Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 310 - Chapter 310 Chapter 309 Officially Setting Off

Chapter 310: Chapter 309: Officially Setting Off Chapter 310: Chapter 309: Officially Setting Off On this day, Zhang Yuan stood in a small room on the Kunlun Mountain, quietly gazing at this vast and desolate yet vibrant planet. This would be their eternal base.

“Alright, Captain of The Kunlun Mountain, you’re about to be on TV. Spruce up a bit. Don’t frown all day long. Yes, that’s right, relax, relax,” Lin Xuanyuan said with a smile on her face, fastening the buttons on his clothing one by one, then gently smoothing out the wrinkles.

After she had done all this, she changed into a beautiful dress, and then the two of them walked out of the room one after the other.

Indeed, today, after 105 years of development, humanity could finally set forth once more!

Both exhilarating and a bit disappointing.

All the material resources had been transported onto the spaceship months ago, and the staff had counted them many times in the warehouse without any errors.

Now, all that was left were the farewells between people.

Yes, farewells…

Farewells…

The central control room was filled with people and some television reporters, and the discussions were particularly heated.

“Never thought I’d live to see us embark,” Zhao Qingfeng said quietly, sighing from the sideline, “It’s wonderful. Every departure is like the birth of a new Sun, always filled with vigor and vitality.”

“I just love seeing this kind of scene.”

Zhang Yuan also smiled as he pondered the future direction of humanity.

Externally, they would, of course, explore the outer worlds along the cosmic string, unknown what future encounters might bring or what stories might unfold…

For all this, humanity had already equipped the Kunlun Mountain with considerable military strength.

23 Haiyan-class Frigates and 3 Yingjun-class Destroyers–this level of military strength was basically the maintenance limit for a population of eight million. More spaceships would be useless without sufficient population and economy to maintain them.

As for the internal direction of development, that was even more crucial: hibernation during interstellar journeys, planning for the virtual worlds, and the Transcendent program… There were so many issues to worry about.

The entire population of eight million executing the nomadic plan was actually a more radically-minded one; this radicalness might bring greater benefits, or it could directly lead to capsizing, disappearing in the universe without causing even a ripple.

Thus, while maintaining a vigorous spirit, they had to be all the more cautious and steady.

Thinking about the heavy responsibility on his shoulders, he couldn’t help but sigh deeply.

The universe was so cruel–as seen from the fate of the Gleize Civilization, it only showed the tip of the iceberg. Yet even this tip was daunting enough.

Many people harbored this question in the depths of their hearts: why not continue developing on this planet?

At least it meant safety, it meant… stability.

What if technology advanced a bit slower? This was, in fact, the usual developmental thought process for most people.

It wasn’t that the population of the New Civilization School had grown lazy, but over this century, the entire spirit of civilization had never been better. Having a declining Gleize Civilization as a cautionary example constantly reminded and spurred them on–it was hard not to be diligent!

According to data collected by the big data system over the years, virtually everyone had been earnestly working, with very few shirkers and a very low crime rate.

Everyone was fairly satisfied with the whole economic distribution system; it truly was a golden age that had lasted a century.

And the real inertia came from another level…

Complacency.

Before completely modifying their genes, humans could not escape the comfortable thinking rooted in their nature.

Why risk when you can be comfortable? Why embark on deep space voyages when you can develop here? This is the subconscious of mankind.

However, the development goal of the New Civilization School is not to keep civilization going forever, which could easily be done by squatting on some remote planet.

Instead… to continually advance!

Now is the time of the most rapid development, with the strongest sense of civilizational self-confidence, and eight million people are willing to leave. But Zhang Yuan understood very clearly that the basic technological dividends had been almost fully exploited, and continuing to develop in this way, only researching minor details, would not lead to any radical change.

So, what about a hundred years later? Perhaps only four million people would be willing to leave.

And two hundred years later? Perhaps the number would have dwindled to just two million.

Therefore, now was the best time.

On the other hand, slowly developing on this planet couldn’t be said to be absolutely safe; rather, it carried a series of risks…

Two civilizations had once visited this constant star, which was no coincidence but an inevitability! Directly along a linear cosmic string, located about 3.3 astronomical units or 448.8 million kilometers away from The Kunlun Mountain’s current position.

If humans could discover and utilize cosmic strings for propulsion, other alien civilizations could theoretically do the same.

“That means, these two interstellar civilizations likely traveled along the cosmic string. This place acts as a resource replenishment station!”

“Cosmic strings are essentially the Milky Way’s natural superhighways, which increases the probability of encountering alien civilizations in this vicinity… Fortunately, civilizations capable of interstellar travel using cosmic strings theoretically could not be unimaginably strong. Our fleet stands as a relatively powerful interstellar fleet, and encountering some interstellar civilizations shouldn’t be frightening, as long as we can mutually deter and maintain fair exchanges.”

“Civilizations that are level 4 and above can directly use superluminal curvature navigation; why would they need to travel along cosmic strings?”

Not every constant star nearby has such liner cosmic strings; on the contrary, stars in such unique geographical locations are uncommon.

For instance, there are no cosmic strings around the Solar System, hence the poor Earth people can’t use this mode of travel.

Earth Civilizations’ spaceships can only rely on nuclear fusion or light sails, progressing ponderously slow. Unless it takes thousands of years, traveling several light-years to find a cosmic string, they would then be able to proceed swiftly along it.

This is a good thing to a large extent; it means safety, as interstellar civilizations below level 4 are unlikely to venture on Earth.

It’s also a bad thing, meaning… Earth has become an isolated island, with neither exchange nor trade.

Of course, since the entire Milky Way is rotating around the Central Black Hole, stars near a cosmic string would also undergo certain changes, and every few hundred thousand years, all geographical positions would undergo drastic alterations. Perhaps the Solar System would move near a cosmic string.

Then, using the gravitational pull of a cosmic string, how fast could it propel?

The answer is… it can approach the speed of light!

Gravitational acceleration is a unique mode of acceleration, which can be used to propel a spaceship, a planet, or even a constant star, and black holes are no exception!

The energy contained within cosmic strings is far too vast; these are what facilitated the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters after the big bang! The energy of a galaxy, compared to it, is merely minuscule dust.

Even though most strings have already decayed, the energy they contain still vastly exceeds what humanity currently reaches by several magnitudes.

But then again, limited by the spaceship material technologies, communication technology, and long-range escort capabilities, humans can only accelerate the Kunlun Mountain Fleet to about 10% of the speed of light. Any higher becomes unfeasible, inevitably leading to safety issues.

This 10% of the speed of light already results in minor relativistic effects, which completely appears as a fantastical speed to scientists.

Paired with hibernation techniques, nearer constant stars could be reached in fifty to sixty years, entirely sufficient for interstellar travel.