The Staff's Strategy Was Too Imitative

Galactic Alliance, Military Staff Headquarters.

The Galactic Alliance's Military Staff Headquarters consisted of a virtual platform formed by massive computer arrays stationed in the empty expanses between star systems.

The scale of interstellar war was simply too vast, and the Staff Headquarters needed to coordinate the overall situation. If it were established in reality, the military materials delivered each day alone would be enough to drown the entire General Staff Headquarters.

The beauty of virtual space was that it could ignore distance to the greatest extent possible, ensuring the most efficient exchange of information while also guaranteeing that aggregated mountains of data could be delivered to the military staff of every civilization at once.

Now, a fierce debate had erupted within the Galactic Alliance Staff Headquarters' virtual space.

The core of the debate was what kind of war strategy the Galactic Alliance should adopt next to counter the enemy.

One staff officer proposed equipping the war machine clusters with faster-than-light engines, allowing these massive artificial constructs to gain the mobility to travel between star systems.

However, after running the calculations, the staff officers found that this idea was impractical.

"There isn't enough time, the resource demands would be enormous, and the required labor mobilization would be massive as well. Installing mobile faster-than-light engines on every war machine cluster would mean halting their production, and that is unacceptable at present. The Alliance fleet needs logistical support."

Another military staff officer added, "More importantly, there simply isn't enough time. The situation on the front lines is changing. Would the Babel Swarm really give the Alliance such a chance to catch its breath? What the Alliance needs is a faster solution."

"Mobile war machine clusters are a good idea, just not one suited to the current situation."

As one military staff officer after another voiced agreement, including the military staff from their own civilizations, the representatives sent by the Alliance's decision-making level to observe could no longer sit still.

Because of the infection tactics employed by the Babel Swarm, many of the Galactic Alliance's member factions had been cut off from one another. Some administrative planets had even actively accepted infection.

"What the Alliance needs now is a way to turn the situation around, not each of you saying it is 'unsuitable.' If we let the swarm creatures retain this initiative in the war, the Alliance's situation will only worsen by the day," an Alliance representative said.

The Galactic Alliance desperately needed a strategy to counter its opponent. The decision-makers did not expect to wipe out the enemy in one stroke or reverse the offensive and defensive positions, but at the very least... they could not let those damned swarm creatures extend their tentacles any farther.

At that moment, a military staff officer stepped forward.

"May I say a few words?"

"Bona, this isn't a military academy. This is a virtual space for pooling ideas. As long as it helps the battle situation, there are no such taboos. Please, speak."

"Understood."

Bona shook the membranous wings behind him, then slowly explained his idea.

"I believe the underlying logic of the previous proposal is sound. Although mobile war machine clusters are not suitable for the current war situation, the key to the present situation does indeed lie with the war machine clusters."

"To ensure the safety of the war machine clusters, the Alliance fleet can only adopt a defensive posture, constrained in how it responds to the swarm creatures' strategy."

Bona's words won the approval of quite a few staff officers. The Alliance representative also nodded slightly in agreement, stroking the feelers on his cheeks.

It was precisely because they had to consider military logistical facilities like the war machine clusters that the Galactic Alliance had been forced to shift its fleet from offense to defense.

The Galactic Alliance had no desire to trade home territories with the swarm. After so many years of interstellar war against the Babel Swarm, they naturally understood what kind of industrial system the swarm possessed.

Bona continued, "I think that since the swarm creatures can use nebula matter to induce black holes and resist the Alliance's Black-Hole-Induced Strikes, we can completely imitate them and use dust matter to envelop entire star systems."

"Then, at the asteroid belts along the outer edges of the star systems, we can establish a vast number of gravitational obstruction points to intercept faster-than-light travel, preventing the swarm creatures from directly making faster-than-light incursions near the stars to launch attacks."

"That way, the swarm creatures will no longer be able to strike the stars as swiftly as before and destroy the war machine clusters."

"With ample time to respond, the fleet strength responsible for guarding the war machine clusters can naturally be reduced."

"Then we can redeploy those fleets to launch attacks and disrupt the swarm creatures' offensive strategy. Once the war machine clusters in the Alliance's other star regions expand the fleet's scale, it will be time for the Galactic Alliance's great counteroffensive."

Just as Bona finished explaining the strategy he had devised, someone raised a question.

"Nebula matter alone is not enough. Countless battle records show that swarm creatures can rapidly locate the generated microscopic black holes, then deflect them to achieve defense. How would your strategy deflect the induced microscopic black holes?"

"If they cannot be deflected for defense, the induced microscopic black holes will still pose a threat to the stars."

The Galactic Alliance did not possess a power as conveniently overpowered as psionic energy. Nebula matter did not affect the swarm creatures' release of psionic energy; they could use their psionic network to sense the threat immediately, then instantly fling away the incoming microscopic black holes. But what about the Galactic Alliance?

Although the Galactic Alliance could likewise scatter vast numbers of sensors through space and imitate the planetary creatures' Scout Nebula, how to deflect the microscopic black holes generated within the nebula became another problem.

Nebula matter also had a pronounced weakening effect on all of the Galactic Alliance's weapons. After discussion, they unanimously agreed that kinetic solid-projectile interception was the ideal choice: shells would strike the microscopic black holes, using their own momentum to deflect their trajectories.

Although ray-based interception could produce the same deflection effect, rays were prone to scattering within nebula matter, thereby affecting the distribution density of the nebula matter.

Kinetic shells would be worn down by the nebula matter and lose momentum, but at least they would not affect the distribution density of the nebula matter. At most, they would carve a straight path through the nebula cloud, without affecting its ability to intercept Black-Hole-Induced Strikes.

As for the issue of nebula matter wearing down the shells and consuming their kinetic energy, it could be solved by shortening the firing distance.

A large number of kinetic gun emplacements could be evenly deployed within the star system. Once a microscopic black hole appeared, the nearest emplacement would fire shells to deflect it.

Meanwhile, the planetary creatures of the Babel Swarm that used Level Twelve psionic brains completed their incubation upgrade.

The process was not actually complicated. They simply replaced the Behemoth's original brain with one that had the same structure as the Sovereign brain.

Since the Sovereign's brain was eight times smaller than the Behemoth's brain, the upper limit of brains a planetary creature could carry increased eightfold. A single planetary creature was packed with forty million Sovereign brains.

More importantly, all of those psionic brains were Level Twelve psionic brains!

This meant that compared to the original planetary creatures using Level Ten psionic energy, the new generation of planetary creatures held an absolute advantage in both range and psionic power.

However, theory was theory, and tests of their capabilities were still necessary.

After directly comparing the range and strength of their psionic power with multiple planetary creatures, the results proved that the theory matched reality.

In particular, regarding psionic intensity, the original planetary creatures could at most draw a single gigantic pillar of fire from a star, while the new generation of planetary creatures could draw multiple pillars of fire at once.

After drawing them out, they could simultaneously expand multiple plasma spheres and accelerate their cooling. Even in incubating their own kind alone, their efficiency vastly surpassed that of planetary creatures using Level Ten psionic energy.

After tests in every regard, Lu Shang conducted the final test.