Chapter 255: Humanity's Waterdrop Project

The Cover Plan was a super-massive project, and the energy consumed to construct such a massive Sophon-Blocked Zone was also immense. The key issue was that the sophon barrier had to continue operating indefinitely, requiring the consumption of a vast amount of resources.

It's not that others hadn't thought of similar plans, but humanity's understanding of the microscopic realm was limited and it was uncertain whether high-dimensional sophons could detect whether the Sophon-Blocked Zone was deactivated.

If sophons in the 7th or 8th dimensions could know if the Sophon-Blocked Zone was turned off, then the whole plan would be utterly meaningless.

The critical aspect of executing the plan was that Ding Yi, through theoretical calculations, had demonstrated the feasibility of this approach. Although there was no definitive evidence (actually, there was, but it couldn't be made public), the probability of it being feasible was very high.

The biggest question for humanity was why the Cover Plan had to be so large, when particle collider experiments only required a region with a diameter of a few thousand kilometers.

The Trisolarans had similar questions, their most common conjecture being that Lin Sen was preparing to use the resources on Titan to execute some kind of counterattack plan.

No one had guessed that Lin Sen and his team were now embarking on a sophon research project.

And Lin Sen had also moved The Waterdrop research base to Titan, further supporting the possibility that Lin Sen might be preparing some kind of plan.

According to the Trisolarans' estimation of humanity's progress in studying The Waterdrop, to truly manufacture Strong Interaction Force material, it was necessary to understand the principles behind the generation of The Waterdrop's force field, which required a breakthrough in microscopic particle theory.

In these 30 years, humanity had also almost completely figured out The Waterdrop's force field generation device, dissecting its structure layer by layer using electron tunneling microscopes.

But they had yet to create The Waterdrop's force field generator.

It was as if ancient people had obtained modern firearms and even replicated all their structures, meeting the required metal strength, but lacking the key primer and gunpowder technology.

However, now that Lin Sen had returned with information from four-dimensional space, the vital "primer and gunpowder" technology had been filled in.

If possible, humanity could now mass-produce Strong Interaction Force material.

Currently, the key lay in studying The Waterdrop's propulsion system.

After 30 years of research, humanity had developed a deeper understanding of The Waterdrop's propulsion system.

It actually consisted of two parts: a conventional propulsion system and a Force Field Distortion Engine System.

There was a common misconception that The Waterdrop's conventional propulsion system was inside The Waterdrop, but in reality, it was on the surface.

The Waterdrop was essentially a closed system, and its shell was made of strong interaction force material, which binds atomic nuclei together.

Theoretically, such material should carry a strong charge, with The Waterdrop's force field generator reducing the electromagnetic force between its atoms and increasing the overflow of the Strong Interaction Force, thus ejecting all of its electrons.

However, these electrons wouldn't just drift away but would stay attached to The Waterdrop's surface, ultimately rendering The Waterdrop electrically neutral.

The Waterdrop's conventional propulsion was based on controlling a certain force field, gathering these electrons in pulses toward the tail of The Waterdrop along its Strong Interaction Force material surface.

Due to The Waterdrop's streamlined design, the space towards the tail became smaller, the force field stronger, and electrons were more tightly compressed, generating a powerful electron repulsion force. When the electrons reached the tail tip, they were tightly compressed and released a tremendous amount of energy, forming electron whirls.

These electron whirls would change color from blue to red as they performed work externally, until the electrons completely collapsed and annihilated, ultimately converting into the energy that propelled The Waterdrop forward.

This was an electron annihilation technology that directly converted electron mass into energy, unlike the simple Hall thruster technology. The Hall Thruster essentially accelerated electrons or ions for high-speed ejection to gain reverse thrust—the efficiency might be high, but the resultant thrust was minimal and essentially of no practical military value.

In the interstellar vacuum, there actually exists a small amount of mediums like electrons, which The Waterdrop can recapture through its strong electric field to again perform electron vortexing, thus continuously propelling The Waterdrop forward.

This also explains how The Waterdrop, carrying so few resources, was able to travel four light-years to the Solar System and why it began to decelerate upon entering the Oort Cloud, even slowing down for over a decade.

It turns out that the resources it consumed were not those it carried internally but could be continually captured from the external environment. Of course, the resources required to maintain its force field were still carried within The Waterdrop.

This is The Waterdrop's conventional propulsion system; attaining this is not difficult. If humanity could master the Strong Interaction Force material field device, such a propulsion system could be quickly understood.

However, this type of propulsion system has limited acceleration capabilities; achieving higher speeds requires gradual acceleration. It also cannot make sharp turns, so its maneuverability is quite poor.

If they were only to construct such a low-end version of The Waterdrop, Ding Yi and his team could easily build tens of thousands of them now, but these Waterdrops would have very limited military value.

The most critical aspect of The Waterdrop is its Force Field Distortion Engine System, which manipulates spacetime curvature or some form of gravity to function.

In the theories of that period, it had been proven that the bending of spacetime is the essence of gravity. Of course, there's a misconception that must be clarified—it is not the curvature of space that creates gravity but the curvature of time; interested friends can look up relevant research.

However, humanity's research on curvature had been at a standstill, as the principle of curvature is quite simple: all matter can cause slight bending of the surrounding space, but this is negligible.

Matter with significant mass and high energy density can cause a considerable bend in the surrounding space. While this principle is straightforward, such a rudimentary understanding is practically useless.

According to this principle, even converting the entire mass of Jupiter into pure energy to power a curvature engine would not be enough to accelerate a spacecraft to 0.1% of the speed of light.

This level of understanding about curvature engines is comparable to the gap between the primitive man's concept of bird flight and the principles of airplane flight.

As of now, the greatest known influence on spacetime curvature to humanity is black holes. Lin Sen planned to use the scientific research team to apply to the Permanent Defense Council for permission to use the Solar System Accelerator to accelerate high-energy particles, thus creating micro black holes.

But such small black holes would evaporate quickly. To obtain a stable black hole, the micro black hole created in the accelerator would immediately be directed out and injected into the center of Titan, eventually stabilizing its size—or what's called its Schwarzschild radius or event horizon radius—at about 21 nanometers.

The curvature engine of The Waterdrop is actually a low-end version of the Lightspeed Spacecraft; with humanity's current state of microscopic research, it's possible to conduct studies in this field.

Of course, Lin Sen understood that research into curvature engines had to be extremely cautious, and this caution was not only for the Trisolarans but also for humanity itself.

A low-end curvature engine like this better suits humanity's current needs, as the curvature trail it forms is very faint, generally invisible. It can only be detected with precise instruments.

However, a true curvature technology like the Lightspeed Spacecraft would directly leave a Dark Domain in its wake. The time is not yet right for its emergence, and it must be controlled.

In any case, humanity's Waterdrop Project has begun.

PS: This chapter is my personal understanding of The Waterdrop. Mass-energy conservation is a fundamental rule of the universe. I don't believe that The Waterdrop traveled four light-years based on its internal resources alone, hence the author considers it comes from external sources.

When engaging in combat with humanity, the speed and sharp turn maneuverability of The Waterdrop, in my opinion, utilize a low-end version of curvature.

Some say that The Waterdrop possesses a formidable acceleration capability and that sufficient acceleration could also achieve sharp turns.

It's like saying the Trisolarans, with such scarce resources, traveled 4 light-years to show off in front of humanity?

To achieve sharp turns, the necessary acceleration capabilities are clear to everyone, consuming immense energy. Do the Trisolarans really need to make such an effort? There's only one possibility for the Trisolarans: sharp turns are effortless for The Waterdrop.

I believe The Waterdrop uses a low-end curvature, and if anyone disagrees, feel free to share your views for discussion.