Chapter 534: Progress of the Wall-Facing Project_1
Logic was the second person in the Solar System State to merit a state funeral, the last time a state funeral was held was when Rediaz passed away.
Jiang Yu attended Logic's funeral in the form of a holographic image.
After arriving in the Solar System State, although Logic retired, his prestige remained very high.
It was he who secured a critical seventy years for humanity, and for a long time afterward, he continued to contribute to the cause of human unity.
Until the last moment of his life, he hoped that future humans would become powerful.
As for his final words, afraid that others passing them on wouldn't grasp their significance, he had been waiting for Jiang Yu.
When Logic was buried, whether it was the New Continent Star System or the various provinces, including Starship Earth, all the humans in the six worlds under the jurisdiction of the Solar System State observed a three-minute silence to mourn Logic.
The entire human world was engulfed in dark grey sorrow.
Earth announced Logic's death to the surrounding area using the Gravitational Wave Communicator.
Soon, a military radar ship far from the "Catcher" system received a message of condolence from Sophon.
They called Logic a respectable opponent, an enemy to be revered.
Jiang Yu had sent off another Wallfacer; now, of the original five Wallfacers, only he remained.
Beyond the sorrow, Jiang Yu also felt a wave of loneliness.
But life must go on, and humanity must continue to move forward.
Jiang Yu struggled to pull himself out of the sorrow and started to understand the changes that humanity had undergone over the past four decades.
Everything seemed to return to when Jiang Yu had just become a Wallfacer, when each time he awoke from hibernation, it was Number Three who described the progress of the Wallfacer Plan to him.
The difference was that back then, he awoke each time with excitement and hope.
But this time, upon "waking," he was met with the news of Logic's passing, which kept his mood from lifting.
Number Three was still well-prepared: "In Galaxy Year 32, the Shadow Project was completed.
"Over twelve million people have migrated to the Shadow Star System, and all kinds of research, theories, and technologies have backups there.
"Even if all other worlds perish, the Shadow Star System can extend human civilization to the greatest extent.
"But now we've encountered some new problems, the stars in the Shadow Star System have exploded, gravitation has become chaotic, and planets are gradually leaving their original orbits.
"Continuing this way, in at most a few hundred years, the planets might collide with each other.
"Therefore, the second phase of the Shadow Project has already started, aimed at stabilizing the gravitational forces of the planets in the Shadow Star System.
"Thanks to the precedent set by the Wandering Earth project, terrestrial planets are relatively easy to control, but controlling the Gas Giant Planet is a challenge."
Number Three paused, saw Jiang Yu nod, and continued: "In the Milky Way Year 37, the Eraser Project made a breakthrough in technology.
"The rapid technical progress was largely due to the Paradise civilization.
"It was while the Academy of Sciences was trying to simulate how Paradise 'smoothed out' the curvature that they were struck with inspiration.
"Of course, we still don't possess the technology to 'smooth out' curvature, but we have managed to slowly stretch it out enough."
"Additionally, we must use high-velocity particles to impact the light particles whose speed has slowed down in that region, then the trajectory area can become normal.
"In Galaxy Year 42, this technology began to be applied, and it is still somewhat inefficient up to now, for it takes twenty years to eliminate the trajectory of an area of a hundred thousand square kilometers.
"How should I put it, up until now, the speed at which we create trajectories has always been far greater than the speed at which we eliminate them.
"However, the breakthrough of another technology has indeed solved our urgent needs.
"In Milky Way Year 38, we successfully opened the gyro satellite, and quickly we grasped the technology to create large-area barriers.
"Since we can't eliminate the trajectory immediately, we can cover it up first and wait for further progress in the technology of trajectory elimination."
Number Three said, "Regarding the issue of the trajectory, the Strategic Department has some new thoughts.
"These thoughts stem from Milky Way Year 21, which is before your light-speed travel during the Earth campaign.
"A trajectory outside of a planetary system cannot be observed from a distance, but once an enemy enters within 1.5 light-years, it becomes very easy to observe the trajectory.
"Star System Three is an example.
"Therefore, the Strategic Department believes that our longstanding common safety distance for trajectories is not accurate. At least the trajectory should be at a distance of 0.6 to 1 light-year from a planetary system to avoid attracting the attention of other civilizations.
"At such a distance, even if other civilizations observe the trajectory, they would think that there was a lightspeed spaceship that passed by the said star system, and that the trajectory did not originate from that star system.
"To trace back further, our understanding of the safe distance comes from the Trisolarans, but we don't know where the Trisolarans got their understanding of safe distances from.
"The Strategic Department speculates that the Trisolarans must have also found some remains of advanced civilizations, and from there they obtained some knowledge, mistakenly taking the basic unit of the universe as the safety distance.
"So, in Milky Way Year 26, Humanity changed the standard for the safety distance.
"However, it is not feasible to construct a frontier base outside of 0.6 light-years, so we still start from six thousand astronomical units for curvature acceleration.
"Yun Tony had given instructions on this: Strive to develop the technology to erase trajectories. Once that technology matures further, the frontier base can be changed to sixty astronomical units outside of a star, reducing the distance of normal sailing speed and saving more time for interstellar travel."
Jiang Yu nodded, "Yes, as long as we can eliminate the trajectory, there is no need to go that far."
He then asked, "Has the warship retrofitting plan proposed by Zhuang Yue and Cao Yang started to be implemented?"
"It has been implemented since Milky Way Year 40," Number Three replied, "and now the Earth Corps and the three major corps of Blue Maiden Star have equipped many ships with dual systems.
"Oh, and the majority of the regular propulsions for this batch of dual-system ships are Matter Stream Engines, and the regular sailing speeds of the equipped ships can now reach 22% to 26% of light speed.
"In the laboratory, the most powerful Matter Stream Engine can provide a thrust of 28% of light speed; the next batch of warships will be equipped with this engine.
"However, there is a disadvantage with the Matter Stream Engine right now as its acceleration is much slower than that of nuclear engines, taking one or two years to reach maximum sailing speed.
"Therefore, among the dual-system ships, there are ships equipped with nuclear engines as well."
Jiang Yu said, "From nothing to something, from slow to fast, this is an inevitable process, one must not be impatient. First, let's improve the speed.
"For interplanetary travel, we should still use the more practical nuclear engines, but interstellar travel can consider equipping Matter Stream Engines."
Number Three continued, "As of last year, the Big Pioneering Plan was basically completed.
"People coming from the Solar System would take a brief rest at the frontier base, then be reorganized and begin the pioneering actions for fifteen planetary systems.
"Even the farthest star system welcomed human pioneers in Galaxy Year 43, and the earliest developed systems have now been developed for thirty-five to thirty-six years and have started supplying some high-tech products to Blue Maiden Star."