005 Insight

"30 seconds left until the phase jump is complete, prepare to arrive at the target planet, Delta."

"Phase jump ending in 10 seconds, 9 seconds..."

"Phase jump complete, Insight has successfully arrived within the gravity well range of the target planet Delta."

To humans on Earth, the distance from the sun to Earth is nearly 150 million kilometers, and even light takes over eight minutes to travel this distance. However, for the spaceship Insight, the speed of its phase jump travels faster than the speed of light. In fact, the time taken to prepare the Phase Jump Engine is longer than the journey itself.

Phase jump is an early-developed method of interstellar travel by the United Empire on the technological tree of interstellar travel, and its technical principle is not complicated. It involves the macroscopic use of quantum mechanics, which can simply be explained by analogy to quantum tunneling. Microscopic particles exhibit wave properties and have a certain probability of tunneling through potential barriers, reflected by their wave functions. Using quantum coherence theory and associated devices, the quantum state of microscopic particles is shared with the entire spacecraft without interfering with any of the original properties of matter—this is complex state coherence. Between two celestial bodies, there exists a gravitational well and a potential difference due to gravitational fields, and the gravitational potential energy in regions near a celestial body is higher, presenting a potential barrier. Once the ship initiates a phase jump, after probability adjustment, it realizes a macroscopic tunneling effect, enabling the ship to move through the celestial potential barrier and directly reach the other side, usually the outer region of a celestial body's gravity well. Thus, phase jump isn't a physical movement in the classical physics sense, but it does indeed achieve a kind of superluminal motion of an object in four-dimensional space.

The advantages and disadvantages of this technology are quite clear. An advantage is that the technology required to manufacture phase jump engines is not very complex, although larger, more complex ships require more sophisticated engines. Compared with other methods of faster-than-light travel, the difficulty and material preparation for building phase jump engines are indeed child's play. Another advantage is that the energy required for phase jumps is relatively low—this has significant strategic implications. It means that these engines can be powered by energy sources with lower energy density, such as nuclear fusion reactors. Both these advantages essentially boil down to cost savings.

The disadvantage of phase jumping is also natural; since the jump is constrained by celestial gravity, the best jumps occur between two celestial bodies exerting the strongest forces, typically the nearest ones, which often means that the actual routes taken by spacecraft are not optimal. Celestial bodies orbit at varied speeds and their positions in the stellar system frequently change, naturally making navigation unstable. Compared with other methods of interstellar travel, the speed of phase jumping can appear pathetically slow. Although the specific rate of phase jump varies, associated with the gravitational gradient and interaction forces between celestial bodies, considering travel from the sun to Earth, skipping over Mercury and Venus to reach Earth, the average speed hardly exceeds that of light.

Insight arrived at the periphery of Earth's gravity well using a phase jump and, counting in Earth time, took one hour and forty minutes. However, considering this covers a distance of 150 million kilometers, this duration is probably still a bit faster than the rush-hour commute from the fifth ring to the second ring of the Imperial Capital during peak hours.

Due to its nature, this method of travel is not favored by the Empire's Universe Army but is preferred for interplanetary commercial transport within the stellar system. Even though phase jump technology has undergone several generations of updates and the size and energy consumption have significantly been reduced, its implementation on United Empire warships is mainly for energy conservation, especially on ships like Insight which are not primarily combat-oriented.

Insight's captain, Xiu Ping, glanced at the holographic screen to his right on the armrest of his captain's chair, confirming that both optical and electromagnetic stealth technologies of the warship were activated. As a captain who had served in the Universe Army for over fifteen years, Xiu Ping wasn't exceptional; he lacked a distinguished background, wasn't particularly adept at flattering, and his personal capability was not outstanding, but he was dutiful and responsible. The primary premise for a reconnaissance ship conducting a survey mission is to conceal itself. Although for many civilizations, the stealth capabilities of Insight might be useless, if that were the case, the United Empire's Universe Army would never send a single reconnaissance ship on such a mission—it would be suicide.

Insight's mission was not complicated, dispatching a batch of drones to survey this temporarily named habitable planet, Delta. Everything was done by the book; before properly grasping the situation, the reconnaissance ship would not send survey personnel to land on the planet's surface—doing so would be recklessly irresponsible. If a captain did so, even if no damage resulted, he would face punishment or even be taken to the Empire's military court.

The Empire cannot tolerate insubordination among its personnel.

Insight carried a wide variety of drones, deployable for different situations and purposes. The type currently being deployed, dubbed "Dragonfly" due to its size and shape resembling that insect, could penetrate the atmosphere and fly effortlessly in the air. It didn't have much in the way of attack capability, but it was fast and agile, making it difficult to detect. It had an autonomous AI for control, and when many grouped together, they could form a tactical cloud, capable of more complex operations. Insight deployed hundreds of these drones, capable of gathering a significant amount of intelligence.

Xiu Ping was patient and meticulous. However, his crew members were filled with curiosity about this planet.

"Captain, this place looks a lot like the mother planet of Iridium Star," said Sergeant Major Yuan Xin.

Xiu Ping nodded, "Strikingly similar, a blue planet of similar size. Speaking of which, are you a native?"

Yuan Xin shook his head, smiling, "No, my family has been in the military for generations. Wherever the Empire's fleet went, that's where my family moved, leaving Iridium Star five generations ago. I have never even been to the native soil. Captain, are you from there?"

Xiu Ping hummed in agreement and said, "But now, it's not the case anymore. The population on the native planet has been exceeding the limit for years, with massive migrations taking place annually. The nobles from other Administrative Stars are breaking their heads trying to get to the native planet, leaving no space for ordinary people like us to survive."

The Captain and the Sergeant Major exchanged a look, their eyes reflecting a hint of bitterness. They rarely discussed personal matters before, and today was an exception. They knew that they might never be able to return to their homeland again.

The blue planet in front of them, strikingly similar to the Iridium Star, might become their new home.

Xiu Ping saw that the intelligence package displayed on the holographic screen to his right had been collected and organized, and said, "Let's see what the level of the native inhabitants of this planet is."

The massive intelligence, gathered by numerous reconnaissance drones, was of big data level. These drones could not only capture images and collect audio and video but could even directly connect to low-tech information nodes or networks to extensively gather usable information. Serving as a portal, the drones were provided with algorithms and decryption methods by the main computer aboard the Insight, making it possible to decrypt Earth's information technology networks in seconds.

The main computer of the Insight had automatic information processing capabilities, aligning and categorizing information by key sequences, and could also perform automatic summarization. What Xiu Ping was looking at was an outline-like intelligence report.

The first page of this intelligence outline was a photograph taken by a dragonfly reconnaissance device. It was a wall, but it wasn't the wall itself that was important, but something stuck on it.

"Fast and good document processing, payment upon completion, please scan the QR code on the right."

"Treating venereal diseases, gonorrhea, psoriasis."

"Companions available, 15XXXXXXXXX."

Xiu Ping was stunned for a moment and called Yuan Xin over to take a look.

Yuan Xin blinked, his face full of disbelief.

"Isn't this Iridium Star script? How could it be that a planet in another universe is using our script?" Yuan Xin asked.

Xiu Ping quickly read through more of the intelligence content and then nodded his head with a ghost-seen expression, saying, "It is Iridium Star script, not a similar or permutation case. Although I don't understand the exact meaning, it must be some form of expression by the people here."

Citizens of the Empire have only one official issued identity document in their lives; there's no such thing as privately processing one. The two men from Iridium Star couldn't grasp the essence of the concept of document processing. As for the various skin diseases, Iridium Star's biomedical technology had advanced to the point of eliminating most diseases from the human body, and sexually transmitted diseases had been eradicated centuries before Xiu Ping and Yuan Xin were born, with no special interest leaving them unknowledgeable about such historical concerns. The word "mistress" with profound and mystically alluring implications was also not something that a few extraterrestrials could comprehend.

After reviewing more data, Xiu Ping finally became convinced that the Iridium Star script, which they had been using for thousands of years and was constitutionally mandated not to be altered in the slightest, existed in a civilization in another universe. Not only was the writing style similar, but the pronunciation was also remarkably similar to the standard Iridium Star language. Xiu Ping soon discovered that there were over seven billion higher intelligent life forms on this planet, all of the same species but divided into countless ethnicities and over two hundred countries. These countries and ethnic groups, with their different languages and cultures and varying stages of development, made the planet's complexity resemble that of a museum.

"I'm starting to feel that our journey through might be driven by some unseen mystical force. A planet with Iridium Star script must have some connection with the Empire!" Xiu Ping said to Yuan Xin, looking at the Water Blue Planet with a few added nuances in his eyes.