The appearance of the Miracle Sphere would completely rewrite the rules of warfare in the universe.
Although plenty of things were already rewriting those rules, the Miracle Sphere was undoubtedly the most absurd of them all.
Hyperlanes were undoubtedly one of the fundamental rules of the Stellaris universe. Only within a hyperlane could ships travel faster than light, crossing countless light-years to reach another star system in ten days.
In normal space and ordinary subspace, ships could reach light speed with their thrusters, but they were clearly far slower than they would be in a hyperlane.
When the L-Dragon had crossed the universe from the L-Cluster to the Milky Way, the journey had taken over a hundred years. Had there been even a single hyperlane, that could have been cut down to ten days. That was what hyperlanes meant.
During ordinary space travel using thrusters, any ship without a hyperlane to anchor its position would lose its bearings and become hopelessly lost, while its speed would fall far short of hyperlane travel.
That was how Marshal Xi Lie had traveled back then, stumbling upon the Cybrex Ring by sheer chance.
Subspace travel, meanwhile, meant using thrusters to force a passage through the region where hyperlanes existed. This was even more dangerous: subspace offered no positioning, no reference points, and no physical matter. The slightest mistake could leave a ship utterly lost.
However, the beams emitted by the Miracle Sphere were clearly visible even in subspace.
That meant the Miracle Sphere could provide subspace navigation, making previously dangerous subspace travel safe and controllable. Although it was much slower than hyperlane travel, it bypassed hyperlanes entirely, allowing ships to go anywhere they wanted in the universe.
Overnight, countless empires' defensive lines became Maginot Lines!
This was the Empire's ultimate trump card! Whenever