Chapter 175 - 174: Oriental Star Construction Project... Begins

Li Qingsong knew that solving the material degradation problems caused by Particle impacts at high speed was just one demonstration of the technology of a Level Three Strong Core Civilization.

Beyond this single technology, a Strong Core Civilization must also possess other matching advanced technologies.

Propulsion, energy, detection—all of these and more would be far beyond those of a Level Two Electroweak Civilization.

And at the core of all these advanced technologies was the unification of the Strong Core Force.

In physics terminology, this meant merging SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1) into a larger group, such as SU(5) or SO(10).

To put it more simply, imagine a stainless steel cup and a stainless steel pot. Originally, people might think they are two different things. But with further research, they would realize that both are just stainless steel. Their different shapes are merely different expressions of the same material; they are fundamentally the same thing.

Humanity’s prior unification of the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces into the Electroweak Force followed this same pattern.

Now, in addition to the stainless steel cup and pot, imagine people discovered another object—say, a dagger made of special steel.

If, through research, they found that the material used to make this dagger was also a type of steel, just one different from stainless steel.

What people would need to do now is unify "special steel" and "stainless steel." If they could find a common precursor to both, like "iron," they might then discover that both special steel and stainless steel are just different manifestations of the element iron after adding trace elements. This would be equivalent to unifying "special steel" and "stainless steel" within the larger group of "the element iron."

In the context of fundamental physical theory, this is equivalent to unifying the Electroweak Force and the Strong Core Force.

After unifying electricity and magnetism into the electromagnetic force, and then the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces into the Electroweak Force, the next step is to unify the Electroweak Force and the Strong Core Force into a single unified force. Mastering the "Grand Unified Theory," which describes this entire set of fundamental physical principles, would grant one this core. From this core, a whole new series of advanced technologies could be developed.

Back in the age of humanity, scientists had already made many attempts to study and unify the Strong Core Force. This process led to an extremely important achievement: the Standard Model.

The Standard Model succeeded in placing the electromagnetic, Strong Core, and weak nuclear forces under a single theoretical framework, using the same physical language to describe them all.

Although this achievement was significant, it did not truly unify these three fundamental forces into one.

Li Qingsong had originally thought that, building on this achievement, unifying the Strong Core Force would be relatively simple. But the technological data from the Blutuk People showed that there were far too many obstacles. It was nowhere near as easy as he had imagined.

’But... as long as I have enough time and a sufficient material foundation, I will definitely break through this barrier and complete the transformation from an Electroweak Civilization to a Strong Core Civilization.’

Li Qingsong thought to himself as he gazed at the still-distant Oriental Star.

Having now passed through the nebula, repair work on the fleet began immediately.

Vast numbers of Clones and robots, along with a variety of small spacecraft, converged on the larger ships. They methodically dismantled the damaged equipment and armor for repair or replacement.

Fortunately, Li Qingsong had brought more than enough supplies. Otherwise, the cost of repairing the damaged ships alone would have been enough to exhaust the fleet’s resources.

Time continued to slip by quietly, and in the blink of an eye, several more centuries had passed.

After day after day of travel, filled with small-scale experiments, theoretical calculations, and projections that never ceased, Li Qingsong’s massive fleet had finally arrived at a point just two trillion kilometers from the Oriental Star.

To draw an analogy with the Solar System, this distance should have been deep within the Oriental Star’s Oort Cloud.

But the Oriental Star’s situation was rather unique.

It was too young. At only about 800 million years old, it was far younger than the Sun. This meant it hadn’t had time to form a stable, mature Oort Cloud; the numerous celestial bodies that would form it were still clustered much closer to the star.

Traveling from several light-years away to his current position, Li Qingsong had long since crossed the Oriental Star’s gravitational boundary, but he had yet to find any macroscopic celestial bodies.

But that didn’t matter. As they continued forward, the material density of the Oriental Star System would increase rapidly, eventually exceeding even that of the inner Solar System.

Li Qingsong’s fleet began decelerating at full power.

Countless engine plumes fired in the direction of the Oriental Star. The faint sense of Gravity, absent for centuries, reappeared inside every ship.

During this process, the brightness of the Oriental Star increased sharply.

Through his telescope, Li Qingsong could already clearly see the massive star, young and bursting with energy.

It was shaped like an ellipsoid because it rotated so quickly. Its color was yellowish-white, as its surface temperature was higher than the Sun’s.

Li Qingsong saw endless celestial bodies orbiting it. He saw a rocky planet larger than Earth, still in its early formation, its surface covered in molten lava and constantly bombarded by smaller objects. He saw a massive gas giant four times the mass of Jupiter but similar in volume. He saw numerous moons orbiting that gas giant, the largest of which surpassed Mars in both mass and size.

It was fully qualified to be a major planet in its own right. But there was nothing to be done; the gas giant’s Gravity was too immense. For the foreseeable future, it would be unable to break free and could only continue to exist as a moon, never to be called a planet.

In addition to these two major planets and one large moon, Li Qingsong saw a massive debris disk composed of countless trillions of celestial bodies.

It was the remnant material from the formation of the Oriental Star and its major planets.

This enormous debris disk, like a colossal belt, orbited the Oriental Star at a distance of about 200 million kilometers.

Beyond the debris disk, endless asteroids, comets, and other celestial bodies hurtled through the Star System, crashing into the Oriental Star, the major planets, and each other.

The entire Star System seemed to be playing out a never-ending game of cosmic collisions.

Such a vibrant, extremely chaotic Star System seemed completely inhospitable to life.

But Li Qingsong was extremely satisfied with it.

The reason was simple: with his current level of technology, mere impacts were no longer a threat.

A Star System so rich in minerals and materials was a paradise for Li Qingsong.

Once again, time flowed by, and several more years passed in an instant.

From Li Qingsong’s perspective, the Oriental Star grew brighter and brighter.

When Li Qingsong’s massive fleet came to a halt beside the huge gas giant, approximately 1.6 billion kilometers from the Oriental Star, the star’s apparent magnitude had reached -24.2.

This number meant its brightness was about one-tenth that of the midday Sun as seen from Earth, and roughly 40,000 times the brightness of the fullest moon seen from Earth!

This level of brightness was more than enough to be blinding to the Clones, making it impossible to look at directly.

The Clone housing Li Qingsong’s consciousness turned its head and looked back at his massive fleet.

After the long voyage of several hundred years, the ships in his fleet were battered and scarred, covered in signs of damage and repair.

The many giant cargo freighters and the numerous supply bays of the Space-Air Carriers were long since depleted, their materials nearly exhausted.

During the long journey, he had accumulated hundreds of millions of experimental requirements, but the lack of materials during the voyage had prevented him from conducting the relevant tests and achieving technological advancements and breakthroughs.

While he wasn’t completely at the end of his rope, running on fumes, he wasn’t far from it.

Now, he had finally arrived in this Star System.

In this Star System, there was a gas giant larger than Jupiter, containing a virtually infinite supply of fusion fuel.

There were huge moons, major planets, dwarf planets, and endless asteroids and comets, all offering a similarly endless supply of various minerals for him to mine.

Besides his own forces, there was no other intelligent life here.

Since its formation, no intelligent life had ever set foot here. All the resources were his for the taking.

’In that case...’

With his spirit soaring, Li Qingsong finally issued the command he had long been waiting for.

"Oriental Star Construction Project... begin!"