Reaper

Biodata

Power Progression

Design and Production

The Academy of Sciences developed the Reaper after humanity fully analyzed space-cannon technology. Its substantially larger hull accommodated more energy and spatial weapons than earlier warships. By the year 20000, humanity had transported more than ten thousand planets and an equal number of stars to support its expanding industrial network 259.

The Reaper followed Hu Yu’s policy of maintaining few warship types while integrating many functions into each. Rather than depending on separate transports, repair ships, reconnaissance vessels, and supply ships, Reaper formations could perform those tasks themselves 427.

Appearance

• Hull: An approximately 20-kilometer-long warship with a kilometer-wide space-cannon opening beneath its bow 259 261.
• Retractable armor: Sections could withdraw to expose enormous portholes, allowing transported passengers to observe the outside 283.
• Biological disguise: An insect-armor covering made expedition ships resemble Insect Kings in both appearance and size 291.

Abilities and Systems

Spatial Armament

The space cannon was the Reaper’s strongest conventional ship-mounted weapon, derived from the Far Watcher Civilization’s planetary cannon 387.

• Space cannon: Its initial attacks were more than ten times stronger than the Grim Slayers’ spatial attacks, with a substantially larger area of effect 261.
• Rotating Space Shockwaves: Cut through swarms and bored into biological armor. Especially resistant giant insects could limit their penetration to only a few meters 387 389.
• Space Barrier: Generated numerous spatial blades. The improved version used during the early swarm battles did not require a formation 261.
• Chaotic-space operation: The space cannon retained some offensive capability in conditions where other spatial weapons could not function 387.
• Charging vulnerability: The cannon required time between shots. Its enormous opening became an attack route when insects could not penetrate the surrounding armor 301.

Reversed State Armor

Reversed State protection was central to the Reaper’s ability to fight inside dense swarms 261 390.

• Second Reversed State: Ordinary defensive layers measured one to two meters thick; the academicians’ escort ships carried fifty-meter layers 291.
• Reinforced protection: A 5,000-kilometer-long insect penetrated only roughly a dozen meters into one reinforced ship’s armor before its widening teeth became lodged 304.
• Fourth Reversed State: Withstood attacks that could no longer shake the refitted ships, allowing them to draw insects into dense concentrations before opening fire 390.
• Spatial-fragment resistance: Fourth Reversed State protection kept ships intact in shattered space. Removing it exposed the underlying hull to immediate fragmentation 430 523.
• Limits: Powerful spatial attacks could collapse Second Reversed State protection. Fourth Reversed State ships remained vulnerable to sufficiently powerful dimensional strikes and extreme collisions 357 403 420.

The Reaper’s armor did not make it a full Great Star Region Civilization warship. Its defense only barely reached that threshold; its overall technology remained at the advanced Small Star Sector Civilization level 422.

Dimensional Weapons and Travel

• Hypersphere weapons: Used a passage to the fourth dimension to create a hypersphere, then brought it into three-dimensional space to trigger dimensional reduction 411.
• Delivery limitation: A giant hypersphere could destroy the launching Reaper because it initially formed too close to the ship. Safe long-range delivery remained a research problem 411.
• Dimensional Bomb fire: Sustained bombardment held Li Shun’s approaching ships just over 300,000 kilometers from the formation 415.
• Four-dimensional operation: Reapers were designed as three-dimensional ships. They had to expend energy sealing off the extra dimension to prevent machinery failures and accidents 438.
• Spatial compression: Enemy compression could prevent a planned escape into the fourth dimension 450.

Energy, Propulsion, and Endurance

• Curvature speed: Early combat fleets traveled at 4,000 times the speed of light, outpacing many lower-tier insects 261 308.
• Conventional propulsion: Plasma exhaust could be used offensively against an insect’s vulnerable mouth 305.
• Fourth-dimensional energy: By 54180 CE, each ship contained a dedicated extraction area; combat and cruising time were no longer limited by stored energy 411.
• Energy efficiency: When killing insects at roughly the Fish Horse Star fleet’s rate, Reapers consumed energy faster and achieved less than half its efficiency 398.
• Environmental restrictions: Dense Matter River conditions limited travel to at most 0.4 times light speed. Shattered space prevented curvature travel entirely 312 430.

Automation and Communication

• Autonomous computers: Ships could follow preset formations, execute exploration orders, and handle routine actions without continuous human direction 301 317.
• Contact communication: Concealed electromagnetic ports allowed touching ships to exchange information without alerting nearby insects 301.
• Superintelligent Robot control: Some ships reacted independently to immediate threats, including an Insect King entering the formation 416.
• Command limitation: Computers and Superintelligent Robots lacked an overall battlefield view during a major engagement, requiring human commanders to restore coordinated action 420.
• Self-destruction: Damaged ships could convert Reversed State armor back into energy and detonate their reserves 302.
• Channel vulnerability: Destroying internal four-dimensional channels caused Second Reversed State collapse and self-destruction, leaving attackers without usable wreckage 330.

Weapons and Carried Craft

• Energy spheres and antimatter bombs — Used for bombardment, close-range attacks, and disrupting insect movement. Dense layers of insects could absorb and weaken their shockwaves 301 314.
• Virtual Matter arrows — Consumed target matter during penetration, then detonated rear-mounted antimatter bombs inside the wound. Limited production prevented universal deployment during later operations 389 418.
• Consciousness Field impact weapons — Supplemented physical attacks against advancing swarms 399 411.
• Stingers — Operated among Reaper formations, penetrating insects and releasing antimatter bombs inside their bodies 261.
• Bees — Insect-sized, conventionally propelled exploration craft. Each carried an additional three grams of antimatter and could collect surrounding matter for energy 310.
• Wildcats — Approximately five-meter-long, unarmed reconnaissance craft with curvature engines, extensive instruments, and high maneuverability 310.
• RoboCops — Ten per ship in the Eastern Pearl deployment, used for landings, escorts, and emergencies rather than aerial combat 298.
• Manufacturing equipment and robots — Supported repairs and allowed academicians to produce experimental apparatus during expeditions 310 427.

Variants and Disguises

Academicians’ Expedition Reapers

• A force of 100,000 ships received unusually thick Second Reversed State protection for the academicians’ safety 291.
• Cultivated biological armor made them resemble Insect Kings. It lacked the Chong Element and therefore did not match genuine Insect King armor in strength 291.
• Their internal warp engines remained usable beneath the disguise; conventional engines could burn through the covering when needed 291.
• Disguised ships infiltrated swarms and transmitted forged Insect King orders, provoking searches and fighting across a large part of the galaxy 304.

Simplified Imitations and Exploration Ships

• A stranded group of 202 people manufactured 100,000 simplified Reaper imitations. They could deceive insects or enemies but were weaker in combat than a single Star System-Level Civilization warship 341.
• One hundred exploration Reapers were stripped of everything except necessary navigation equipment, given additional energy storage and Basic Energy collectors, and sent through the danger zone in different directions 341.
• One returned after experiencing five billion years while only three hundred years passed in the main universe. Its Reversed State armor had decayed away, and its exposed alloy armor was badly corroded 347 352.

Exterminators Disguised as Reapers

• Hu Yu concealed Exterminator cores beneath additional armor, making the ships outwardly resemble Reapers 450.
• During the Fish Horse Star campaign, ten billion deployed “Reapers” were disguised Exterminators, while thirty billion were genuine Reapers with reinforced armor 450.
• Another fifty billion ships retained at the base were scaled-down Exterminators, prepared for the Gemini Civilization’s intervention 450 455.
• Their ability to deploy hyperspheres remotely helped Bi Cha identify that they were not ordinary Reapers 450.

Operational History