Juggernaut: Rise of the Zerg

Chapter 197
Although the nuclear fission reaction has been realized in the hands of the Zerg, it still needs some work to make it controllable.

Of course, at this level, it is barely enough to be used as a weapon. As long as the raw materials are sufficient, theoretically, it can even be copied infinitely.

Some things are like this. When there is no one, it always feels that there are thousands of barriers and cannot be broken through.However, once you have it, you will find that it is nothing more than that.

The Zerg who control the entire star system, and even a part of other galaxies, will not be short of raw materials. Even the heavy elements that settle inside the planets are potential fission resources, but the technical difficulty is much higher.

Of course, Zerg communication across star systems is still a problem today.It's not about the exchange of information, but the circulation of materials.

The distance in units of light years divides the swarm into semi-independent groups in units of galaxies. In addition to sharing information, if they want to have material exchanges between them, with the current capabilities of the swarm, it will take at least nearly a hundred years. time!
The situation seems to have returned to the time when the various colonized planets were at the beginning. Because the distance was too far, each planet was almost self-sufficient, with little material circulation.

Later, this problem was solved by improving the energy output efficiency of stars, and finally through the establishment of the Zerg space main base, all the colonial planets in the galaxy were completely integrated.

But when this distance becomes between star systems, even if the space travel speed of the Zerg can reach the speed of light, each unilateral material communication needs to be in units of years.

What's more, in conventional navigation, it is absolutely impossible to reach that level of speed.This is true whether it is in the knowledge base of the Octopus or in Zero's memory.

The sharp increase in speed will eventually cause a drastic change in mass, and the required energy will increase rapidly in an extremely terrifying situation. When it is infinitely close to the speed of light, the mass of the object will become infinite. At that time, even if the mass of a star The complete concentration of energy is just a drop in the bucket.

This is not a fairy tale, but a theory that has been basically confirmed.

In many scientific fantasies, beyond the speed of light, there has always been another way.For example, the octopus once imagined the future, and another example-human science fiction stories.

For this kind of natural gap, Zero has nothing to do at present, and can only let the various galaxies develop freely, and together form a Zerg force that is extremely centralized in spirit and extremely loose in material.

At this point, even if the Zerg further overcomes the difficulty of nuclear fusion in the future, there will be no fundamental change.

Because in this case, the amount of energy is no longer the decisive factor.What really affects all of this is another technology.

After occupying the frozen planet in the Plov galaxy, the development of the swarm here has not changed much, and everything is the same as before. The resources of the entire galaxy began to transfer to a fixed base, and in a nearly The fixed ramp speeds up and doesn't stabilize until after saturation.

In 764, the Zerg arrived in the galaxy numbered HA-001 and started colonization activities, which represented the beginning of the second round of interstellar expansion of the Zerg.

In the next ten years, from numbered HA-002 to numbered SA-004, a total of 10 star systems were successively arrived by the Zerg and started comprehensive exploration.

Up to now, among the second-round expansion teams, only three from Plov are still on the way, but they will reach the target galaxy in the next 30 years.

During this period of time, the application of nuclear fission energy has brought an increase of more than 40.00% to the space speed of the Zerg, reaching a level close to [-]% of the speed of light!

Because it requires a smaller mass of matter, but provides a huge amount of energy, it is expected to achieve this.

As for the original octopus, they already possessed almost mature fission technology, but they could only reach [-]% of the speed of light through energy crystals. One of the important reasons was that there was only one energy crystal, not to mention They also need to bring hundreds of clansmen and corresponding vitamins, otherwise, it must be more than that.

Another important reason lies in the utilization of energy.

It is not that the energy produced by nuclear fission is not enough to propel the spaceship forward, but that the utilization of energy by intelligent races inevitably requires many transformation processes.

Take fission energy as an example, the nuclear fission reaction converts nuclear energy into a variety of energy forms mainly heat energy, and then converts these heat energy into the internal energy of water to generate high-pressure steam, which is then transmitted through a steam turbine to generate power.

And this is also the general principle of so-called nuclear power, commonly known as boiling water.Whether it is chemical energy or nuclear energy, in terms of power application, its essence is the same, but the form of boiling water is different.

So it's not that the fission reaction cannot generate a large amount of energy in a short period of time. The huge energy released during the nuclear explosion can prove this. The biggest reason is that the way they use nuclear energy is really limited and they cannot release it more quickly.

At this point, they face the same dilemma as they did when the Swarm harnessed the power of the stars.

However, the difference is that the Zerg unit is a living creature, and this unique structure allows them to have an advantage over intelligent races in this regard, at least in terms of energy transfer.

Therefore, they can increase their own speed to this step after the fission energy is controllable.

The mass of a moving object is always larger than that at rest, which is not obvious in low-speed motion and can basically be ignored.

But when the speed reaches a certain level, the influence of this aspect will become more and more obvious. The closer to the speed of light, the more rapid the increase in mass.

This also means that the Zerg cannot increase the speed forever under the speed of light. Even if it has not been touched now, it will inevitably face this in the future.

That is to say, if the interstellar colonization system built by the Zerg now wants to be interconnected like the interior of the galaxy, it must need a navigation technology that exceeds the speed of light. That being said, it's still too far away.

However, this does not affect Zero to take the lead in sending swarms of insects to carry out enclosure activities. Even if they cannot communicate with each other, with a star system as their background, the swarms will never be short of materials and energy.

Just like Ori, after hundreds of years of development, the energy and resources here have been greatly enriched. If one day the insect swarms empty this place, then it's time to leave.

If there is no accident, the Zerg Swarm will start from the Ori Galaxy and gradually erode towards the periphery. At the same time, it will expand the Zerg's activity area to many unowned galaxies, expanding its sphere of influence in a form of almost exponential growth.

——If there is no restraint, they will become real interstellar locusts at a fairly fast speed in the future!
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What time has brought to the Zerg, in addition to energy utilization, is the further strengthening of resource mining capabilities.

On the planet Ori, the activities of the swarm have stagnated, not to say that the resources here are lacking. As the place of origin of the swarm, out of some simple emotions, Zero did not let the swarm fully control the place. Destructive mining, so hundreds of years have passed, the place still maintains its original appearance, and even becomes vibrant again.

But that's not the case at all on its natural satellite, the "moon".

Hundreds of years have passed, and the entire "moon" has almost been eaten away.

Compared with a planet, its size is too small. After the swarm has completed the mining of useful resources on the surface, it quickly begins to move deeper underground. The energy unit completes the energy absorption of the star core, and then the diggers enter to absorb resources. .

Over the years, it is unknown how many pure substances or compounds of various elements have been sent to the main base and become part of it.

Today's Zerg main base is almost indistinguishable from a planet in terms of overall volume.Even in order to avoid the uneven force caused by the excessive mass and consume excess energy to maintain its stable existence, it has changed from the original whole to multiple "asteroid belts" in orbit at a nearly synchronous speed.

In addition to the "moon", the many small satellites in the outer galaxies are almost at the point of exhaustion, and their geological activities have completely stopped. There is even a small celestial body surrounding a giant planet whose mass has been greatly reduced due to excessive excavation. had catastrophic consequences.

——Its mass is no longer enough to stay on its own orbit, and it irreversibly begins to move away from the giant planet it surrounds, and finally the stable system that has been maintained for tens of millions of years is broken, and it is very coincident with other small celestial bodies Colliding with each other-this almost wiped out all the Zerg units on it that had no time to evacuate.

This incident reminded Zero that if there is no restraint or preparations are made in advance, the natural satellite "Moon" on Ori's orbit will inevitably end in this way in the end.

As the mass continues to decrease, because the gravitational force between it and Ori also continues to decrease, its orbit will become larger and farther away from the planet Ori, and at the same time, the revolution period around Ori will gradually increase.

In fact, over the years, it has indeed been moving away from the planet at a slow speed. Compared with hundreds of years ago, this change is quite obvious.

Not only satellites, even planets with relatively large masses are also undergoing this process, but at a slower speed.

This can already be observed relatively clearly on Planet [-], which has the smallest mass and is the most developed by the Zerg, because its rotation speed is significantly faster.

At least when the Zerg landed, although it was not tidally locked by the stars, its rotation speed was already very slow, but until today, its rotation speed has increased by nearly one-thirtieth compared to the beginning!

It doesn't sound like a big number, but no matter how small planet No. 0.68 is, it is still a planet with a mass of [-] Ori!Any slight change represents a huge change in quality, and one-thirtieth is already a fairly obvious change.

For example, if the earth's rotation speed is increased by one-thirtieth, then a day and night cycle, that is, a day will be shortened by more than 40 minutes!

— is already quite obvious.

This means that planet No. [-] is actually changing its orbit, and there is no doubt that it is moving away from the star.

Not only it, every planet is undergoing similar changes, more or less.

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

The second round of interstellar expansion activities of the Zerg has been fully launched, which means that the third round of expansion has started. Compared with the previous two, their speed has increased again, so the time will be slightly shortened.

It is worth mentioning that even though there are more than 500 billion planets in the entire cantilever in the observation, not all of them have colonization value. For example, if there is no extra matter in the star system, there is only one single Stars, and multi-star systems such as the Trisolaran galaxy with extremely complicated orbits, are not the colonization targets of the Zerg. At most, they send a small team to hide there as the backup of the Zerg.

And there are not a few such star systems. Even in the process of the formation of the universe, most stars will have a large amount of matter remaining in the periphery when they are born, and eventually become a complete star system with the original stars after a long time, but there are also About [-]% of the stars are not so lucky, and if this ratio is placed in the entire river system, there are tens of billions of stars!
Of course, not every star system will have many unexplored galaxies within [-] light-years. Even in the cantilever with a relatively higher density of celestial bodies, there are many stars that are hundreds of light-years away from the nearest galaxy. For such galaxies that are too far away, Zero's approach is to give up temporarily.

The scale of the third round of interstellar expansion of the Zerg is even larger, with more than twenty star systems included in the intended target, and because nuclear fission energy replaces part of the energy of stars, the swarm responsible for this round of expansion will be at most Arrive in 120 years.

That is to say, if only the completion of exploration means occupation, after 120 years, that is, about 900 years of the Zerg, the Zerg will become a huge force occupying more than [-] star systems and spanning [-] light years !

This was almost unimaginable when it was above the surface.No one thought that in just a few hundred years, these ants could get to this point.

Although due to the focus on nuclear energy research, they did not devote too much energy to the development of weapon technology. However, after the fission energy was mastered by the swarm, including thermonuclear reaction weapon species, Dagos was also included in the arsenal.

Today, Daggs, who focuses on the research of Zerg attack capabilities, has preliminarily sorted out a set of feasible offensive and defensive systems for the Zerg, covering long-range, melee and defense.

If in actual combat, the original spaceship of the octopus people is only used as an imaginary enemy, the defeat of the octopus people is almost inevitable with the same number. Sure, the octopus won't have much power to fight back.

Of course, there is one point that needs to be explained. The main function of the original spaceship of the Octopus was not for combat. Strictly speaking, it was just an armed space transport ship, so the weapon units it carried were extremely limited, and its attack power was extremely limited. Big restrictions.

According to Dagos' calculations, if a space battleship is assembled with the original technology of the Octopus, its combat effectiveness will be increased by five to ten times on the original basis, and even the sailing speed will be increased to a considerable extent.

If they fought normally, with the same number, the fighting power of the insect swarm on paper was still not their opponent.But during the battle, the swarm would not tell them martial arts.

Compared with those sophisticated technological products, the Zerg's ability to mass-produce is not comparable to that of ordinary intelligent races. Therefore, even if the octopus people have not perished, with the current size of the Zerg Swarm, even if they have undergone considerable development, in the face of The overwhelming swarm of insects can only escape, and there is absolutely no room for resistance.

It should be noted that after the completion of the third round of expansion in the future, the swarm will not be far from the home of the octopus, Crichtel, and it will be included by Viser in the galaxy of the fourth round of expansion. It will replace those octopus people who have traveled far across the star sea and return to their hometowns.

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

In Zerg 896, in the HC-006 galaxy, a group of Zerg colonization teams from afar have just arrived here.

Compared to the huge team during the first expansion, their number can be said to be rare, less than two hundred.

In this galaxy with three rocky planets and three gas giant planets, they will undertake the next colonization activities and provide initial resources and energy support for the next round of expansion of the swarm.

That is to say, when they stayed on the rocky satellite of the giant planet closest to the edge of the galaxy, and planned to start their initial development here, an uninvited guest broke into the other side of the galaxy.

An object with an extremely regular shape, a standard disk shape, and an appearance volume of about one-third of the Zerg space unit cut into the galaxy from a completely different angle from the Zerg, and also immediately found the nearest celestial body, Activities in space ceased.

The insect swarm that was temporarily staying on the surface of the planet did not cross the star system to find this obviously mechanically created aircraft, and the other party did not show any special reaction against the zerg.

Maybe it was not discovered, maybe it was discovered but it was not announced.In short, both sides have hidden themselves intentionally or unintentionally in this star system, developing themselves silently.

Zero did not always pay attention to the ability of each Zerg individual. The task of controlling the daily development of the Zerg had been taught to Viser by Him in the past hundreds of years. With the will of the Hive, it was responsible for controlling the expansion activities of the entire Zerg. .

The scientific research teams led by Sass and Daggs now have two brain worms each, and they no longer participate in the command of the swarm, and most of the power in this regard has been delegated to Visser.

In the HC-006 galaxy, the first Zerg space dock is slowly being established. In the future, space units going to farther distances will be the first to be generated here, which may take about three years.

On the other side of the planet's surface, prototype factories have also begun to be established on the icy surface, and many intelligent mechanical tools are running on it.

A large number of satellites were released to explore the resources on the surface of the entire planet, and then a large number of intelligent production equipment and "robots" poured out from the "spaceship" that landed on the surface, and went straight to the nearby resource production areas.

An equally rapid material collection activity was launched on the surface of the planet in this way. In two different corners of this ordinary star system, two completely different "clans" launched the same action at the same time.

(End of this chapter)