Monitors

Rowan is a creature who highly values personal privacy. Ever since he first discovered the surveillance cameras during the Battle of Laze Planet, Rowan has been trying to figure out how to place them.

The Epoch Clan's surveillance systems are scattered throughout the entire star field, their number unknown. Considering their stealth, these surveillance systems must not be very large, a fact already confirmed when the gravitational probes previously detected them. Through technical means, analyzing the strength of the returned gravitational waves, the Intellect concluded that the probe's actual size is approximately two cubic meters.

If it hadn't been so close to the battlefield, given its small size and unique stealth technology, the Swarm's then-developing Gravity Radar would have had a hard time detecting it.

However, once they were no longer mysterious, Rowan understood. Small volume meant small internal space; how much could two cubic meters hold? The external protective armor should only have radiation protection and basic impact protection functions. If it was an invisible coating, it wouldn't take up much space; if it was a special material, it would take up some space, more or less.

Propulsion system? This certainly doesn't reach the level of a warp drive; it's probably just a basic Sub-light Engine. Due to size limitations, its speed wouldn't be high either. Based on this reasoning, these monitors were likely deployed by the spaceship, not flown there on their own.

The observation system? This is the most important thing. If too many types of observation equipment are integrated, there won't be enough space, so the variety will not be comprehensive.

The information transmission system is of paramount importance; no matter how much data and information is observed, it's all for naught if it can't be sent back. However, its size already indicates that its armor won't be too thick, meaning it's a fragile item. Therefore, it's impossible for such a thing to be equipped with valuable Quantum Communication Device.

Of course, this preciousness is relative to civilizations that do not possess this technology. Perhaps they are not precious to the Epoch Clan, but considering the Epoch Clan's methods of protecting these devices, newly joined native the Alliance are only given five units, and even the princes of the Duoqi Civilization need to apply for one unit before they can be assigned one for their expeditions. An old civilization like the Telo has only managed to keep a few units hidden for many years.

If all these ubiquitous surveillance cameras were equipped with Quantum Communication Device, they wouldn't be nearly as valuable. Getting a few surveillance cameras would be much easier than simply stealing them from the Epoch Clan. Rowan didn't believe that the Telo Civilization's methods wouldn't be able to detect these surveillance cameras.

Therefore, their information transmission system should also be a conventional electronic signal. Of course, given the overwhelming technological superiority of the Epoch Clan, even ordinary electronic signals would be difficult for lower-level civilizations to detect.

Finally, there's the energy and energy conversion system. Considering the special nature of their missions, they can't be frequently replaced and recharged. Therefore, they must have a long-term energy supply system. However, due to size limitations, Controlled Fusion devices are out of the question, and even Controlled Fusion devices would require periodic refueling. Nuclear batteries are also difficult to sustain for hundreds of years. Thinking about it this way, only solar energy and radiation energy seem reliable.

Therefore, even if the Epoch Clan's energy conversion technology is incredibly advanced, the amount of energy they can obtain per unit of time is limited by the area they can absorb. Based on this, it can be deduced that the monitoring system likely doesn't contain any high-energy-consuming devices, thus proving the previous inferences.

However plausible a guess may be, it ultimately requires disassembling the actual object to confirm its existence.

When the invitation from Duoqi Third Prince had just failed, and he was unwilling to continue wandering outside, in order to "deter" the Riken Race and prevent them from making any rash moves, the Swarm gathered a large number of Ancient Class Zerg and shuttled back and forth between the Chuyun Planet Base and the Stellar Near-Orbit Base.

During one of their marches, the Ancient Class fleet pursued the Duoqi Fleet after it approached and provoked them. During the pursuit, they "accidentally" passed by an Epoch Clan monitoring device.

The surveillance camera tried to evade, but there were simply too many Ancient Class. Furthermore, as predicted, its built-in thrusters only served a minor purpose: adjusting direction. Therefore, once the Ancient Class swarm had passed, the surveillance camera disappeared...

Afterwards, the Swarm concentrated a large number of Observation Swarm-Body to intensively monitor the area where the monitor disappeared, but even now, more than ten years later, no unidentified ships have been found to have come to investigate.

The missing surveillance camera was swallowed by an Ancient Class creature, whose interior developed a special Electromagnetic Cage. For Ancient Class creature that already possessed various electromagnetic functions, this was merely a minor modification.

The Electromagnetic Cage, constructed using a partial Atomic Furnace structure, restrained the monitor with a powerful electromagnetic field. During this time, some electrical signals were detected emanating from the monitor, extremely stealthy; it would have been undetectable had it not been inside the Ancient Class body. However, thanks to the Electromagnetic Cage's shielding, the monitor's efforts were futile. Inside the Electromagnetic Cage, no electronic signal could escape interference and penetrate the Ancient Class body to transmit out.

Furthermore, now that its frequency band has been discovered, we can make targeted modifications to the relevant insects to incorporate the electronic signals of this frequency band into the monitoring system, making them much easier to detect in the future.

This confirms the previous speculation about the information transmission equipment. However, if that's the case, there must be a signal base station somewhere, because the electronic signal emitted by the monitor is not strong enough to fly too far.

By observing the direction of the signal transmission, the Swarm deduced that the base station was probably somewhere in the void outside the Riken Star System. As for the exact location, they could only investigate it secretly. With the current strength of the Swarm, they could not ignore the owner of the base station.

Fortunately, through this information, Rowan Wen obtained new intelligence: even if the base station had Quantum Communication Device, the electronic signals from the monitor still needed time to be transmitted, meaning the information received by the Epoch Clan would have a delay of at least several months to several years. This was good news.

Over the next period of time, the Swarm dismantled the monitors, confirming everything they had previously suspected. At the same time, they secretly searched for the Epoch Clan monitors within their territory based on the newly discovered signal frequency bands.

As the negotiations with the Telo Race progressed, Rowan had instructed Danton to subtly inquire about the surveillance equipment, and Bular, understanding the implication, cryptically revealed some information.

According to Bular, in the early days when the New Epoch Clan had just taken over everything from the Original Epoch Clan, everything was in great chaos. The alien races, who were originally confined to a star system by the Ji Epoch Clan, took the opportunity to leave their Mother Planet and began their colonization of other star systems.

At that time, the mindset of the New Epoch Clan had not changed; they were still thinking about their respective mother clans. By the time their mindset changed, too much time had passed, and everything was already set in stone.