Chapter 318: Trisolaris's Counter-Darkness Deterrence

It happened in a flash, the attack the Trisolarans launched from the Mist Zones arrived instantly, with about ten glueball oscillation beams shooting out from several Mist Zones near the thousand warships, like invisible light sabers, attacking the human warships directly.

Facing this sudden offensive, the human warships could only change directions like headless flies, attempting to dodge these lethal attacks.

Since it took over 10 minutes for the Trisolaran attack to reach the warships, hitting the rapidly moving and changing human warships was no easy task.

However, if the human warships wanted to completely break through the encirclement and escape the siege by the Trisolarans, it was estimated that it would take more than ten hours. During this time, the Trisolarans had plenty of chances to hit the human warships, and each attack could cause significant damage.

Despite the key parts of the human warships already being covered with the latest technology strong interaction armor, if they were hit multiple times by Trisolaran attacks, it could potentially breach the protection of the armor and directly threaten the warships' survival or even destroy the human warships.

The beginning of this battle was shrouded in a tense and grim atmosphere, with both sides seemingly entering a state of decisive combat.

The thousand warships of humanity, like dazzling stars in the sea of stars, maneuvered in combat on a gigantic spherical chessboard with a radius of 50 astronomical units. Every Mist Zone of the Trisolarans was akin to a chess piece, carefully placed to engage in a deadly struggle with the maneuvering human warships.

In this fierce engagement, luck and psychological games became the main theme.

Every evasion and attack was filled with tension and excitement, as both sides tried to guess the other's intentions in this battle of life and death to gain an advantage.

Fifteen hours later...

When the human warships finally escaped the outermost Mist Zones, their number had dwindled to just over three hundred. This was undoubtedly a heavy blow to humanity and represented a significant loss. The wrecks of warships floated in space, as if to tell the story of the brutal battle.

With the first wave of attack, humanity had launched their offense full of confidence, but after intense engagement with the Trisolarans, it ended in failure. Humanity did not achieve any substantial results and paid a heavy price—seven hundred warships were forever lost in the sea of stars.

However, this defeat was not without gains. On the contrary, through this battle, humanity had largely ascertained the true strength of the Trisolarans, which was of inestimable value for future strategic deployment.

First, through this engagement and with the help of Sophon tracking technology, humanity successfully explored most areas outside the Mist Zones, especially identifying which areas were not Sophon Blind Zones—critical information for subsequent military operations.

Second, the situations in nearly six thousand Mist Zones were made clear, with many Mist Zones being deceptive and without military deployment. More importantly, humanity also grasped the defensive blind spots of the Trisolaran Mist Zones.

Humanity's thousand warships sometimes intentionally approached some Mist Zones, and based on the Trisolarans' responses, they could generally determine the safety of those areas. Of course, the Trisolarans might employ a strategy of deliberately hiding military forces, but this was of minor significance and relatively rare.

Last, and most crucially, humanity had discerned the reality and illusion of the Trisolaran forces through this attack, particularly regarding the weapon known as Space-Time Binding Well.

Although this weapon still seemed quite troublesome, it had been exposed, and with some preparation for the next attack, its effectiveness would become minimal.

Overall, even though humanity paid a heavy price in the first encounter with the Trisolarans, they also acquired valuable real combat experience and critical intelligence, providing strong data support and strategic guidance for their upcoming battle plans.

At present, humanity's second wave of attack is being prepared expeditiously. Unlike the last time, this time they will be assisted by Sophons. With the now clear understanding of the non-Sophon Blind Zones, humanity has enough confidence and strategic space to plan and launch a powerful counterattack.

...

However, just as humanity was preparing for the new battle, an unexpected development caused deep unease among the fleet command.

The reason was the creation by the Trisolarans of two thousand miniature low-speed light zones which could be referred to as Dark Domains.

Against the pitch-black background of deep space, they were not dark in color; on the contrary, they appeared as a translucent white, like bright white spots scattered across the stars, with faint boundaries.

In the human mind, the first reaction was inevitably to associate this with the "Sunshine Project" proposed by Logic more than a hundred years ago—as the scene before them was practically a replica of that plan.

Only at this moment did humanity finally realize the true strategic intent of the Trisolarans.

Trisolarans found it almost impossible to establish a Dark Forest Deterrence system, as Trisolarans are a collective intelligence, making their behavior quite predictable.

However, the premise for establishing Dark Forest Deterrence is the unpredictability of individuals, which is irreplaceable even by artificial intelligence. This recognition once gave humanity some comfort in their skirmishes with the Trisolarans, believing the Trisolarans had an inherent weakness in deterrence.

The Trisolarans also understood this, so they changed their strategy and used new methods to counter Dark Forest Deterrence.

Since the Trisolarans couldn't establish a Dark Forest Deterrence system, they would hand the choice back to humanity, letting humans decide for themselves.

If humanity continued the attack recklessly, the Trisolarans would inevitably launch those spheres again, creating more and more small low-speed light regions.

Although these regions were almost invisible against the backdrop of the universe, when their number reached a certain level, such as 100,000 or 200,000, or even more, the exposure of the Trisolaran Star System would become inevitable.

For the Trisolarans, it seemed they had no other choice.

Under the continued threat from humanity, they had to adopt this extreme method to establish their own deterrence system. This form of deterrence, though seemingly passive, held significant strategic value.

To utterly destroy the Trisolarans, humanity had to attack these tens of thousands of Mist Zones, and the Trisolarans would use these spheres to counterattack, which would also inevitably generate new small low-speed light regions.

However, humanity faced an unavoidable problem: it was impossible to accurately determine how many such small low-speed light regions were needed to completely expose the Trisolaran Star System; the question was unquantifiable.

…

Fleet Commander, "I didn't expect the Trisolarans' true objective to be this. I would like to hear your views; how many small spheres forming Dark Domains are needed to possibly expose the position of the Trisolaran Star System?"

Chief of the Science Advisory Board, "Commander, it is difficult to give an exact answer.

"If potential Hunters are very close to us, then perhaps only 2,000 small sphere Dark Domains would be enough to attract their attention and expose us.

"If that were all, perhaps we wouldn't be so worried.

"In fact, during these 300-plus years, many acts of ours and the Trisolarans may have inadvertently exposed us.

"For instance, the massive energy beams of directed energy weapons used during warship combat, our high-powered electromagnetic signals sent out to space, and the trails left by warships passing through interstellar dust… If there is a Hunter within 8 light-years, they have likely already discovered us.

"Moreover, if we consider the advanced surveillance technologies a high-level civilization might possess, they could potentially detect our presence from as far away as 20 light-years.

"However, based on our latest deduction, even a high-level civilization, when monitoring those 'traces,' is highly unlikely to come over for a direct inspection, and the probability of them launching a Hines Strike is also very low, because they too fear the possibility of encountering an existence they cannot contend with.

"Every civilization in the Dark Forest must tread carefully; nobody dares to set baits easily, for that is akin to digging one's own grave. Similarly, no one dares to launch a Dark Forest Strike recklessly.

"In such a game, information reference becomes a key guide. The most common information references are coordinate information and technological information.

"The method of exposition by the Trisolarans doesn't expose their coordinates but rather their technological information, which is very susceptible to Dark Forest Strikes."

Hunters in the Dark Forest wouldn't rashly investigate just because of a minor anomaly in a stellar system.

In such an environment, any rash action could expose oneself and become a target for other civilizations.

Similarly, they also wouldn't dare to launch a Dark Forest Strike lightly because of an anomaly, as such actions could also put them in danger.

This is an endless game…