Box Route
The actual situation of the Milky Way Galaxy is different from the Milky Way Galaxy images that humans often see in Earth Era, or rather, it is different from the images that ordinary people see and perceive.
It does have four main spiral arms: the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, the Sagittarius-Carina Arm, the Norma Arm, and the Perseus Arm. There is also an outer arm formed by rotation, which is an extension of the Norma Arm. The Orion Arm people are familiar with is actually a branch of the Centaurus Arm. The front part of the Sagittarius-Carina Arm is the Centaurus Arm, and the end of the Orion Arm is the Carina Arm.
The Orion Arm is a spiral arm that connects the Sagittarius-Carina Arm and the Perseus Arm.
Humanity is currently located at the end of the Orion Arm, separated from the Perseus Arm by a vast, empty space with extremely sparse stars.
The location shown in the star map is right across from us; it's visible through human telescopes, but we can't cross it directly because the distances between the stars are too vast.
Yes, even between the spiral arms, there are stars. These stars, like other stars in the Milky Way Galaxy Galactic Center, are bound by the Gravity of the Milky Way Galaxy center and revolve around it.
However, the stars between the spiral arms are not as densely packed as those within the spiral arms. They mostly exist as individual Star System, surrounded by vast Void, in the middle of nowhere.
Therefore, humanity must find a place with a large number of stars.
Turning back towards the Galactic Center is impossible, because in the current understanding of humankind, that direction is the battlefield of Level Six Civilization.
So where do we get there from?
Humanity, which had originally planned to embark on the voyage, once again deployed various instruments and equipment, especially telescopes for astronomical observation. They attempted to find possible Star Path traversing the spiral arms by comparing actual observations with star maps of the Milky Way Galaxy stored in databases.
Yes, Star Path, a path paved with stars.
Most of humanity travels within the Galactic Disk, which affects observation. For example, from a human perspective, we cannot see the entire Milky Way Galaxy; we can only see a dense cluster of stars, larger in the middle and smaller on both sides. The Milky Way Galaxy Galactic Disk that people usually see is a computer-generated image of the Milky Way Galaxy created by measuring the distances and positions of many stars. In reality, humans do not have a bird's-eye view of the Milky Way Galaxy.
It's like being in the mountain itself and not seeing its true face.
Under such circumstances, it is extremely difficult for humans to find a connection point with a large number of stars between the two spiral arms.
You could say that all you could see, from any angle, were stars, just varying in number, density, and thickness.
Therefore, in order to find a feasible Star Path, humanity decided to send out more probes and Probe Spaceship to fly up and down the Galactic Disk to provide humanity with a certain angle of overhead view.
Of course, this is not easy, since although the Milky Way Galaxy is a flat, club-shaped galaxy, its Galactic Disk is still quite thick.
Taking the Galactic Center as an example, the galactic disk is at least 12,000 light-years thick, while the Solar System is about 6,000 light-years thick. The thickness decreases as you move outwards, and where we are now, the Galactic Disk is about 5,000 light-years thick. Of course, we are not at the very center, which is one of the reasons why launching probes in both directions is feasible.
This is thanks to the choice of human travel routes. To avoid encountering other civilizations, humans generally choose to travel along Star Path at the upper part of the Galactic Disk where stars are not very dense.
Perhaps humanity was quite lucky; after combining multi-faceted exploration and observation, a possible route was quickly discovered.
That place is about two thousand light-years away from where we are now, in the same direction as our current travels, in the middle and end of the Orion Arm.
After years of human observation, it has been discovered that there are some sparse stars between the two spiral arms at that location. It is the most likely place where the Orion Arm and the Perseus Arm pass through, and it is also the place with the most stars between the two spiral arms. It can be said to be a fuzzy connection point between the two spiral arms.
If it is really possible to pass there, then the route humans need to take to reach their destination is probably a "" shape.
If we consider the Void between the spiral arms as a river, then it would take humans two thousand light-years to reach the Ferry Crossing from their current location. Including the journey back and across the spiral arms, the total distance would be eight thousand light-years.
Eight thousand light-years! In the past, humanity would not have dared to even imagine that. Even if Level 3 Civilization traveled non-stop, it would still take it sixteen thousand years to reach that distance. Of course, Level 3 Civilization could not possibly cross that distance, because the distance between stars completely blocked any possibility of Level 3 Civilization crossing it.
Even the initial stage of Level 4 Civilization cannot overcome this, because the travel technology at the initial stage of Level 4 Civilization can only reach the speed of light, which is 1 times the Warp. Only after a major breakthrough in the Grand Unified Force Field can it acquire the ability to travel at 10.079 times the speed of light Warp, which is the intermediate stage of Level 4 Civilization.
Of course, humans are unaware of this yet, since they directly mastered the 10.079 light-speed Warp drive technology from the very beginning. Therefore, the entire Human Civilization now believes that as long as one enters Level 4 Civilization, one can directly possess such travel technology!
Even traveling at ten times the speed of light would only take eight hundred years, but that's just an ideal scenario. In reality, it's impossible to travel at breakneck speed the entire time; that's unrealistic.
Leaving aside whether the Warp Engine could handle it, the energy reserves of each ship alone would not be enough to support it, requiring resupply en route.
Warp Speed Travel differs from conventional propulsion. Conventional propulsion allows the ship to accelerate to a certain relative speed and then shut off the propulsion, allowing it to enter a state of uniform motion. However, Warp Speed Travel cannot do this; to maintain light-speed/faster-than-light Warp, the Warp Engine must be continuously operational.
Once the Warp Engine is shut down, the ship will exit Warp mode.
This is easy to understand; it's due to differences in navigation technology, so the actual sailing time is much longer than the theoretical time.
That said, after discovering this possible Star Path, Human Civilization did not hesitate. Instead, it chose to directly embark on the Star Path to the distant "Ferry Crossing" to see if the Star Path was truly feasible.
Since it was a direction away from the battlefield of Level Six Civilization anyway, and they had to go there eventually, the humans naturally didn't hesitate.
Led by a Planet-Class ship, the Great Fleet, along with a large number of affiliated civilization ships, disappeared into the Void like a large fish leading a school of Xiao Yu.
With the current Antimatter reserves of the human fleet, a single voyage can cover a maximum distance of 500 light-years. After that, as long as there are resources to continue producing and replenishing the Antimatter stockpile, the journey can continue. This is the source of humanity's confidence in its ability to traverse the spiral arm.
As long as the distance between stars does not exceed 500 light-years, humanity is confident that it can safely cross the spiral arm.
The Orion Arm is too dangerous; it would be better to go to the Perseus Arm... Many humans thought this after embarking on their Star Path.