Chapter 265 Preparation for the Battle of Dust

In Crisis Year 248, with the final technological barrier of The Waterdrop overcome, humanity finally succeeded in constructing its first Waterdrop.

This was a new milestone for humanity. From that moment on, humanity had established its first line of defense against the Trisolarans.

With the speed at which humanity was currently operating, constructing a Waterdrop required two years, but unlike the construction of Sophons, Waterdrops could be constructed simultaneously, and at present, ten Waterdrops were being built at the same time.

Of course, the construction of Waterdrops also had a failure rate, and it was considered very likely if six to seven out of the ten Waterdrops under construction were to be successfully built. In the future, the speed of Waterdrop construction was still expected to increase.

In addition, The Waterdrop contained another technological marvel, that is its special energy technology. Initially, humanity did not pay much attention to this type of energy technology, but as research deepened, it was discovered that it might be the most valuable technology humanity had acquired.

The mass of a Trisolaran Droplet was only 12 tons, with its shell, force field generator, and engine apparatus accounting for nearly 8 tons, leaving just over 4 tons for its carried resources and fuel.

Yet this 4 tons of fuel could allow The Waterdrop to emit a super-strong full-spectrum electromagnetic wave, with an intensity threshold exceeding the broadcast capability of the sun, and this blockade could last for several years.

From the astonishing capabilities displayed by The Waterdrop, it wasn't hard to see the power and advancement of the underlying energy technology. The efficient use of energy within Trisolaran Warships might also just be one of their standardized attack methods.

The 4 tons of fuel carried by The Waterdrop were antimatter, but the real energy technology of The Waterdrop was not antimatter technology, as antimatter's energy conversion efficiency was nearly 150 times that of fusion technology.

However, based on the intensity of the electromagnetic waves emitted by The Waterdrop, the energy required to block the sun for several years, when converted into mass by Mass Energy Corporation, would amount to tens of thousands of tons, which was not achievable with antimatter alone.

Through long-term research, people finally understood the real energy technology of The Waterdrop—it was the utilization of Dark Energy. As The Waterdrop curvature intercepted space-time in a bound state within dimensions, it also drew out a large amount of Dark Energy curled up in higher dimensions.

Dark Energy was closely linked to space-bound states, or rather, the technology of the curvature engines was essentially another form of Dark Energy use.

The 4 tons of antimatter fuel carried by The Waterdrop was fundamentally the resource needed to intercept Dark Energy between dimensions.

It can be simply understood that consuming a portion of antimatter fuel and utilizing the bound state of space-time could intercept nearly ten thousand portions of Dark Energy. With a special resonance effect, this energy could be emitted in the form of electromagnetic waves.

The energy technology of The Waterdrop could be regarded as an energy amplifier. Dark matter and Dark Energy were like infinite resources to humanity, but neither the Trisolarans nor humanity had any effective means of utilizing them, other than through resonance effects.

In fact, the Dark Energy intercepted by a portion of antimatter energy was a billion times more than the energy of the antimatter itself, yet the energy utilized through the resonance effect was less than ten thousand times the original antimatter energy.

Imagine if humanity could master the technology to utilize Dark Energy in the future, it would be equivalent to obtaining unlimited resources.

Yet, as always, any utilization of space led to its vulnerability, and the impact on space was irreversible. In the Dark Forest, such actions were risky.

The Waterdrops now possessed by humanity had almost no performance gap compared to the Trisolaran Droplets.

If there was any difference, it was a minuscule one. The Waterdrop, in addition to its own intelligent system, also required control through a Sophon, meaning, in theory, a Trisolaran Sophon could control a Human Waterdrop.

To avoid this situation, a "permission" control was also added to Human Waterdrops. This permission control was very complex, but simply put, the control system of The Waterdrop had to recognize the unique characteristics of human Sophons to allow operation.

These characteristics were entangled with the quantum bits of The Waterdrop's control system, ensuring that Trisolaran Sophons could not attain them.

Another advantage was that when conflict with the Trisolarans reignited, humanity could attempt to seize control of the Trisolaran Droplets through Sophons, whereas Human Waterdrops would remain unaffected by Trisolaran Sophons.

One could imagine what would happen on the battlefield at that time; surely the Trisolarans would be baffled. Of course, this tactic could only outsmart the Trisolarans once.

Thus, humanity had entered the era of mass production of Waterdrops, predicting that 200 Waterdrops would be produced over the next 20 years, although it was uncertain if the Trisolarans would allow us those 20 years.

The 200 Droplets also didn't need to worry about a shortage of Sophons, as one Sophon could control many. A Sophon approaches the speed of light, so controlling multiple Droplets is like executing multiple threads simultaneously.

...

Besides the Droplets, humanity had also designed and manufactured many small Strong Interaction Armored Torpedo Ships, which are like torpedoes in space—compact yet incredibly powerful.

These armored torpedo ships were typically deployed on star-level warships, which were responsible for transporting them to the battlefield. It was in the heat of battle that these ships could truly demonstrate their capabilities.

These torpedoes were equipped with super weapons specifically designed by Lin Sen for the Trisolarans, which he believed would deliver a tremendous shock to the Trisolarans in crucial moments.

However, it was conjectured by Ding Yi and others that the Trisolarans might also possess similar super weapons, and theirs could even be more powerful than those of humanity.

If both sides utilized such super weapons on the battlefield, then the second battle between Trisolaris and humanity could perhaps be called the "Dust War."

In such a clash of weapons, even armor reinforced by the Strong Interaction Force would pale in comparison.

After repeated discussions by human scholars, humanity's warship propulsion engines were ultimately decided to be antimatter engines.

Firstly, humanity had now mastered the technology of mass-producing antimatter, which made carrying such fuel more convenient and resulted in greater acceleration. Fusion engines were gradually becoming insufficient for humanity's combat needs.

Secondly, humanity's curvature technology was not yet mature; the curvature drive that propelled the Droplets was completely different from the curvature engine used for a massive warship weighing hundreds of thousands of tons. Moreover, the "trails" left by using curvature might expose one's position.

Thirdly, dark matter energy utilization technology was not mature for use on human warships, so it was better to directly use antimatter engines.

Not only human warships but also the armored torpedo ships used antimatter engines.

In addition, if curvature technology were widely used, the human world would discover the secrets of curvature ahead of time, which would not be a good thing for human society.

The current human society was not ready to leave the Solar System or to remain in it forever.

The Longevity Program, thought by the Trisolarans to be guided by them in the background, was in fact a counter-strategy by Lin Sen and the human leadership.

It was intended to let humanity undergo a new round of civilization reorganization during the battle with the Trisolarans, bringing humans to accept the possibility of leaving the Solar System.

The second battle between the Trisolarans and humanity was likely to be the most brutal, as it was a contest of their strongest forces, not a skirmish between a few Trisolaran Droplets and all of humanity.

Only through such a brutal war could humanity possibly be reorganized and truly be prepared to leave the Solar System.

In a sense, only war could advance civilization.

During the first battle against the Trisolarans, humans feared the proximity of the Waterdrop, as every close encounter with it signified destruction.

But in the second battle, humanity must seek close combat with the Trisolaran Interstellar Fleet; otherwise, the war could still be lost.

Humanity had an advantage in the research of macroscopic four-dimensional technology compared to the Trisolarans, and Ding Yi and others had successfully developed a defense technique against warp point assaults, which might be an important trump card for humanity in this war.

Lin Sen's strategy was simple: rely on warp point defense and Strong Interaction Armored ships to approach or catch up with the Trisolaran fleet, and in the end, use those super weapons.