Chapter 204: No. 7 Anticipated Lin Sen's Prediction_1

No. 7: "Lin Sen once said, war never starts the way we predict, nor does it end the way we forecast."

"Had I not exploited their vulnerability, we indeed might have lost this battle."

"As for whether Lin Sen knew that we used asteroids to conceal the Whirlwind Stomp, there was no evidence before."

"Now, there is. Look, the real-time military situation map of the Solar System."

"Where are those three 'asteroids' that we used to attack Earth and the Global Broadcast Station on Earth's solar orbit now? What's surrounding them?"

Then everyone looked at the real-time military situation map of the Solar System. At first, they didn't understand, but soon No. 7 explained.

"Look at this path's surrounding Starports. If this Starport moved here, ..."

"If it's a coincidence on one path, and then the same kind of coincidence occurs on all three paths, is it still a coincidence?"

All present exclaimed in surprise, drenched in cold sweat: "How is it possible, we've been surrounded, and it's not by warships but by the fortifiable Starports commanded by Xiang Gaofeng from the Moon Base."

No. 7: "Yes, these past two years, under Lin Sen's direction, Xiang Gaofeng has often been moving the positions of the Starports."

"I didn't think much of it at the time; these are normal military maneuvers."

"But when I related it to how Lin Sen destroyed the First Emperor of Qin, it sent shivers down my spine. His actions and what he was doing at that time were almost identical, which only means one thing: he is about to make his move!"

"He has already predicted that we would use asteroids to deploy the Whirlwind Stomp covertly, and he is preparing to ambush us on the paths of these 'asteroids'."

Military Governor: "Then how should we respond?"

No. 7: "The most dangerous thing in war is not knowing the other's plans, but I have predicted Lin Sen's predictions!"

"I had long been concerned that hiding the Whirlwind Stomp in asteroids might not escape Lin Sen's notice, so I decided to outmaneuver him."

"I have already made arrangements in advance, so Lin Sen's schemes are bound to fail."

Leader: "Thank goodness for your early arrangements, or we might have been defeated before the battle even began."

"In defeating humanity, you are the greatest contributor to the Trisolaran world."

"Sigh... Lin Sen is really dreadful, we nearly failed again."

No. 7: "Yes, we must never underestimate Lin Sen at any time."

"What this guy is best at is lying. What's worse is that this guy was just swearing up and down that he is a dyed-in-the-wool defeatist,"

"A staunch escapism advocate, insisting on fleeing because he saw the gap between us."

"Not a word Lin Sen says can we believe."

Military Governor: "Yes, it was too close. Not even half a word of Lin Sen's can we trust."

"Lin Sen was right about one thing: once the attack energy reaches a certain level, anything can be destroyed."

(A flicker of disquiet passed through the Trisolaran's mind. How come everyone says not to trust Lin Sen's words, yet they often treat his words as truth. Could it be we are schizophrenic?)

"Our Whirlwind Stomp is the same."

"If it takes the simultaneous hit of over 400 laser or High-Energy Particle Beam main guns, our Whirlwind Stomp can also be destroyed."

"If too close, our Whirlwind Stomp has powerful maneuverability, but no time is enough to evade."

"Annoyingly, Lin Sen has almost gathered thousands of main guns to ambush every Whirlwind Stomp."

"Clearly, Lin Sen also anticipated the Whirlwind Stomp's strong mobility and defense capabilities. A surprise attack by thousands of main guns at close range, which can simultaneously block The Waterdrop's escape paths, is very likely to result in its destruction."

Many believe The Waterdrop to be invincible against humanity, but this is not necessarily true.

All matter must follow the basic laws of matter. The Waterdrop's surface is made of strong interaction material. All our regular materials are fundamentally electromagnetic interaction materials, utilizing electromagnetic forces.

At the atomic nucleus scale, the strong force is typically considered to be 137 times that of the electromagnetic force, but the strong force is a short-range force, and at distances greater than the size of a nucleus, it becomes much weaker than the electromagnetic force.

The essence of a force is realized by the transmission of mediating particles.

When two protons interact via the strong force, it can be understood as the two protons throwing a ball back and forth, which causes them to attract each other.

This ball is the mediating particle, and for the strong force, the mediating particles are gluons. The implicit meaning of the strong force being short-range is that if two protons throw gluons to each other, they don't throw them very far.

The mediating particle of the electromagnetic force is the photon, the interaction between two charges involves throwing photons at each other, and this throw can reach far, which is why the electromagnetic force is a long-range force.

The weak force is mediated by bosons.

Gravity does not have a mediating particle. Current theories propose that gravity is a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime, more precisely, a representation of the bending of time, and we have not found the graviton.

Trisolaran strong interaction materials essentially expand the action distance of the strong force.

Now the two protons throwing gluons to each other can throw them much farther. To use an analogy from the original text, it is like shooting an arrow to the Moon.

Based on the above principle, it is clear that the maximum strength of strong interaction materials cannot exceed the binding strength of a nuclear core.

Several hundred mega-electron volts of energy can blast open a nucleus, but it's not the same with strong interaction materials, which undoubtedly have other factors that maintain the long-distance transmission of gluons.

At the same time, blasting open a single nucleus and blasting open strong interaction materials are not the same; the difficulty is increased by a factor of ten thousand.

But no matter what, as long as we continue to increase the energy intensity, we will definitely be able to break the strong interaction materials.

Although Lin Sen does not have a deep understanding of physics, he had conducted simple calculations countless times.

The intensity of such force is not too far from the means available to humanity. If quality cannot win, then it will rely on quantity for victory, and this is the reason Lin Sen aimed so many Starport main guns at The Waterdrop.

Some might believe that quantity will not be effective. There is an analogy in quantum mechanics: if you hold a small ball in your hand, and other balls keep striking it continuously.

If the striking ball has enough energy, one can knock the ball out of your hand, but if the striking ball does not have enough energy, no matter how many there are, they will never be able to knock the ball out of your hand.

That is a misconception; strong interaction materials are macroscopic substances and cannot be explained by microscopic theories. As long as the energy is sufficient, strong interaction materials can also be broken.

In the original timeline during the late Deterrence Era, humans could manufacture strong interaction materials in small quantities. Extend the Deterrence Era by 10 years, and we could produce them in large quantities. This indicates that the mastery of it is not far from humanity, and thus, the destruction of it is certainly not far off either.

No. 7: "Lin Sen used the Global Broadcast as bait, luring us to attack and then ambushing us on the way.

"The human strategy of dealing with Whirlwind Stomp is indeed effective, but we know they are planning an ambush, and that foils their plan.

"The Whirlwind Stomp may not be invincible, but combined with Sophons, it can evade human attacks at any time, and that is invincible."

Supreme Commander: "Now, let's return to the previous topic, Lin Sen is about to broadcast the defeat of humanity.

"Our attack must be brought forward. Currently, there are only 10 Whirlwind Stomp entering the Solar System, and five of them are not yet deployed.

"Military Governor, do we have a battle plan for this situation?"

Military Governor: "No, we need at least one day to come up with a battle plan."

Supreme Commander: "Strategy Governor, you deal with Lin Sen. The negotiation is yours; try to keep delaying Lin Sen."

No. 7: "Yes, Supreme Commander.

"But I cannot guarantee success, as our opponent is Lin Sen, who might be able to guess every thought we have. We've never gotten the better of him over the years.

"If it really cannot be done, I suggest letting two Whirlwind Stomp in the main battlefield show themselves to humans.

"To attract human attention, meantime, the five that have not reached their positions should rush to the designated battlefield; hopefully, they can make it in time.

"Our most critical three are already in place. Now, the only key thing left is to prevent their escape."

Supreme Commander: "Agreed."

Trisolarans seem to have had a long discussion, but Trisolaran communication is very rapid. Information is transmitted swiftly, and what feels like a second or two to humans.