Recaps

Hu Yu’s fleet rebuilt its strength at Tau Ceti, developed faster-than-light travel, and defeated the predatory Sand Python Civilization at enormous cost. As the fleet prepared to expand toward Alpha Centauri, the Sand Pythons accepted a secret offer from the Patrol to destroy humanity, while Hu Yu’s scientists began confirming the existence of the fourth dimension.

• The Polaris Fleet left the Solar System, where an Inspector and then a Destroyer revealed the galactic threat of the bugs and the hierarchy of civilizations.
• After the fleet split into three groups, Hu Yu led one hundred ships to Tau Ceti, learned that the Sun had been destroyed, and established mining and habitation bases on the system’s planets.
• Academician Zeng Zhaoyuan developed curvature engines, and the fleet achieved faster-than-light travel before detecting an approaching Sand Python force.
• Hu Yu prepared an ambush at Tau Ceti, but the Sand Python fleet inflicted heavy losses before Hu Yu detonated the star and destroyed the pursuing ships.
• Human forces captured Sand Python ships, mourned 1.5 million lost crew members, and rebuilt their fleet with upgraded Hunter-Killers using captured technology.
• Hu Yu sent 300 Deep Blue ships and 600,000 Improved Hunter-Killers toward Alpha Centauri, while the Patrol offered the surviving Sand Pythons advanced technology in exchange for destroying humanity.
• Hu Yu considered settling suitable planets and expanding the fleet, while Zeng explained evidence that entangled particles were linked through the fourth dimension.

Hu Yu’s fleet escaped a pursuing civilization by hiding in a four-dimensional bubble, destroyed the Sand Python fleet, and found an ancient Snow Tribe willing to share knowledge. The fleet then encountered a giant insect swarm and tested its biological warriors, which devastated the insects from within.

• Academician Zeng developed a way to detect a four-dimensional space bubble, and Hu Yu’s team entered it before the pursuing warships could find the Deep Blue Fleet.
• Liu Bo and Zeng Zhaoyuan formed a protected sphere of three-dimensional space inside the bubble, allowing Hu Yu to move the fleet and its crews into it while Yang Fan and Chen Peng led scattered Hunter-Killers toward Alpha Centauri.
• Hu Yu’s fleet prepared the Stealth Killers for battle as Ma Meng dragged Tau Ceti toward Alpha Centauri, then fought the Sand Python fleet and destroyed it by detonating Alpha Centauri’s third star after Ma Meng destroyed Tau Ceti.
• Hu Yu diverted the fleet to warn the Snow Tribe of the coming radiation storm and met its chief, who revealed the tribe’s ancient rise, defeat in Andromeda, and hidden return to Snow Star.
• The patriarch offered humanity the grand unified model and warned Hu Yu that an unknown Small Star Sector Civilization had secretly been involved in the war, while Yan Xue became a candidate to succeed him.
• After leaving Snow Star, Hu Yu’s fleet searched for a habitable planet and found a system covered in giant insects, so Hu Yu sent Stealth Killers and biological warriors to attack the swarm.
• Academician Xiao’s hundred million biological warriors entered the giant insects and caused them to attack one another, killing more than a billion insects with almost no losses.

Hu Yu infiltrated the Wind Star Civilization, expanded humanity’s worlds and fleet, and gained help from the Treefolk prince Ninety-Seven. As Wind Star prepared for revenge, Hu Yu shifted from long-term covert plans to an imminent attack.

• Hu Yu’s Stealth Killers defeated the Insect Race’s swarm and captured its king, then Hu Yu destroyed the arriving Wind Star fleet with gravity bombs and discovered its ships carried frozen captives.
• Hu Yu and his crew impersonated Wind Star personnel, learned that Wind Star enslaved civilizations to feed the Insect Race, and began a covert mission to gather information and weaken the civilization from within.
• Hu Yu’s people transformed Planet Three, expanded the JD3 system, and built up their population and fleet while pursuing a way to defeat Wind Star without a prolonged frontal war.
• A Treefolk prince named Ninety-Seven escaped from a Wind Star ship and told Hu Yu about the Treefolk’s hidden home system, Wind Star’s vast fleet, and its disguised spies.
• Ninety-Seven settled on Planet Three and ran a school for children, while Academician Liu and Academician Zeng developed a way to collect matter from a Cepheid variable.
• Old Li infiltrated Wind Star’s industries, became vice minister of commerce, and gathered intelligence while Hu Yu prepared a fleet of fifty million warships.
• Old Li reported that Wind Star’s leader had ordered enormous food supplies and that an old document suggested Wind Star was preparing revenge, so Hu Yu accelerated evacuation preparations and assigned forty million warships to the coming battle.

Hu Yu led humanity through the defeat of Wind Star and the Fish Horse Star People’s pursuit, while Ninety-Seven sacrificed himself to carry Earth Two into the Pillars of Creation. Decades of rebuilding restored a large fleet, but its trial ships then suffered an unexplained loss of speed.

• Hu Yu’s fleet attacked Wind Star, where Old Li helped overthrow the head of state, and the Wind Masters used neutron-degenerate matter to break through the defenses.
• Hu Yu confronted the Fish Horse Star People, who exposed their role in hunting humans and feeding the Insect Race, then forced Wind Star to surrender its technology tree before the fleet departed.
• As the Fish Horse Star People pursued Earth Two toward the Pillars of Creation, Hu Yu lost contact with the remaining Wind Masters and the enemy’s attack killed billions of people.
• Ninety-Seven teleported Earth Two into the nebula at the cost of his body, and Hu Yu organized survivors to rescue the injured and rebuild.
• Over several decades, Hu Yu’s people restored industry and produced hundreds of thousands of Wind Masters while exploring the nebula and conserving Earth Two’s dwindling resources.
• Hu Yu’s first six Wind Masters lost far more speed during trial flights than their mass buildup could explain, and Zhang Yuanshan confirmed the test route and timing were accurate.