Being scolded had proved effective. The suggestions came one after another, ranging from the warship's weapons, propulsion, and controls to the positions of its buttons. Designed without any experience of interstellar warfare, the Hunter-Killer had plenty of shortcomings.
"Anything else? Why didn't anyone bring these things up before? Now that you've been scolded, you have so much to say," Wen Zhonghua said.
"Chief of staff, everyone's had a hard time. We didn't have the means to fix the major flaws, and we didn't want to trouble everyone over the minor ones. Our scientists and engineers are already far too busy."
"All right, your suggestions are very valuable. The warship design team led by Academician Zeng will take them into consideration. After the meeting, you should also listen to the frontline crews, compile their suggestions promptly, and send them to Academician Zeng and me. Academician Zeng already has a preliminary draft for a new warship, so let's give you something to be happy about."
"Comrades, please take a look." Academician Zeng pointed to the holographic image above the conference table. A three-dimensional image of a small, triangular spaceship appeared before everyone. In appearance, the new warship was not very different from the Hunter-Killer. Academician Zeng began his explanation.
The new warship was named the Stealth Killer. Shaped roughly like an isosceles triangle, the ship was 100 meters long, 80 meters wide at its base, and 20 meters thick at its thickest point. Its volume was less than a tenth of the Hunter-Killer's. After fully deciphering the curvature technology of the Sand Python Civilization and several other civilizations, the spatial physicists had spent another thirty years inside the four-dimensional space bubble. Their research into curvature had taken off like a rocket. Combined with the Stealth Killer's compact size, computer simulations showed that it could reach a maximum speed of 500 times the speed of light.
With the Stealth Killer's reduced size, its high-powered laser cannons had to be abandoned. They consumed too much energy and had a limited attack range. Until a new technological breakthrough was made, large-scale deployment of laser cannons would have to be put on hold. The Stealth Killer's weapons were primarily based on antimatter, including various antimatter bombs and antiphoton beams. The antimatter bombs, in turn, included curvature antimatter bombs and electromagnetic antimatter bombs. Antimatter curvature bombs would travel at over 500 times the speed of light, just like the Stealth Killer. Electromagnetic antimatter bombs were launched through magnetic field-line channels and traveled at only a few hundred kilometers per second, but they would spread throughout the combat zone and strike enemy warships from every angle. The fleet's antimatter production had now risen to ten kilograms a day, and its reserves had exceeded 200 tons. Production would continue to increase in the future. A small number of Stealth Killers would still be equipped with laser cannons and other weapons to deal with unknown battlefield conditions.
Although the Stealth Killer was smaller, its defenses had not diminished. Instead, they had grown several times stronger. The first reason was progress in materials technology; the second was the development of a new defense system. Over the years, our ability to use energy had improved by several levels, making it possible to build this new system. It was a defensive mechanism based on energy fields and space.
While hiding in the four-dimensional space bubble, we gained a deeper understanding of dimensions and space. By adjusting the position and power of its curvature engines, the new warship used energy fields to distort the spherical space around it irregularly. Whether the incoming enemy attack was a laser beam or a physical weapon, it would be heading straight for the Stealth Killer, only to change direction strangely just before impact. The old curvature engines also bent space, but the bending was regular and could not provide defense. The new engines still had defensive blind spots, and for now they could cover at most eighty percent of the ship. Combined with the Stealth Killer's smaller size and greater maneuverability, its survivability was at least twenty times greater than the Hunter-Killer's.
"Academician, if we improved it a little more and achieved one hundred percent coverage, wouldn't our warships be invincible?" Chen Peng asked.
"Haha, of course not. Even with one hundred percent coverage, energy still matters. An iron plate provides strong defense against a wooden stick, but it can't withstand guns or artillery. Spatial distortion shielding works on the same principle. As long as an enemy attack exceeds a certain energy threshold, it can disturb space, break through our defenses, and strike the Stealth Killer. So in battle, we still need to warn our crews not to take hits head-on. Not getting hit is the safest option."
"The Stealth Killer is so much smaller. Will that affect our crews' lives? They have to spend long periods inside, after all. A smaller living space could make them feel very confined."
"Of course not. The Stealth Killer has been redesigned, and we now use energy more efficiently, so we've eliminated a lot of equipment. There will be plenty of room inside the ship, and we've set aside a lot of space for the crew. When the ships enter service, we can even make small adjustments to suit each crew member's preferences, giving them as comfortable and pleasant an environment as possible to ease their loneliness. Besides, the Stealth Killer may be small, but it's still a massive vessel a hundred meters long, 80 meters wide, and 25 meters high. A few centuries ago, it would have been a skyscraper. The crew will have no trouble living inside it."
"That's a relief."
"Oh, right, there's another technology that's fully mature and will also be installed on the Stealth Killer: our holographic imaging technology. The old holograms were dot-matrix images and very crude. Now, the scientists in our optics group have developed vector holograms that can display every detail of an object with perfect clarity. If you weren't told beforehand that it was a hologram, you might not be able to tell the real from the virtual. We'll use this technology to install an identical lounge in every Stealth Killer. If people on two ships want to share a drink, they only need to send a request and walk into their lounges. The system will project their holograms into both lounges. To each of them, it will look as though their friend is really sitting beside them, drinking with them."
"Is it really that good?"
"Of course. We'll also set up several enormous plazas on the Deep Blue. In their spare time, crew members can reunite with their families there. They could even hold a dance. However, because it's so realistic, our current level of human intelligence makes it easy to confuse the virtual with reality. The amount of time the holographic equipment can be used, and the scope of its use, will be regulated. Once our overall intelligence improves in the future, those restrictions will be lifted."
"By the way, Academician, won't the residential ships be rebuilt?" Chen Peng asked.
"The Deep Blue will undergo some limited modifications. Building the Deep Blue wasn't easy; we can't just dismantle it on a whim. We'll optimize and upgrade its curvature engines, or replace them outright, and adjust their positions and so on. Although it's a major undertaking, it's nothing compared with building another Deep Blue. After the modifications, the Deep Blue's theoretical speed will reach around a hundred times the speed of light. Like the Stealth Killer, it will have energy fields that distort space for protection. The Deep Blue has abundant energy, so its defenses will be several times stronger than the Stealth Killer's," Academician Zeng replied.
"Academician, do you mean all the Hunter-Killers are going to be dismantled?" Gao Jianchuan was reluctant to part with them.
"Yes. The Hunter-Killers are no longer worth modifying. Besides, we're in underground cities now. To remain hidden, we can't build large-scale smelting bases on the planet's surface. With only the smelters in the underground cities, it would take at least a hundred years to obtain the amount of steel we need. Dismantling the Hunter-Killers is the simplest and most effective method. I know you're reluctant to part with them. They may be only machines, but they've been with everyone for over two hundred years. Believe me, this isn't the end of the Hunter-Killers. It's their rebirth through the flames."
"Thank you, Academician."
"Don't thank me. You're going to be busy from here on."
"Being busy is good. We haven't had much to do at the base."
"Commanders, after simulating the war, our Academy of Sciences reached an agreement with the general and Chief of Staff Wen. We'll build 30 million Stealth Killers, which means we'll need at least 60 million crew members. Right now, we have fewer than three million crew members in total-not even enough to cover the remainder."
"Academician, isn't that far too many? Never mind the crews-it would take at least a thousand years to build 30 million Stealth Killers. Are we going to stay here for a thousand years?"
Academician Zeng smiled. "Of course it won't take that long. The Stealth Killers all use a modular design. A few centuries ago, it took roughly several million to ten million parts to build an aircraft. Now we need fewer than 500,000 parts to build a Stealth Killer. That's technological progress. We have established production lines for all 500,000 parts, and producing 30 million of each type won't actually take that long. Take screws and rivets, which take the least time. With our manufacturing capacity, even a single small machine could make them all within 5,000 hours, or a little over 200 days. In actual production, we'll finish them within a week. The other, more complicated parts will take no more than 20 years. The slowest stage is actually assembly. What we need to do now is establish all the relevant industrial systems in the underground cities within ten years, while prioritizing the manufacture of the necessary production equipment. By the time the industrial systems are complete, the machinery and equipment must also be in place. Then we'll spend thirty years producing the parts, assembling the ships at the same time."
"Academician, I still can't believe we can build such a huge fleet in such a short time!"
"All of this has been rigorously calculated. But we have the crews of the first engineering ships and the first Hunter-Killers to thank. Over the past hundred-odd years, they laid the groundwork for us. They built the underground cities and manufactured enough equipment. Without them, we'd only be starting to build the underground cities now, and our progress would be at least 50 years behind. We now have more than 50 underground cities, half for living in and the other half for production, and more are being excavated. Our production rate will grow faster and faster over time."
"Let me put it this way. If we go back a few hundred years, to the early twenty-first century, global automobile production was close to a hundred million vehicles a year. If market demand had been high enough, that figure could have multiplied several times over. Now look at the figures for 2050. By then, smartphones were universally used and entirely domestically produced. Our country alone could produce over 1.5 billion phones a year. Each phone had more than 200 parts, so annual parts production came to 300 billion. Around 500,000 workers produced those parts. We now need 15 trillion parts in total, 50 times the annual output of phone parts back then. But we're taking 50 times as long, have 20 times as many people, and our technology is dozens of times more advanced. On top of that, we've already accumulated extensive warship production experience at Tau Ceti. Although such a simple comparison isn't entirely appropriate, it at least proves that we're capable of building a fleet of 30 million Stealth Killers in the coming decades."
"Academician Zeng, even if building the ships isn't a problem, the number of crew members needed is far too high, isn't it? Sixty million? After one or two hundred years of growth, our total population has only just passed 800 million. Taking nearly a tenth of them all at once isn't very realistic."
"Haha, I was just scaring you. If we really needed that many crew members aboard the ships, our fleet structure would be very unhealthy. The Stealth Killer won't operate like the Hunter-Killer. I mentioned the holographic technology just now. Most Stealth Killers will be unmanned, and crew members on the Deep Blue will be able to pilot them by directly simulating actual conditions aboard, as easily as playing an arcade game. These Stealth Killers do away with the highly complex crew life-support systems, making their structure simpler. That's why we're confident we can build 30 million of them. Only a small number will be equipped with life-support systems for certain special missions that require people aboard. Because the general has considered the uncertainties of future battlefields, we still need a group of hot-blooded crew members to pilot ships in person."
"That's good, that's good." The commanders wiped the sweat from their foreheads. If so many crew members really had to go aboard, it was hard to say how great the losses would be once war broke out.
"We've made a pair of glasses. Put them on, and your perspective becomes the Stealth Killer's. The operator only needs to simulate the control movements, and the warship will follow them in sync. That way, even if a Stealth Killer is destroyed in battle, its crew member won't be harmed. If we really don't have enough personnel, the Stealth Killer's AI is also more advanced than the Hunter-Killer's and can carry out automatic attacks in coordination with an operator. Still, we hope to train as many operators as possible. AI can easily defeat humans in domains governed by rules, but on a rapidly changing battlefield, it still lags somewhat behind human intelligence."
"All right, that's about it. The meeting is over. Everyone, get back to work. Academician Zeng will take your suggestions into account when revising the Stealth Killer's design," Hu Yu said.
It had to be said that building 30 million Stealth Killers in a short time was no easy task. It would take everyone's effort and dedication. Fortunately, after several hundred years of adjustment within the fleet, the people were entirely different from those of the Earth era. Back then, people would not starve or face any danger if they did not work. But things were different in the fleet era: every bit of effort they made protected their own lives and futures. Not only were people eager to work, but they were also highly skilled and capable. Everyone took pride in work and study and considered laziness and idleness shameful. It was thanks to such people that the fleet had survived one crisis after another.
Hu Yu could not stay idle. After leaving Science City, he immediately traveled through a passage to the biological ship. Because of the special nature of biotechnology, Academician Xiao had proposed that there was no need to build a dedicated underground city, so the biologists continued to work aboard the biological ship. In fact, the biologists there represented only one branch of biology. The other, normal branches had remained with Academician Zeng; only this branch had a spaceship to itself. As others put it, these biologists were devil makers, and the things they produced were often shocking. But that was only speculation, because what was actually aboard the biological ship was strictly classified, and few people knew.
Only after passing through ten security doors, changing clothes three times, and being disinfected five times did Hu Yu reach the biological ship's central laboratory.
"General, I was just about to come find you. We need a separate underground city, completely isolated from the others, or a Deep Blue. The Deep Blue would only need to leave the original fleet group and fly to the other side of the planet."
"Academician Xiao, an underground city or a Deep Blue is no problem. New underground cities are still being built, so I'll have the engineering team dig one for you on the other side of the planet. The Deep Blue isn't very suitable for you. Do you have any specific requirements?"
"No requirements. Just a large space will do."
"Academician, what do you need this underground city for?"
"Come, let me show you our new product."