Age of Cosmic Exploration Chapter 135

The one standing on the stage was Silewei. His face flushed with excitement, he continued, "According to String Theory, every property of an ordinary particle is determined by the vibrational state of the string. By manipulating the string, these sparticles become antimatter, which, after collision with its corresponding particles, creates mutual annihilation [2]!

"Of course, this requires the alien race to be able to manipulate the string. This kind of technology… no, this kind of godlike power is simply unbelievable. In any case, the formation of the null zone can now be understood to be caused by a device that forms this creator’s particle. Its underlying theories and formulae can be found in page 34, where there are additional details…

"…To conclude, these creator’s particles, or antimatter sparticles, are formed by manipulating the string to create antimatter out of an ordinary particle’s sparticle. In our case, the antimatter then collides with electrical signals to annihilate one another, creating the null zone.

"Then, how do we defend ourselves against this sparticle? The answer again could be found in the book. Antimatter is rarely naturally-occurring. Whenever it’s formed, the string will neutralize it using vibrations of similar frequency. It is like the cosmos doesn’t like the presence of antimatter, which is the reason why is still a great physics mystery! Therefore, to form these antimatter sparticles, one requires a string vibrator, and we’ve managed to salvage 3 of these still functional vibrators and many more of their parts from the junkyard. They shall be our focus within the next month!"

Yao Yuan exited the conference room with his head spinning. As an expressionless Bo Li crossed in front of him, he stopped her by grabbing onto her shoulder. "Join me for dinner. I have some questions for you," he said, when she finally turned around to stare daggers him.

"…Let go of me first." Bo Li almost yelled after she failed to struggle out of his grip.

Yao Yuan released her with a chuckle. He then walked directly to the canteen, knowing full well that Bo Li would follow. Bo Li sighed inwardly before doing exactly that.

"Are you familiar with the creator’s particle?" Yao Yuan asked, while they were on the way there.

Bo Li shrugged. "Of course."

Yao Yuan shook his head, saying, "Looks like the era of dreadnought missiles people are waiting for is still a distance away."

Bo Li continued, in an insolent tone, "The era of dreadnought missiles? I can’t believe people still have hope for something as dumb as that. Even a robot era would make more sense than that; are they still living in 20th century Earth? Even then, they would know a giant ass dreadnought is not going to work in combat. They should be looking forward to either an aircraft carrier jet squad that combines both speed and power, or anti-space nuclear-powered space artillery. Dreadnought missile… yeah right."

Yao Yuan retorted, "It’s not that hard to believe, really. If we didn’t discover this creator’s particle, the dreadnought missile might survive the 4th, 5th, or even 6th industrial revolutions. If the target is within range, the missile could take it down in less than a minute. Our current supermagnetic surveillance technology could triangulate coordination in under 10 seconds and lock on in just 1. Using a laser missile, the target could be shot down in just 1 second. Or even better, a Gaussian missile. The recently suggested Gaussian railgun, doesn’t it have a purported ability of reaching 50 percent light speed? We could be taking down 1 enemy at every 50 seconds interval, especially when facing an enemy fleet.

"However, the presence of this creator’s particle has shoved all of these plans out the window. With the null zone activated, the possibility of long-ranged sniping becomes impossible. They could still snipe us after they have escaped the limit of the null zone, but we would have left using the particle accelerator by then.

"Furthermore, when one is trapped within the null zone, no signal would be able to pass through the signal blockade… This means that even if we had the dreadnought missile, it would be for show, or to torment a young civilization that doesn’t have access to the creator’s particle technology, like us before this…"

Bo Li said mischievously, "Still thinking about those robots?"

Yao Yuan laughed bitterly. "Of course. They became scrap metal before we could even retrieve the mini creator’s particle isolators inside them. Those mini devices allow their carriers to neutralize the effect of the null zone in a range of 10 centimeter around itself."

Bo Li shrugged. "Yup, they’re all waste metal now. I’ve ordered it so."

Yao Yuan smiled and moved to tousle Bo Li’s hair. She turned and leveled at him her death stare, which only made Yao Yuan break up in laughter. "In any case, for every positive, there’s its negative. It is the same with the creator’s particle vibrator and isolator. One is for offense, another defense. The similarity is that they both exhaust an incredible amount of energy in use. Especially for the isolator, to neutralize the antimatter, it has to keep on producing positive particles to contest the antimatter and balance the charge out. No wonder the robots don’t patrol outside of the warship, it’s too energy-consuming."

After some reflection, Yao Yuan added, "Now that I think about it, this victory borders on the impossible. Our enemy has a device that neutralizes almost all of our arsenal, an electromagnetic shield that blocks all of our ammo, and an army big enough to run us over like bugs, but somehow we come out victorious. Granted we did suffer a huge loss as well, statistically speaking, we should've been wiped out. Thanks the gods that we somehow pulled through… By the way, how’s the data on the controllable polymerized reactor?"

A glint returned to Bo Li’s eyes now that they were talking about science. "According to preliminary results, we can definitely create controllable polymerized reactors using the electromagnetic technology to administer hydrogen isotopes, which allows us a degree of control over the reactor’s polymerization rate. Regretfully, since our electromagnetic research is also still in its nascent state, the reactor could only be controlled to reach the same level of output as the Hope’s current nuclear fission reactor. We still need a few months to reach the level you have in mind."

Yao Yuan waved her off. "Time is not an issue. We’ve salvaged much supplies from the junkyard, including a great store of heavy water [3], so don’t worry. Plus, we’ve already been here for almost 1 and a half years; what’s another 1 and a half? The key is for us to enter the 4th industrial revolution, only then can we face the wide cosmos head-on… This is too crucial for our survival!"

Bo Li suddenly asked, "Now that I think about it, other than forming the new Black Star Troopers, you’ve not mentioned the need to create new weaponry in there past 9 months. You know that the complete version of the Gaussian gun is already ready. With an order, my lab could mass produce up to tens of thousands of these weapons using the metal taken from the junkyard. Furthermore, research on the electromagnetic shield is also pretty much finished. Even though we still can’t manufacture one big enough to fit the Hope or the shuttles, personal shields that can be attached to the combat suit are entirely possible to make. Not to mention the particle flux accelerator. If we could replace the rocket propellers on the shuttles with corpuscular streams…"

"There’s no need to rush." Yao Yuan smiled, interjecting, "Watching our technology improve on a daily basis, with new theories and technologies popping up every other day as study into the alien reading material goes deeper, it’s a wonderful feeling…

"I was not kidding when I said I mean for us to stay for another 1 and a half years here. We need the time to process all that we’ve collected. There are simply way too many things to complete… weaning off our reliance on rocket fuel to particle flux, fixing creator’s particle isolators onto the shuttles, building and fitting the Hope with Gaussian railguns, ambitious plans involving the electromagnetic shields…"

Yao Yuan spread his arms as if welcoming the bright future. "The fourth industrial revolution is going to be based in electromagnetic technology. The one step in scientific progress involves contribution from the fields of energy, superstring theory, genetics, and space tech. It means that we’ve finally escaped from the confines of a singular solar system and are prepared to take on the whole cosmos. The 4th industrial revolution enables us to do all that… or at least that’s what's been written into the alien books, right? According to their history, the 4th industrial revolution was when they truly stepped into an era of cosmic exploration.

"I’ve heard the clarion call for our 4th industrial revolution, so now is not the time for us to warp! We shall do no such thing to delay its arrival!

"After all, isn’t our life expectancy extended to 200-year-olds now? The genetic mesomeric effect [4] created by electromagnetism has been found to induce anti-aging and increases longevity. Look at Silewei, he’s part of the test group, and hasn’t his hair been showing brown roots lately?"

Yao Yuan laughed heartily, adding, "Yes, I can hear the sound of the 4th industrial revolution…

"And it couldn’t have come sooner!"

Chapter end