Chapter 308 Sophon Tracking Technology

Crisis Era, year 271.

After a year of continuous struggle, Trisolaran scientists finally achieved a significant breakthrough in Sophon Blind Zone Technology.

Lin Sen had originally estimated that it would take the Trisolarans at least three to four years to achieve such a breakthrough in this technology, yet to overcome this technical challenge, the Trisolarans had thrown an almost relentless amount of resources into the effort. This showed both their determination and madness, and it highlighted their extreme fear of being surveilled.

Subsequently, the Trisolarans quickly initiated the Blind Zone Project, deciding to construct a vast range of Sophon Blind Zones throughout the Trisolaran star system and its surroundings.

Sophon Blind Zones are areas in which monitoring with sophons is impossible, rendering them invisible and unknowable to sophons. Once a sophon enters such an area, it means that sophon will lose contact.

The Trisolarans did not choose to create a completely closed Sophon Blind Zone across the whole star system because this would prevent their own sophons from entering and exiting as well.

Even though humanity could track the movements of the spacecraft deploying the Sophon Blind Zones, with the combined use of Sophon-Blocking Fields, they were still unable to discern which areas had been turned into Sophon Blind Zones and which areas were left with "windows" for sophon passage.

In light of this, humanity's sophons had no choice but to withdraw entirely from the Trisolaran star system and could only monitor it from a distance, while suspending the plan to send further sophons to the system.

There were mainly two reasons for this:

Firstly, many parts of the Trisolaran star system were outfitted with Sophon Blind Zones, and if humanity's sophons moved rashly, they could encounter unforeseen dangers and were restricted to remote monitoring.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Trisolarans developed a decisive technology: Sophon Tracking Technology.

With this technology, the Trisolarans were able to track the movement trajectories of sophons.

Whenever a sophon borrows energy from space, it leaves behind an energy void in the original space, which in turn causes microscopic spatial disturbances around the void.

For the Trisolarans, who are skilled in spatial technology, such microscopic spatial changes are trackable.

They mark the energy voids left when sophons borrow energy and connect these marks to map out the trajectories of the sophons' movements.

This technology not only enabled the Trisolarans to track sophons but also provided them with a means to annihilate sophons.

By using the motion trajectory maps of the sophons and calculating their most likely course using computers, they could lay in wait in areas where sophons might appear. By emitting a Sophon-Blocking Field, there was a chance to annihilate a sophon, even if it moved at the speed of light.

Although humanity had come to understand the basic principles of Sophon Tracking Technology, to overcome this technology was still quite challenging.

On one hand, this technology encompassed a wide range of industrial technology advancements, and humanity's overall technological level had not yet reached that stage.

On the other hand, since the Trisolarans had only recently made a breakthrough in this technology and most experiments were conducted within closed Sophon-Blocking Fields, humanity's sophons were unable to obtain related research information.

With the advent and development of Sophon Blind Zones and Sophon Tracking Technology, the role and influence of sophons were to be significantly limited and constrained.

The era of the sophon myth was now over.

Actually, this was reasonable. Both we and the Trisolarans were still at the stage of primary civilizations, and as a technological product of this stage, sophons naturally have their limitations.

If sophons were too perfect without any flaws, their extraordinary nature would seem too powerful in a sense.

If sophons were hard to detect and their sources untraceable, then civilizations, high or low, could potentially establish vast interstellar sophon networks.

In such an instant communication network made up of sophons, both the coordination of military operations and the exchange of cultural knowledge would become unprecedentedly efficient and convenient. It is conceivable that, under such a technological background, the overall state of the universe would undergo a radical transformation.

The Dark Forest Theory might still be manifested in certain corners, but it would never again be the most important principle. As communication becomes simple and direct, many civilizations may no longer need to be as tense as before, filled with fear and vigilance towards any foreign signals.

There is a theory that the structure of a society depends on the form of communication, which encompasses many aspects including the exchange of information and material resources.

This point of view is equally applicable to the broader cosmic society, whose structure and dynamic development largely also depend on the mode of communication between civilizations.

If there is no form of communication, then the cosmic society is very likely to fall into a Dark Forest state, where civilizations suspect and guard against each other in solitude and fear.

If some simple and universal form of communication could be achieved, there would inevitably be more political compromises and strategic alliances. This would significantly increase the tolerance for error among different civilizations, and the decision-making process would no longer be bound solely by rational principles.

Then, perhaps, the universe would no longer be single and rigid, but full of countless possibilities and changes.

However, this desired state of the cosmic society has not yet emerged, which seems to imply that the ideal form of communication has not been discovered or realized.

Clearly, the Sophon network has not been able to shoulder such a responsibility, with its significant shortcomings in surveillance functions becoming the biggest obstacle to achieving this ideal state.

In fact, if the dispatched exploring Sophons are unlucky enough to encounter higher civilizations, those civilizations could probably easily detect the existence of Sophons with their advanced technologies.

More seriously, they might even be able to trace back to the source of the Sophons by following the empty trails left in space during their movement, which undoubtedly poses a huge threat to the users of Sophons.

This means that all civilizations would also be cautious about using Sophons for exploration.

Moreover, in this vast universe, there are not only natural Sophon Blind Zones but also artificially created ones, greatly limiting the activity range and detection capability of Sophons.

In such an environment, using Sophons for exploration is actually a dangerous act because it might expose the user's position and intentions, leading to unnecessary risks.

Let's talk further about the technical principle of the Sophon Blind Zone.

The essence of the Sophon Blind Zone, in fact, lies in the interruption of quantum entanglement resonance between Sophons. This type of entanglement resonance is achieved through quantum oscillators in High-Dimensional Space, and these special oscillators are exactly a manifestation of dark matter.

To sever this type of entanglement resonance, one must rely on the influence of another kind of dark matter, the quantum dampers.

In naturally formed Sophon Blind Zones, the amount of quantum dampers coiling in High-Dimensional Space exceeds the amount of quantum oscillators, thereby blocking the entanglement resonance between Sophons.

Artificially created Sophon Blind Zones are achieved by using the Fifth Force field to weaken the resonance characteristics of some quantum oscillators, allowing quantum dampers to become dominant.

Both humanity and the Trisolarans have already reached the threshold of this technology, with humanity even breaking through before the Trisolarans.

This is also one of the reasons why Lin Sen decided to send Sophons to the Trisolaran world in advance.

Once the Battle of the Dust is over, the Trisolarans will inevitably learn of humanity's secret possession of Sophons, and the Trisolarans will quickly develop Sophon-Blocking technology, leaving almost no chance for humanity to steal information from the Trisolaran world.

Humanity's Sophons have been in the Solar System for 10 years now, and although they have been extremely cautious, they have also learned most of the information about the Trisolarans.

Stealing information from the Trisolarans is actually not difficult. Due to their habit of distributed management, as opposed to vertical management, this provides a possibility for humanity to steal information.

PS: The author believes that Sophons can be tracked, otherwise with the omnipotent capabilities of Sophons in the original Trisolaris, the Dark Forest Theory of the original trilogy would really collapse. This can be said to be a patch for Trisolaris.

With an amazing tool like Sophons that defies current physical theories, and even causality, the exploration and communication between civilizations would become much easier. At least a lot of civilizations would want to break through the Dark Forest, and the outlook for the universe should not be all dark triumph.

It only proves that Sophons are not as powerful as we thought.