Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 586 - 583: Speed of Light Barrier

This is the change of the times, the expansion of human vision and strength...

As the two of them fantasized about the future, a notification beep suddenly rang in their ears, "Respected citizen of the New Human Civilization, Mr. Zhang Yuan, hello, the Starry Sky Port standard room you have reserved has entered the queue. There are still 132 rooms available to choose from."

This voice did give Zhang Yuan a bit of a pleasant surprise because the port was bustling with tourists and rooms were limited, usually requiring a wait for several months.

If they hadn’t made it into the queue, they would have had to return to live on the surface.

To think that they had secured a reservation on the last day of the holiday was a small surprise for them both.

"Today we can sleep here! Which room do you want to sleep in, low gravity, zero gravity, or normal gravity?"

Lin Xuanyuan thought for a moment, "Of course, normal gravity! Why sleep in zero gravity—it’s terrifying. I always have nightmares..."

Zhang Yuan stared at the screen for a while before suddenly saying, "You really have no romance! I wanted to sleep in a room with a ’Golden Ratio Gravity Environment.’ There’s just one room left."

"Golden Ratio?"

"It is said that in this gravitational environment, one’s blood circulation is very smooth, and the body feels extremely agile. Young men and women really like it, hahaha... These rooms are really hard to book."

Lin Xuanyuan rolled her eyes but was a bit curious about what exactly the "Golden Ratio Gravity Environment" was...

A lovely night quickly passed...

The next day, everyone resumed their normal work.

At 6:00 am, a large group of people were already waiting eagerly at the Observatory. By 9:00 am, people finally spotted the trace of Tos Civilization’s Curvature Spaceship. It was a huge spaceship estimated to carry a population of around 1 million, cruising at 0.1c.

If it weren’t for the bright light emitted by the spaceship, regular radars would have had no way of locking onto it.

"Conventional radars must be upgraded! Such a huge spaceship can’t even be locked on. What will we do if war breaks out?" Several generals were very dissatisfied with the current military equipment.

Only when the spaceship reached about six million kilometers from the Starry Sky Port did it abruptly stop, as if there was no deceleration process in between.

Indeed, Curvature Navigation is such a miraculous mode of travel.

Of course, using Curvature Navigation has its limitations. The curvature engine has strict requirements for spatial curvature and cannot operate in places with strong gravity. Otherwise, it could damage the engine itself, with the lighter consequence being an immediate explosion of the engine, and the dire consequence being the generation of a strong gravitational wave that tears the spaceship apart!

Therefore, to maintain maneuverability, spaceships still need to be equipped with conventional modes of travel.

With a slight vibration, the large Mother Ship of the Tos Civilization docked with the Starry Sky Port, and the bright indicator lights came on.

"Welcome, welcome, dear friends!" The Captain sent out her greetings first.

People cheered loudly, welcoming these old friends, and had prepared quite a nice ecological environment for them.

The reasons why the Tos Civilization was willing to come here with such a large population included technology exchange, such as sharing experiences in Curvature Technology, recounting past friendships, cultural exchanges, military exchanges, and so on.

On the other hand, the main reason was to seek optical perception.

Yes, optical perception!

Without optical perception, the technology tree of the Tos Civilization is far too distorted. There is competition among Level 4 Civilizations, and the Tos People must remedy this flaw to develop better.

As an expert in extra perception, Mr. Zhang Yuan naturally holds a prestigious position, standing at the very front of the welcoming party.

Soon, the leaders of both sides made contact, offering mutual condolences and speaking of historical ties and past friendships, which sounded incredibly dull. Indeed, it was dull but an essential procedure.

Then began the arrangements for civilian exchanges and meetings of scientists.

Out of the one hundred million humans, over sixty million are from the new generation; this was their first time seeing an alien civilization closely related to humanity.

The combination of large tadpole fish and wolf-dogs was quite interesting. These dogs, also clad in power armor, curiously howled at the sight of so many humans.

Many young people thought that it would indeed take a very close relationship for them to bring over a population of one million as they had done.

If the government’s relationships were good, then naturally, there wouldn’t be any problems among the civilians either.

Collaborating to break through to Level 4 Civilizations was a profound display of friendship. How many third-level civilizations in the Milky Way could become Level 4?

Any past minor conflicts were only truly appreciated by the older generations. Could those be considered conflicts? In the face of the ultimate outcome, they definitely were not distinct conflicts!

Soon, many smaller spaceships began to compete for speed, coupled with the exhibition path of the space weapons, which was thrilling for military enthusiasts.

Observing these sub-light speed spaceships from the planet’s surface was quite interesting, as their shapes appeared stretched into long "noodles." The longer the noodle, the faster the spaceship flew.

In reality, it wasn’t that the spaceships underwent physical deformation or a relativistic effect, but rather due to their high speeds, the images of the spaceships became observationally distorted.

As for the military aspect, combat under sub-light speed conditions differed from conventional warfare. For example, curvature missiles were powerful weapons, and making sharp turns during curvature navigation became an exceptionally difficult problem.

The two sides could jointly research these new areas, compete and exercise with each other, as having a competitor would definitely lead to faster progress than developing alone.

"...Greetings, friends of the New Human Civilization. As for the difficulties with curvature technology, there are indeed many. The first major issue involves a series of problems after breaking the light barrier, commonly referred to as the Light Barrier."

"First and foremost, after breaking the Light Barrier, our spaceships travel faster than photons, so how should we communicate with each other? Whether it’s conventional flight or the interconnection among military spaceships, communication is crucial!"

"Additionally, after breaking the Light Barrier, it introduces significant confusion in the observational visuals; the faster the speed, the more jumbled the images become. Flying blindly is certainly not safe... We must find suitable algorithms..."

On stage, giving the speech, was the great scientist of the Tos Civilization, Tocaria Antongding. The content of his speech was actually not complex, and nearly everyone could understand. This, too, was part of the exchange between them.

Once a spaceship catches up with the photons it emitted, it would result in various peculiar phenomena.

If observed from directly in front of the spaceship, it appears to be... moving backward!

If observed from directly behind the spaceship, the resulting image still travels at the speed of light, with no actual "superluminal" speed!

If observed from the side of the spaceship, it becomes even stranger, stretching into a noodle-like shape, then splitting in the middle into two spaceships flying in opposite directions. Of course, these are just images.

In short, all these strange scenarios will pose challenges to communication.