The Whole World Represented by 020

Checking the data in his hands, the dark-skinned but exceptionally handsome Chinese young physicist Ye Qing couldn't help but sigh. He put down the detection data and said, "As expected, we really can't detect anything."

His mentor, Academician Ding, who had led multiple major national aerospace projects and secret defense projects, was not too disheartened; instead, he possessed a calm demeanor and said, "It's only natural. The technological gap between us and them is too vast. Using what we understand to measure them might be like a group of Neanderthals using their fire-starting skills to assess a modern nuclear reactor."

After some thought, Ye Qing said, "Our intelligence personnel received information from the United States that the US military did not detect an ounce of electromagnetic signals from the alien war machine during the San Francisco incident, which suggests that those warships in Earth's orbit are likely using the same technology."

Academician Ding said, "That's not surprising. It would be more suspicious if we could detect them using a variety of methods."

This year, China had just built the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope, FAST, which is also one of the world's most powerful astronomical detection tools. It can detect pulsars and other celestial bodies thousands of light-years away, and its high sensitivity also allows it to serve as a super-large passive strategic radar. Yet even such a powerful astronomical detection tool still failed to detect any information about the mysterious alien fleet, understandably leaving people feeling helpless.

The two individuals, one over forty years the other's senior, were both supreme geniuses of their country. In response to this unprecedented extraterrestrial contact crisis, China established the "Extraterrestrial Contact Response Office," bringing together elites from various fields, directly responsible to the National Security Committee, to analyze and clarify all kinds of intelligence gathered, while also researching ways to defend the nation and its people in the crisis. Ye Qing and Academician Ding were both selected for this response office.

Liu Tong, the state council official who parachuted into the office to serve, hurried in from outside and said to the two, "The Americans are still trying to exclude us at this time, refusing to reach any consultation or cooperation agreement with us, determined to solve the problem on their own."

Hearing Liu Tong's words, Ye Qing scoffed and said, "Solve it on their own? They haven't even managed to clean up the mess in San Francisco properly, while our domestic situation is largely stable, with production and daily life not too disrupted. I heard there have been riots of different scales in more than twenty US cities, and the National Guard has been deployed. They can't even manage their own affairs, yet they dream of dealing with aliens.""

Academician Ding furrowed his brows and said, "The Americans are used to acting arbitrarily, but on such a critical juncture, they cannot afford to be capricious. The Americans' refusal to cooperate with us, I fear, is because they have their own plans, and those plans will definitely be a bad idea."

Indeed, Academician Ding's speculation was exceedingly accurate.

Over four hours later, China's missile defense system detected large-scale missile activity within US territory, launched almost simultaneously.

Ye Qing, looking at the computer-generated images on the screen in the office, felt his scalp tingle and said loudly, "The Americans have gone mad!"

Liu Tong was also shocked by the Americans' move; as he verified the information he had, he said, "The American strategic missile wings that are always on high alert, the 90th, 91st, and 341st, have launched over 70 strategic ballistic missiles in total. They have no reason to start a nuclear war at this time, so that means they're using nuclear weapons to bombard the alien fleet! Dr. Ye, do you think the Americans might succeed?"

Ye Qing shook his head repeatedly, "Nuclear weapons don't have as much destructive power in outer space as they do on the ground. With no atmosphere, the shockwave, which causes the most damage in a nuclear explosion, ceases to exist. In space, the most significant harm caused by a nuclear detonation comes from various kinds of radiation, extreme heat, and neutron streams, and the lethal range would also be reduced compared to that within the Earth's atmosphere."

However, this is not the biggest problem with this attack. The missiles used by the Americans are likely the Minuteman III, and the alien fleet is stationed in orbit 200,000 kilometers from Earth's surface—an altitude that ordinary ballistic missiles cannot reach. Since the Americans are launching missiles now, it implies that these weapons have been urgently modified or even that they are secret weapons the United States has been concealing. The fact that they can fire so far is not enough; this is humanity's first purposeful actual combat against spacefaring targets, and there is a huge disconnect between tactics and reality. We don't know whether the United States has done any related preliminary research and simulation.

The most important issue I can think of is the theory of probabilistic clouds in space warfare. This is a fairly core part when speculating on space battles. Because the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, any observation of remote enemy spacecraft capable of autonomous maneuvers will be affected by latency. One light-second is about 300,000 kilometers; now, with the alien fleet being approximately two-thirds of a light-second away from Earth, even if we perform real-time optical observations, what we see is only their position two-thirds of a second ago. If the enemy continues to maneuver, then any weapon fired at their target is absolutely unable to hit the mark. The same goes for directed-energy weapons. Hence, in space warfare, one can only roughly calculate a probabilistic cloud space based on the enemy's relative position and their movement capabilities. This is a quantum mechanics problem; the target location we attack may be any three-dimensional coordinate within the probabilistic cloud. The better the enemy's maneuverability. The higher their initial speed and acceleration, and the more flexible the turning, the larger this probabilistic cloud becomes, and the lower our chances of hitting them.

However, the biggest problem for the Americans right now is that their weapons are not directed-energy weapons; they can't reach the speed of light. Judging from their launched missiles, they are essentially modified large rockets, exceeding the first cosmic velocity but less than the second cosmic velocity—that is, above 23 Mach but below 33 Mach. And this speed could only reach the level of the fifth or sixth decimal place of the speed of light. Because Americans don't have radar guidance technology for the alien fleet, it's basically likely to be inertial guidance. Even without discussing the deviation of inertial navigation, just the enemy making a slight displacement upon detecting the launch of the American missiles will mean that the nuclear bombs can't hit. Given the poor range of destruction of a nuclear explosion in space, even if the Americans use pre-set burst heights and multiple kill zones to form a lethal range area, I don't believe this kill zone could fully cover the probabilistic cloud of the alien fleet's space warfare."

Liu Tong could not fully understand what Ye Qing was talking about, but it still sounded impressive to him. In his understanding, although he wasn't clear about what this probabilistic cloud was, he simply thought that given the aliens' advanced technology, a vacuum-weakened nuclear explosion, even if it hit the alien fleet, might not cause any significant damage.

Liu Tong asked curiously, "Doesn't America understand all of this that Dr. Ye just explained?"

Academician Ding answered for Ye Qing, "They couldn't possibly not understand. America's expertise in space warfare, fundamental physics, game theory, and other areas is not something our country can catch up with in a few decades, they have a deep foundation and ample reserves and are still our teachers. However, the ones making decisions are not physicists, and in such situations, people always have some hope against hope. They would think, what if it hits?"

Liu Tong was astonished, "Are they really entrusting their chances to such unreliable gambling?"

Academician Ding said, "There is no choice. The arrival of the aliens has completely disrupted the balance of power on Earth and also poses a serious threat to the existence and international status of the United States. Although fundamentally, this is an issue that all 7.5 billion people in the world need to face together, the Americans have such a strong savior complex that they can't extricate themselves from this trap. The aliens aren't communicating with Earth and seem intent on a military invasion. The Americans can't help but respond, even if it's ineffective."

Liu Tong's voice was almost off-key, incredulous, "The Americans are being too irresponsible! If the aliens really take their anger out on Earth, then everyone in the world will suffer!"

Academician Ding didn't seem surprised, merely stating flatly, "Right, it's the same principle as nuclear deterrence back in the day. If America is going to be doomed, then the whole world might as well be doomed with it."

Ye Qing huffed, "To use a current phrase, all of us in the world have been 'represented' by the Americans."