Chapter 40 New Combat Situation_1

Leader: "So, what is your latest assessment of the combat situation?"

Military Governor: "First of all, they are not going to dispatch a thousand warships to the Oort Cloud. That kind of cost is something they cannot possibly afford.

We predict that at most 200 warships will be sent into deep space. Our best plan is to dispatch 30 Waterdrops, split into 15 pairs, and coordinate with 50 Sophons in a search to snipe their warships in deep space.

(It is best for Waterdrops to act in pairs, one blocking signals and the other attacking; signal blocking and attacking cannot occur simultaneously. If they could occur simultaneously, the Doomsday Battle would have allowed us to kill Logic while blocking the Sun. The Sophons must have corresponding entangled Sophons on Trisolaris for communication to be realized, which means we need to build 100 Sophons.)

We estimate that it would take us 300 Earth years to truly annihilate them, since the Oort Cloud is too vast and nearly all time would be spent on searching and pursuing.

This is almost unacceptable for us; our resources are also hard to sustain. Even if we cease the construction of the second and third fleets, it will still take us 50 Earth years to gather resources (mainly collecting helium-3 from the universe) to build that many Sophons and Waterdrops.

Moreover, our fleet can't persist for such a long time; they will become lost in the starry sky.

But that's not the key issue. It doesn't matter whether our encirclement of their fleet is observed by them or not; in any case, they will learn of our attitude towards those fleeing, which means they can guess that escape represents a significant threat to us.

They would then continue to send Deep Space Fleets to the Oort Cloud, and we wouldn't be able to use so many Sophons to track them. Strategically, they have completed a checkmate against us, which puts us in a passive position."

Leader: "We are aware of everything you've mentioned. As a Military Governor, don't you have any countermeasures?"

Military Governor: "The only way is to ignore the fleet roving in the Oort Cloud as they are also subject to the anti-escape restrictions and will not effectively flee.

We need to dispatch 20 Waterdrops, with 10 circling around the Kuiper Belt to surround the Solar System, preventing any possible fleet escape from within the Solar System.

The other 10 will enter the Solar System to launch simultaneous attacks, one blocking the Sun (the ability to broadcast to the universe) and the other blocking Earth (the capability of all-domain broadcast stations).

Although humans have the capability to construct such all-domain broadcast stations, the cost is prohibitively high, so definitely not many will be built, and most should be on Earth.

The remaining Waterdrops will first strike any potential all-domain broadcasting spacecraft and Solar System warships. If we destroy all all-domain broadcast stations in time, we can then eliminate the possibility of the Deep Space Fleet escaping to the Oort Cloud.

We can then leisurely move to wipe out all fleets within the Solar System, as the warships in the Solar System won't have plans for escape.

After this, they will no longer have any means to threaten us, and we will have achieved substantive victory."

Leader: "The key to victory lies in whether we can destroy or block all all-domain broadcast stations to prevent them from sending out a universal broadcast.

If they do manage to broadcast, the Deep Space Fleet will become the Escape Fleet. Then, we can only stay in the Solar System, and after obtaining key resources, we must continue wandering in the stars until we find a new home."

Military Governor: "Yes, humans on the run might expose themselves at any time, and it is extremely dangerous to intrude into other star systems randomly.

Once detected by a super-civilization in a nearby star domain, the exposure of humans will inevitably lead to the exposure of our Trisolaran civilization, and we can only choose to continue our wanderings.

Additionally, once they escape our Sophon blockade, they indeed can reach our technological level rather quickly. Their scientific development is too fast, and such an enemy is too dangerous; we absolutely cannot allow them to escape."

Leader: "Trisolarans do not fear challenges and never give up. If humans think they can defeat us with cunning, we'll respond to them with absolute force. Your combat plan is approved.

Let's move on to the next topic. Lin Sen has already analyzed the weak points of the Trisolaran Interstellar Fleet. Will this impact our strategic situation?"

Science Governor: "In fact, it's within our expectations that humans could analyze the weaknesses of the Trisolaran Fleet. There are no fewer than five people in the PDC Staff Group who have made similar analyses, though none as clearly as Lin Sen.

While the PDC takes such analyses seriously, they haven't proposed any viable countermeasures. They believe that even if the weaknesses of the Trisolaran Fleet are real, they are not something to be considered right now."

"I don't think this has much impact on our strategic posture," Lin Sen hadn't anticipated that our 'Pioneer' was about to set off, and the one to face them in the final battle would be the Waterdrop, which has no weaknesses.

"Their biggest mistake is limiting their vision to our Trisolaran Interstellar Fleet. The doomsday battle will come much sooner than they imagined."

Strategy Governor: "I think such analysis is threatening. The key function of Lin Sen's analysis is to consolidate the confidence of the Earth's people.

"They will follow Lin Sen's train of thought, constantly searching for our flaws. Having the Earth's people remain rational at all times is a terrifying thought."

Supreme Leader: "Looking at the history of human development, there must be laws governing the development of mankind. Lin Sen cannot influence humanity forever. We need not worry too much about this, as it is beyond anyone's control.

"Our original strategic plan remains unchanged.

"Let's move on to the third item on the agenda. Can controlled nuclear fusion breakthrough as Lin Sen suggests, and what impact would this have on our plans?"

Science Governor: "Supreme Leader, I know I shouldn't say this, but I am indeed surprised.

"Lin Sen is not highly skilled in controlled nuclear fusion, yet he can guide them. Using the pulsed hybrid reactor method, they could achieve a breakthrough in no more than one Earth year, while it took us 12 million Trisolaran hours to get past this step.

"The material production method he proposed to Wang Miao is also truly viable. Biomanufacturing is indeed a process used in many of our material productions.

"Additionally, the quantum tunneling model for controlled nuclear fusion is also currently used by us. Our quantum tunneling model was calculated by brute force computing, which only took us 600,000 Trisolaran hours.

"They're expected to achieve this within 20 Earth years, or possibly even less.

"Controlled nuclear fusion cannot be considered as an engine for our warships, as our resources have been nearly exhausted. We can only collect minute amounts of helium-3 from the 'solar wind' to sustain our energy consumption. This source almost entirely powers the construction of all our warships and Sophons, but it's not suitable for interstellar travel.

"With just his own efforts, or even just a few conversations, Lin Sen has advanced human technology by a significant step. We also predicted the grand trough they are forecasting, and even according to the human social development model, they are expected to experience a technological explosion after the grand trough.

"We are not worried about their technological achievements. Our concern is how much potential Lin Sen can inspire in humanity!"

Supreme Leader: "I have to say, Earthlings are a race beloved by God. Essentially, it is because of our lack of clever schemes that we have developed a fear of humans.

"Since we were born as Trisolarans, we must not fear any challenges. We are left with no other choice.

"Let us move on to the fourth issue, the Resource Exchange Plan revealed by Lin Sen. Although we do not know the specifics of its execution, the very name of the plan deserves our attention. How should we respond?"

Science Governor: "The meaning of the Resource Exchange Plan is likely to force us to use more resources to do something that we must do.

"For humans, there is only one way to achieve this: to build a large number of High-Energy Particle Colliders, which they have the resources to build.

"According to our calculations, the resources they consume to build a collider are 2048 times what we consume to produce a single Sophon.

"Analysis suggests that human governments are unlikely to agree to the construction of a large number of colliders. We estimate that at most they will only build five to eight colliders, which would be their limit.

"We only need to construct eight more Sophons in our original plans and send four to the Solar System to saturate and interfere with their experiments. We can still afford this by dehydrating another batch of Trisolarans.

"This plan is not a threat to us, but they have successfully forced us to commit more resources; perhaps this is what they call a Resource Exchange.

"However, it makes no difference to us. It would only force us to postpone the construction of subsequent fleets, as our resources need time to collect. Unless the speed at which they build colliders is greater than our resource collection speed for Sophon construction, but that currently seems impossible."