1597, Last Stand
In this uninhabited star system, a vast number of Kuat Drive Yards spacecraft had already gathered. More than a dozen large space stations had also been built near the star, serving as living quarters and recreation facilities for the workers and engineers involved in the construction.
And what this immense workforce and fleet of ships were building was an incomparably colossal installation!
Its purpose was still unclear. It was broadly disc-shaped, with a diameter already exceeding 20,000 meters! It was an absolute super-behemoth!
All construction was taking place in a close solar orbit. To prevent the powerful stellar radiation from disrupting the work, more than a dozen umbrella-shaped ships had been deployed near the construction site. These umbrella ships would project Deflector Shields over an extremely wide area, protecting the vessels and construction crews from harm.
Maintaining the operation of those shield ships alone required a constant replacement of shield capacitors. The expense of that alone was already astronomical!
And that was not all. Even closer to the star, several energy extraction devices were under construction, with the work being carried out entirely by robots. The energy output of these extraction devices was extraordinarily high. This was definitely not a project meant to supply power to the construction zone or other planets, but rather one intended for an even more energy-intensive and concentrated undertaking!
Looking at the engineering ships constantly at work, along with their workers, technicians, scientists, and all manner of personnel needed to sustain daily life, more than five million people were participating in this project. Their wages alone were an enormous expense, because for the sake of secrecy, none of the participants were allowed to leave before the project was completed. There was only one way to keep them working willingly—throw money at them.