.

Sometimes he would tell himself in his heart that there is still time, there is no need to be so anxious, everything can be done slowly.But in actual actions, he is always actively urging the Zerg to progress.

One of the important manifestations of this is that since Sass first showed his interest in scientific research, there seems to be endless research waiting for him.

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

From the perspective of outer space, it is easier to observe the star shift.

When time elongates, the trajectories of the various stars in the star system can be clearly distinguished. They seem to be tied by an invisible chain, quietly revolving around the giant in the center, like this from ancient times .

Occasionally, comets pass by, dragging long comet tails close to the stars, adding a touch of color to the seemingly eternally silent dark starry sky.

After all, as expected, Sass gave Ling a satisfactory answer. Ten years of painstaking research has yielded remarkable results.

If the Zerg energy units used to convert and store solar energy into biological batteries with an efficiency of 1, now that they have undergone another major upgrade, they can reach at least 5, and at the same time, they absorb more energy than before Much more!

This means that even if the swarm is completely open to activities now, there will be no more worries.Instead, there will only be more and more stored energy.

Of course, the premise is that the Zerg will maintain its current scale and no other large-scale energy-consuming projects will be carried out.

This is obviously impossible, but now it can be regarded as a solution to the urgent need, at least for a long period of time, Zero does not have to worry about this matter.

Although Sass said that this is still not the limit, as long as it is given more time, it can do better, but Zero thinks it is not necessary.

On the surface of Ori, it is enough to achieve this level, because the focus of Zerg development will never be here.

Among other things, when the light from the star crosses a distance of up to eight light minutes, passes through the thick atmosphere, and finally reaches the surface of the earth, during this process, I don’t know how many times it has experienced dissipation and how much loss it has produced .

In the future, if necessary, wouldn't it be more efficient to find a way to "intercept" these destined to be lost energies than to be obsessed with developing above the surface?

Wasting time here at this time is tantamount to discarding the basics and chasing the last, and re-focusing time and energy on the Zerg's space navigation is the right way.

As a result, the Zerg space flight experiment, which had been basically shelved due to Sass's temporary change of research direction, was put on the agenda again, and this time it finally no longer had energy constraints.

However, there were twists and turns in this incident after all, but it was not a bad thing. On the contrary, for both Zero and Sass, the occurrence of this incident was considered a great joy.

From the induction of the will of the hive, a new "seed" quietly appeared in the field under its induction.

Right next to the "Bright Moon" that originally represented Sass, a new, extremely bright star appeared.It is far inferior to Sass, but compared to those highlights that represent ordinary Zerg units, the gap is unreasonable.

New cerebrates!

Of course, Zero understood what it was the first time!
He even knew that as long as he wanted, it could be hatched at any time, just like Sass back then!
Since the birth of the Zerg on Island No. 200, for more than [-] years, since Sass appeared and showed great potential, Zero has been looking forward to the birth of the second brain worm.

For quite a long time, he always thought that if there were more brain worms and many experimental projects could be carried out at the same time, it would save too much time.

For this reason, Zero even once thought about Sass itself, trying to replicate more cerebrates, but unfortunately ended in complete failure.

What exactly is that mysterious substance that Zero has no clue so far, he has never sensed it, so he has no way of knowing when it will appear.

Until later, as Sass acquired more and more knowledge and demonstrated stronger abilities, Zero even gradually put it behind his mind, stopped being so obsessed with this matter, and focused on the development of the Zerg race.

However, as the saying goes, if you plant flowers deliberately, the flowers will not bloom, but if you plant willows unintentionally, they will make shade.

Some things will always appear in front of you in a form that is almost at your fingertips after you finally accept it without asking for it.

as it is now.

When the same breath appeared, Sass also learned the news at the first time. In the almost invisible eyes on the obese body, strong joy flashed visibly with the naked eye, and it did not fade for a long time.

Zero is also very happy that the intelligent unit of the Zerg will add another member from now on, and the plight of Sass alone will be improved to a considerable extent in the future.

It is a bug species like Sass, with independent thinking ability and extremely powerful potential. Referring to Sass, we can know what effect it will have on the development of the Zerg race when it grows up one day!
How can this not make Zero feel excited!

Of course, before that, Zero first needs to hatch it out.

Today's hatchery is many times more optimized than the first generation when Sass was born, but the birth method of this brand new brain worm is still the same as Sass.

The same distinctive larvae, the same gluttony, and the same chubby appearance that is a few circles smaller than Sass, made Zero feel like he was dreaming back to being on the No. 200 island more than [-] years ago.

All of its abilities are exactly the same as the one that Sass just appeared, as if it is a replica, there is no difference.

The only difference is that it is another independent individual with the same independent thinking.

Soon, it had a new name - Dags.

Zero obeyed his own memory and gave it this name, which is also a sign to distinguish it from SARS and all possible brain worms that may appear after that.

Dagos is the same as Sass when he first appeared, except for the same natural ability, he has no innate ability.

Unfortunately, under the tumult of the octopus man, there is no creature with a larger brain capacity for it to grow rapidly on the surface today, so in the following time, it honorably became Sass's first an apprentice.

Along the way, Sass can be said to have collected all the knowledge acquired by the Zerg, and he personally participated in the birth of most Zerg units.

As a teacher, it is undoubtedly the most suitable existence.

Sass, who had worked hard for more than 200 years, seemed to finally see the dawn of liberation at this moment. He wished he could teach Dags all he had learned all his life in an instant, and the young Dags was very grateful for it.

It can feel the goodwill from Sass, and it also shows a very good studious quality, communicating with the will of the hive like a sponge to acquire knowledge.

As intelligent units of the Zerg race, brain worms naturally have their own emotions, which are not much different from intelligent life in the general sense.

Of course, under Zero's will, he doesn't worry that there will be any filth among the brain worms with independent thinking, and there will be no competition between them. There are no twists and turns here. Under the dominant will, the entire Zerg race It's all one.

Through the will of the hive, Zero can feel the close communication between the two, and he is quite relieved.

It is foreseeable that from now on, the development of the Zerg will be further accelerated.Even without the help from outside creatures, Dagos will grow up quickly under the teaching of Sass and take on his own responsibilities.

Zero is very clear that with the help of the will of the hive, this time will not be too long.

(End of this chapter)