A Protracted War

This time, humanity failed to destroy the enemy's Second Planet base in one fell swoop, but it cannot be considered a complete failure; at least it dealt a heavy blow to their defenses.

On the way back, the new development plan was also finalized during the discussions.

First, the four warships that originally belonged to the First Fleet — Donghai (East Sea) Warship, West Sea, South Sea, and North Sea— were given authority to begin resource exploration and development operations on other planets, except for the Strong Artificial Intelligence on the South Sea, which continued to be responsible for the development and construction of the Planet Thirteen.

Over the years, the Low Earth Orbit of the Twelfth Planet, which had previously been Orbital Bombardment, is still shrouded in dust clouds, but the dust inside the planet has settled. Although the environment is harsh, it is still manageable to be mined, so it was chosen as the first resource mining site.

Then there's the former Crimson Flame Civilization's Sixth Planet base on the Ninth Orbit. When the facilities on it were bombed and destroyed, the mineral distribution on this planet had already been discovered by humans, so it became a second resource development site.

The remaining two are located on the two moons of the Giant Gaseous Planet that is the Seventh Planet. This planet is currently located to the left of the Planet Thirteen, and over time it will slowly turn towards the direction of humanity. For the next fifty years, the geographical conditions will be favorable.

The victories in the previous battles allowed humanity to clear enemy ships from the vicinity of these planets, creating a relatively safe environment. Of course, it is still necessary to have fleet patrols and to constantly monitor the movements of enemy fleets.

After the battle, the First Fleet of humanity retreated to Planet Thirteen for correction, so the fleet that took over the sortie mission naturally became the Second Fleet.

Similar to the human side, the Crimson Flame Civilization also began maintenance and repair work on its warships after retreating to its Second Planet base. In addition, they focused on the large-scale production of New Warship.

Humanity has been observing the actions of the Crimson Flame Civilization, but at this point in time, it is powerless to send Great Fleet to strike.

Therefore, the war once again entered a phase of small-scale battles between naval formations and combat between Probe Spaceship. During this phase, since Strong Artificial Intelligence was unable to participate, humanity was essentially at a disadvantage.

However, humans didn't care much, because what they wanted to do now was to expand their resource extraction areas and then surpass the Crimson Flame Civilization in terms of warship production speed.

After so many years of fighting, while neither side could be said to know the other's moves completely, they had at least seen them all.

Therefore, these actions by humans naturally did not escape the detection of the Crimson Flame Civilization. As a result, they harassed and attacked the new resource mining sites of humans time and time again in the following period.

Time passed in this state, year after year.

The overall situation of this Star System gradually changed to one where humanity was on the outer perimeter, and the Crimson Flame Civilization was on the inner perimeter. Both sides were trying to undermine each other while developing their own capabilities.

It was during this period that humanity discovered that the individual life forms on one side of the Interstellar Transaction Market seemed to be numerous, or rather, their reproductive capacity was very strong. When they produced New Warship, they could always fill them with personnel immediately and form combat power.

At the same time, an interesting phenomenon was discovered: their rapid resource gathering and warship production seemed to only occur at the third, fourth, and Fifth Planet bases.

Yes, after so many years, the Crimson Flame Civilization has also enabled these three bases to build ships.

Human experts believe that this phenomenon indicates the existence of a Strong Artificial Intelligence in the Interstellar Transaction Market, but it seems to be only applicable to manufacturing.

And believe it or not, humans actually guessed it right.

Similarly, almost simultaneously with humanity acquiring this intelligence through the consumption of various Probe Spaceship, the Crimson Flame Civilization was horrified to discover that humanity's resource extraction and warship production efficiency seemed to surpass their own. Especially after taking the three newly developed bases into account, humanity's increased resource acquisition efficiency led to a corresponding increase in warship production capacity.

"Great Commander, the situation is not optimistic! Earth civilization has now successfully expanded its resource sources. Their shipyards are no longer limited by the amount of resources available. At the same time, they have also built many new Space Dock in orbit around those planetary bases. According to data transmitted back by the probes, eight years ago, they could only produce about 200,000 warships per year, but now that number may quadruple."

At this moment, such a dialogue is taking place within the Crimson Flame Civilization.

"You mean, Earth's warship production capacity has surpassed ours? When did this happen? Is this news confirmed?"

"Yes, Your Great Commander. We sacrificed millions of Probe Spaceship for close-range exploration. These data are the result of comprehensive analysis by experts based on the exploration situation, and there is no mistake."

"That's troublesome. I thought we could wipe them out with our superior number of warships, but I didn't expect that this Earth civilization would have so many Strong Artificial Intelligence for production. It seems that our previous assumptions were somewhat flawed. Earth civilization not only has the technology to create Strong Artificial Intelligence, but it can also produce Strong Artificial Intelligence even when the Main Civilization is not around."

"Well, Your Great Commander, the Science Officer have different opinions on this. They believe that the technology for manufacturing Strong Artificial Intelligence is too complex. Even if Earth's civilization possesses this technology, they cannot produce so many Strong Artificial Intelligence in a short period of time without being separated from the Main Civilization. Based on this, their conclusion is that the resource development areas newly expanded by Earth's civilization are actually using the Strong Artificial Intelligence they originally brought with them, and there is a 90% chance that they are the Strong Artificial Intelligence they used on the battlefield. They have used technology that we do not know to modify those Artificial Intelligence to make them suitable for production."

"This kind of technology exists?"

"Some Great Commander, our Chief Science Officer has confirmed with our Strong Artificial Intelligence that this technology is possible in some computer-savvy civilizations."

"That's troublesome. Who would have thought that such a war-savvy civilization would exist in such a remote star system? If only we knew where the home planet of this Earth civilization was!"

"Great Commander, don't worry. The latest news is that our top scientists and engineers have made some progress in the Magnetic Propulsion Miniaturization Technology. In fifty years at most, we will be able to have miniaturized Magnetic Propulsion Thruster, and then we will be able to manufacture them specifically for attacking motherships! At that time, with our advantage in Nanotechnology, destroying their flagship will not be difficult."

"Civil Affairs Officer, you have done well. Victory will surely belong to us, and glory will forever belong to our Crimson Flame Civilization. Fifty years from now, we will give this Earth civilization a big surprise."