Gradually Coming into Focus
In four years and three months, humans can't do much, but they can still accomplish a lot.
The premise of everything we do is secrecy.
Therefore, human spacecraft docked in the orbit of Aldebaran -Kongming satellite always maintain a state of being on one side of the planet, and the same applies to spacecraft that unfold into resource stations.
All subsequent resource and fuel transportation will have to be conducted using satellites, planets, and stars as cover.
After that, Yue Yuan still needed to find ways to further prepare for the war within these four years, starting with four aspects.
In military terms, it's called the "Four Lightnesses".
Wu Qi said, "Make the land light for horses, the horses light for chariots, the chariots light for men, and the men light for battle."
What are the "Four Lightnesses"? Knowing the terrain is easy or difficult, one should lighten the horses; feeding them fodder in a timely manner, one should lighten the horses and carts; having ample grease and maces, one should lighten the carts and men; and having sharp weapons and strong armor, one should lighten the men's fighting.
Make the terrain suitable for warhorses to gallop, make the warhorses suitable for driving chariots, make the chariots suitable for carrying people, and make people suitable for fighting. Familiarity with the terrain's ruggedness and ease makes it easy for warhorses to gallop; timely feeding makes it easy for warhorses to drive chariots; thorough lubrication of the chariot axles makes it easy for the chariots to carry people; sharp blades and sturdy armor make it easy for people to fight.
Although the words are different, the ideas are still relevant, and by making horizontal comparisons, we can understand how to prepare for war.
The purpose of the "Four Lightnesses" is to provide as much operational convenience as possible to our side in order to improve combat effectiveness.
What Yue Yuan had his team of scientists do before, such as optimizing the fire control system based on current environmental parameters to make aiming and firing by the warship's Fire Control Officer simpler and more convenient, falls under the category of "lightening the vehicle and the personnel".
The "light chariot" naturally refers to speeding up the maintenance and repair of the warships, such as refueling.
Of course, Yue Yuan understands these things, but he doesn't act dogmatically in everything according to his limited knowledge of military strategy.
Therefore, just like refueling, not every warship can be fully refueled, because the more fuel added, the heavier the warship becomes, which will affect its various maneuvers.
Since we're not going to engage in a long-range, direct attack, we only need to refuel based on the potential duration of the war.
The idea of jettisoning auxiliary fuel tanks before a fighter jet takes off is a manifestation of this concept.
Humans are a species, so overall planning is of paramount importance.
Wu Ziyun: A person often dies because of what he cannot do, and fails because of what he cannot change.
This means that people often die because they fail to learn something, or are defeated by a skill they fail to master.
Therefore, Yue Yuan sent Man Yuemei to the Kunlun-Class Warship to coordinate that squadron of warships. His purpose was to have her seize the time to ensure that the soldiers were proficient in their respective positions within four years, ideally to the point where they could fight without thinking and with conditioned reflexes.
Preparing for war is not just about giving a slogan; it requires action, and all of humanity must be mobilized.
After a high-level meeting was held on the bridge of the Lyra, Yue Yuan convened an expanded meeting to implement the various strategies set forth at the high-level meeting, so that the human machines could be put into operation according to their priorities.
The results were quickly evident on Aldebaran-Kongming Star. Human Landing Ship carrying Base Vehicle landed on the planet's surface, and then, like in 'Red Alert,' they deployed one after another in suitable locations, firmly anchoring themselves to the ground.
Then, mineral exploration personnel, unmanned mining robots, Engineering Vehicle, and transport vehicles poured out of the transport ship in dense numbers, heading to their respective mission points to begin their work.
To ensure precise control of the robot, humans also specially copied the 'Tianhe Light' program and placed it on the ground station for multi-threaded control.
Time slips away slowly amidst the hectic pace of human life.
One year, two years. During this time, humans continued to use probes to scan and explore the starry sky. Two years passed, and humans did not find any trace of the other side's Probe Spaceship slowing down, but they did obtain some useful information.
That is, human telescopes delivered relatively clear images of the unknown fleet.
"Commander Yue, we've captured the footage. Those 120 large contrails all appear to be warships, but strangely, the other 300-plus smaller contrails seem to be cylindrical spaceships."
"So it really is 120 warships, a ratio of 1:12," Yue Yuan sighed inwardly.
He sat upright in the captain's seat as usual, listening to the report. He looked at the video avatar on the screen and asked, "Can the size be determined?"
On the large screen, a scientist was reporting the situation via video call. Upon hearing Yue Yuan's question, he synchronized the observation data and images to the Lyra and replied, "It is difficult to determine their size without a frame of reference. However, if their formation as they pass through the dust cloud remains unchanged, we can estimate the size of the warships by comparing them with the dust cloud."
As the scientist spoke, his hands flew across the keyboard. He was intimately familiar with these operations, and the result was calculated the moment he finished speaking.
He then continued, "The 120 large warships should be of the same type, with a length of approximately 1800 to 2000 meters. The remaining 293 smaller, cylindrical spaceships should be between 800 and 1000 meters long."
Warships and spaceships certainly have more than just length as a parameter; however, generally, knowing their maximum parameter is enough to determine what class a warship belongs to.
After all, the other dimensions, such as height and width, wouldn't be too far off, and although the scientist didn't say it, these two data points were actually already displayed on the big screen.
At this moment, Yue Yuan nodded, which was a response to the scientist's report in the video conversation. Then he stroked his chin and pondered over the data.
From a structural and functional perspective, the large roller suspension structure of Residential Spaceship is not suitable for combat, so human warships are of a different type.
It now appears that this Unknown Civilization is aware of this, so these warships have been designed in a different style. From the somewhat blurry images, they resemble a revolver without a handle.
It is clearly different from other spacecraft that are shaped like a large cylinder.
What's surprising is that the fleet's warships are so much larger than their Residential Spaceship. Logically, if they have the capability to build such large warships, they should also be able to build Residential Spaceship of the same size.
"Could it be..."
Thinking of this, Yue Yuan's heart stirred, and the sets of parameters from when humans expanded the size of their dwellings appeared in his mind.
"Could it be that the individuals in this civilization are unable to adapt to environments with drastically different Gravitational Acceleration?" Yue Yuan instantly thought of this possibility. He thought to himself, "If that's the case, wouldn't the protrusion in the middle of the revolver-shaped warship be a Large Turntable? If that's the case, then that would be wonderful!"
Yue Yuan felt this was highly likely; judging from this, the physical abilities of this civilization were inferior to those of enhanced humans.
We'll find out how much the difference is by looking at their deceleration time.
It seems like kieos gave a 500-coin reward, and thank you to "What's good for late-night snacks?" for the 600-coin reward.