Chapter 202: The Norm Cannon, A Ray of Hope in Despair

Although the plan had been decided, its implementation required a considerable amount of time.

After receiving the order, Xi Luozi quickly gathered the seven super-hedging material transfer devices from the various warships.

Unlike the fixed devices within the Hengxing star system, these devices were more portable, and as a result, their speed and energy consumption were significantly lower, and the transmission of material mass was also limited.

Fortunately, these devices could be combined.

Although they weren't as conveniently modular, they required extensive modification due to their portability. However, they did possess a certain degree of disassembly and assembly capabilities, which could greatly reduce the time needed for modification and assembly.

Xi Luozi was quite confident about this.

He had majored in mechanical engineering in university.

In fact, he had forgotten most of what he had learned, but in the current Federation, every lifeform was equipped with a secondary brain, a higher-order computational organ capable of storing vast amounts of knowledge that the main brain could access at any time.

When Xi Luozi ordered the soldiers to retrieve the devices from the warships, he also took the time to reinforce his previous knowledge and summoned a large number of engineers to work with the soldiers and the ship's AI to modify the super-hedging material transfer devices.

"It would be great if we had robots now."

"Unfortunately, the warships don't have a robot contingent." One of the engineers sighed.

Within the Federation, each engineer is typically assigned hundreds or even thousands of robots to assist them, greatly increasing efficiency.

But the warships didn't have them.

Or rather, the warships did have robots, but not enough.

Logically, the Federation should have deployed a large number of robots to participate in the war, which would have significantly reduced the loss of life.

However, it wasn't that simple.

Using robots as soldiers would raise the question of whether to grant them sufficient intelligence, which also involves the positioning of the AI itself. Even if officers were to use their lives as a bridge, it would still be difficult to control the relationship between the two.

And after the robots participate in the war, are they to be directly destroyed?

That's not very feasible either.

If that were the case, it would undoubtedly cause chaos among the large number of robots within the Federation.

The number of citizens in the Federation is 148 trillion, and the number of robots is 12 times that, nearly 1,800 trillion. Among these robots, some don't require intelligence, but there are still hundreds of billions of robots with elementary intelligence. On average, their intelligence level is only 5% lower than that of all citizens in the Federation.

If these robots were to rebel, they couldn't destroy the Federation, but they would certainly plunge the Federation into a period of turmoil for some time.

Robot soldiers are synonymous with robot rights, so the general consensus among the Federation's high-level officials, including Yan Xia and Ella, is not to include robot soldiers.

This has led to the current situation where all modifications have to be carried out by soldiers.

Over a hundred million soldiers joined the modification efforts, and the ship's AI assigned them precise tasks.

Even so, the modification took more than 20 days.

During this time, the seven warships formed a fan shape, connecting their defensive shields to create an even larger shield to protect the super-hedging material transfer devices from attacks.

The Silkmoth seemed to have noticed this and began to direct more firepower at the super-hedging material transfer devices.

As time passed, the intensity of the attacks increased.

The energy reserves of the seven warships plummeted.

However, after the 15th day, the offensive suddenly weakened and eventually stopped.

From this, it could be seen that the Silkmoth's warships were within 20 light-days, a very short distance, but they had stopped.

The warships launched a probing attack towards them.

These attacks were blocked and had no effect.

All the soldiers felt that something was wrong, but at this point, they had only one way out, and they had to conserve their energy.

After about eight days, the Silkmoth's warships finally made a move.

Or rather, the Federation's warships finally felt the attack again.

It was...

Complete disintegration!

All the soldiers witnessed the process of the warships disintegrating and collapsing at the atomic level.

Their eyes were filled with both fear and an indescribable sense of awe.

It's important to understand that the size of a warship is terrifying, so massive that it's like a planet. Even if it were placed in the orbit of a real planet, it would be enough to become a satellite.

Any lifeform would feel incredibly small in the face of such a colossal object.

But this colossal object was disintegrating.

And not just one, but two.

Two battleships disintegrated without any apparent reason, and they didn't even detect the attack coming.

The ship's AI captured the attack but didn't have time to respond.

"What is that?"

The remaining six ship commanders gathered in the virtual world, their faces filled with fear, and then asked the AI.

"It's undoubtedly a form of electromagnetic force, or an electromagnetic field."

"We can call it a norm cannon."

"Electromagnetic fields and gravitational fields play a crucial role in the macroscopic world, and the two fields influence each other. The electromagnetic norm greatly affects the symmetry of matter. Imagine what would happen if the symmetry of matter were to be destroyed?"

"This is the effect of the norm cannon, using electromagnetic fields to alter gravitational fields and change the form of matter itself."

"On a macroscopic level, what we see is the disintegration of the warship because strong and weak forces are present in the atomic nucleus, and they are not the fundamental forces acting on matter."

"The force that keeps electrons in the atom is electrostatic force, and the force that makes matter more compact is gravity. If the phase and coupling relationship between these two forces are disrupted, the macroscopic world will collapse."

"The norm cannon can be said to be an unstoppable weapon; any matter it touches will be affected and destroyed."

"Unless matter is held together solely by strong and weak forces."

If it weren't for the Federation's anomaly, the Silkmoth would likely not have fired the norm cannon, such an over-the-top weapon.

After firing one norm cannon, the Silkmoth remained stationary, intending to fire a second one.

"We must move."

"Staying here is a death sentence."

Xi Luozi received the order but chose to ignore it.

"What's the point of running now?"

"The warship can move, but the super-hedging material transfer device cannot."

"If this move is truly a dead end."

He was going to follow this path to the end.

"We should make it in time."

The super-hedging material transfer device had been modified, and it was now in the testing phase.

It's like a car; you've modified it, but can it move? And if it does move, how fast can it go? Is the steering wheel responsive? Do the brakes and accelerator work? Is the electronic dashboard accurate?

All of this requires testing; it's not as simple as modifying it and then hitting the road.

A device like the super-hedging material transfer device is billions or even tens of billions of times more precise and massive than a car, so this kind of testing is very necessary.

"Now, let's see if the second norm cannon will hit us first, or if we can escape through the super-hedging material transfer device first."

Xi Luozi's eyes gleamed with a hint of madness.