Some thoughts that I can't help but express.

Many people do not have a macro concept of the four words "science and technology", are unwilling to think about overly complicated problems, like to simplify all systematic problems, and make up a so-called "civilization level" in their minds:

intercontinental civilization, planetary civilization, galaxy civilization, galactic civilization, cosmic civilization... and then imitate the level logic of Xiaobai's online article, and come to the "iron law" that advanced civilizations will inevitably beat lower civilizations.

This logic is totally untenable. This crude and brainless logic completely ignores the diversity and richness of civilization. The composition of a civilization includes race, technology, culture, politics... War strength and weapons technology are only a very, very small aspect of it.

Whether a civilization can rule the galaxy has nothing to do with whether it can create a Dyson sphere or Coca-Cola.

Because the Human Empire is an interstellar empire that rules the galaxy, based on this major premise, the Human Empire must master the "basic technology" of electromagnetic acceleration, so Black Water must not be able to infect the Astartes, so Alien blood must not be able to corrode Ceramic Steel, so the Umbrella Corporation's technology must be inferior to that of the Biological Sages...so the Human Empire must be superior to those civilizations that have not yet left the Earth in all aspects - this logic is a complete fallacy.

Any civilization, as long as it masters the three technologies of warp navigation, astronomical navigation and astropathic communication in the Warhammer 40K universe, has the potential to become an interstellar civilization. As for whether it can develop the T virus, it has nothing to do with whether it can become an interstellar civilization!

Many people only use a simple, crude logic to measure the technological level between two civilizations: the size of the territory equals the level of technology.

Milky Way civilization > Solar system civilization > Earth civilization.

Vast territory = advanced technology, this is a strange logic, but if you use your brain and think about it, you will understand that the size of the territory is only related to transportation and communication technology, what does it have to do with other science and technology?

Take the real world as an example, when the territory of the Mongol Empire spanned across the Eurasian continent, the political system, economic system and science and technology of the entire empire were the most backward on the earth at that time.

Politically, it was a slave society and had not yet transitioned to a feudal society. Economically, it did not issue its own currency and its overall technology was not developed. Only some weapons technology was relatively advanced... But this did not affect the fact that the territory of the Mongol Empire was the largest on the earth at that time, and this vast territory was conquered by them with their own swords and guns.

Take the Human Empire as an example. During the Great Crusade, the Human Empire encountered many civilizations whose technological levels surpassed its own.

The Luna Wolves once conquered a planet-level civilization that called itself the "Emperor" and possessed stealth power armor technology. Their stealth power armor was so strong that even the Space Marines could not see through it even if they switched to thermal imaging view.

The Space Wolves once conquered a galactic civilization called Durranian, mastered mortal-level personal shields, power armor and dreadnoughts, and had ships that were faster than the Empire's sublight speeds.

The last galactic civilization conquered by the Luna Wolves was Intersera, which perfectly combined magic and technology. Their soldiers wore psychic + mechanical Centaur power armor and lived in peace with alien races.

In these countless cases, the technology of these lost human civilizations was more powerful than that of the Human Empire, but they were all conquered by the Human Empire in the end. Why?

Volume.

No matter how advanced the technology of planetary civilizations and galaxy-level civilizations is, their war potential can never be compared with the human empire that has occupied half of the galaxy.

When the number of Space Marines under one's command is so large that they can use human wave tactics and sacrifice and die at will like the big heads of the Imperial Guard, few civilizations can withstand a powerful offensive of this level and scale.

When conquering these civilizations, even powerful Space Marines died in droves like wheat being cut. But no matter what, the final victory still belonged to the Human Empire. Numbers overwhelmed quality, and quantitative changes led to qualitative changes.

They have many advanced technologies, but have never mastered the three most critical technologies: subspace navigation, astropathic communication, and astronomical navigation.

(There are also claims that these civilizations were the first to realize the horrors of the Warp and Chaos, and voluntarily gave up developing Warp navigation technology. They are also content with their current scale and status quo, and have no ambition to expand their territory and conquer the galaxy.)

Technology can neither determine the outcome of a war nor the size of a territory.

The world is complex. The strong should accept the complexity of the world and try to understand it. Only the weak will try to roughly summarize the world with some imaginary simple logic.

Technology is like a tree, some branches are long, some are short, some are lush, and some are sparse. Interstellar navigation technology is just a branch on this tree, nothing more. It is such a simple fact that many people cannot figure out in their lifetime.

Elon Musk once said:

People who can see through the essence of things in half a second and people who cannot see through the essence of things in their entire life are destined to have completely different fates.

I don't dare to agree with it completely, but it can also explain that:

cognition is a person's greatest competitive advantage, and all other production factors besides cognition can be slowly constructed.

...…

I originally wanted to put the above words in the main text, but I felt that it was too didactic, so I opened a separate free chapter. I still say the same thing -

Refutation and defense are secondary. I just hope that readers can find some gains in values ​​and world views, and gains in cognition, from an online novel.

(End of this chapter)