Xiling Empire

I propose to go to Shadow City with Sandora not to go shopping to relieve boredom, but to see the development of several major projects: the mass production and installation of the Hangman-class spaceship, the progress of the deep dive plan, The ship ’s reverse engineering, and the progress of the Seventh Army, these items are the most important tasks of the new empire. Go out and talk about the long and short in the past few days. I guess there should be some new developments in these things. Already. Of course, another reason besides is that I can go out with Sandola later: I haven't been alone with her for a long time. Although the noisy family at home is very happy, I have to say that a creature like a bear child It really is the destroyer of husband and wife's private life ...

The blueprint of the Hangman-class spaceship has been sent to major starship factories, supervised by the Spirit host one-on-one and expedited production. The first batch of manufactured spacecraft has been sent to the Except the Seventh Army (the Seventh Army belongs to the Mysterious Troop) and the Royal Fleet. In this way, the number of new warships that each legion can get is certainly not large, but these spaceships are only to familiarize the commanders of the legions with their performance and prepare for the development of new tactical warfare in cooperation with this new warship in the future. If it is actually installed, it will naturally be given priority to the three important units of the Royal Fleet and the First and Sixth Army.

I am most concerned about the deep dive plan. When I set off, I just caught up with the second generation of deep dive trials. I could n’t see for myself that it was a big regret. I ’ve heard from Sandora that the trial was going on. It went quite well, and the two dives that followed immediately exceeded the goal. So from the headquarters, Sandora and I ran to the research center to find Tavel.

It is worth mentioning that. In addition to Sivis, who received Sandora and me at headquarters was Tavel: the latter appeared as a new warship technical adviser and chief research and development staff, while at the institute's deep diving project center, he and his host Sandora is still Tavel. This time, she is the technical consultant of the deep dive project and the chief R & D staff of the deep dive ship. I estimate that when I go to the reverse engineering laboratory with Sandora myself, I will still see Tower. Will, at that time, she was the director of the Regal Reverse Engineering Project ... can't delve into this, otherwise there are too many slots and it is easy to be strangled. Doesn't the workaholic have a cap on energy?

The deep diving project center occupies a whole floor in the institute. Divided into several departments, including the technical group of deep-submersible vessels, the research and development and production groups of various deep-submersible equipment, the abyss research group, the deep-dive information collection and analysis center, the unified and office, etc. I can understand and listen to a lot The group that doesn't understand needs so much division of labor. It is because the deep diving plan itself is a very wide-ranging thing. It requires the most advanced energy supply of the empire, the most advanced shield technology, and the most advanced communication array. It can work normally in the abyss environment without being infected by the sensitive. Sensors even need technical support from Abyssal Technology from the Fallen Apostles. These things are combined into a deep submersible ship, and the final collected data must be analyzed by another group of experts who specialize in the abyss. Such a plan spans a large number of high-tech fields, and it requires that the expert teams in each field can cooperate with other teams 100%, which is not an easy task: I am very fortunate that I have a schizophrenia as an initiative Skilled Chief Scientist, Tavel is the leader and office director of all the above project teams ...

Sandora and I went straight to the uniform and office of the Deep Dive Project Center. After pushing the door in, he found two people inside: a serious-looking uncle with a square face. This was Harlan. The other was the old man with gray hair but a sloppy spirit-the ancestor Anthers.

I didn't expect these two to be here, it seems that they are discussing something related to deep diving: Anthers is also one of the staff of the deep diving project and is also present. When I thought of talking to Sandorah at the headquarters ten minutes ago when Tavier reported on the installation of the new spacecraft, the glasses lady was also meeting with the two here and directing work in a dozen other departments. I can't help sighing: Schizophrenia is really a useful ability. Now that Tavel is successful in all aspects, he sends himself to fall in love with himself.

"Well, I'm busy," I greeted the people in the house as special as I am (I'll recognize you if I'm not going right), and finally I fell on Tavel. "Well, I'll see you again in ten minutes. . "

Harlan nodded with a smile to me and Sandora, and Tavel stood up with Anthes and saluted us: It would seem strange that the ancestors and their descendants would salute, and Sandora was firm at first Do not accept the tribute of the ancestors, but now Anthus has officially returned to his post as a "soldier", and the father himself also hopes to act in accordance with the standard empire authority system, so he salutes the rulers of the new empire-now Even Sandora could only accept it. After all, for the Apostles of the Spirit, the authority system was a priority over personal matters.

"Deep submersible 2 seems to be in good working condition?" Sandola and I sat opposite Tavier. I asked what I cared most about. "Is there anything new in it?"

"It is deeper than the last dive, but because the" space concept "in the pure abyss environment is unclear, we do not have an accurate measurement method to calculate how far the deep submersible has sailed, so for the time being there is no way to use an accurate Units to describe how specific the dive was, "Tavel shook his head slightly regretfully." The new findings are indeed there, but they are all within the scope of previous estimates: as the dive continues to deepen, the deep dive ship will bear The pressure in the abyss will increase, and the chaotic factors in the abyss will accelerate the destruction of the shield of the deep submersible ship. This is also the case for the most extreme dive. It seems that we are far from the critical point detected by the deep submersible ship in the old empire era. , Not to mention the unusually calm area of ​​the abyss. In addition, we also found a not so good situation ... "

I have anticipated the situation mentioned by Tavel earlier, and now she specifically mentioned a "not so good situation" that immediately made people nervous, and I frowned: "What's going on?"

"We found that the abyss environment has the bizarre characteristics of 'unevenness' and 'discontinuity', and these conditions cannot be explained or avoided so far." Harlan glanced at Tavel and turned to explain to me and Sandora. "The abyss of the abyss is more familiar with the things behind the gate, so I have recently been involved in this project. During the last deep dive, I saw the dangerous situation with my own eyes: The bigger it is, the increase trend is stable at first, but after the dive reaches a certain threshold, the curve sent back by the device starts to drift, high and low, and even breaks. It ’s like this— "

Harlan said, presenting a holographic projection to Sandorla and me, aside from the complicated tables and constantly refreshing data, the most noticeable thing on this screen is a continuously falling curve.

"The curve represents the shield balance of the deep submersible ship. The shield of the deep submersible ship will be continuously eroded in the abyss environment. Each time the shield refreshes, its residual stability and psionic strength are the shield balance. The shield The higher the margin, the safer the spacecraft. When the deep submersible is in a fixed position, its shield margin will also become a fixed value, and as the dive 'depth' increases, the shield margin will increase. Of course, the volume will continue to decline, which forms a graph, "Harlan explained to me and Sandora pointing to the graph (of course it is more likely to be explained to me specifically). "There are three horizontal lines here, which represent three kinds of thresholds. Above the first threshold, the shield margin is very safe. The energy cycle of the spacecraft itself will generate sufficient self-sustainment to ensure that it can stay arbitrarily long in the abyss environment. Time. Beyond this threshold, the shield balance is slightly dangerous. The spacecraft will use most of its energy to repair the shield, but it can also perform the mission smoothly. Exceeding the second threshold value means serious danger, the shield of the spacecraft The refresh must reach the limit to ensure safety. The shield balance at each time is only 10% of the full load, which is equivalent to the shield may be extinguished at any time. In this case, the deep submersible can only be executed for a short time. The mission must be floated up immediately, otherwise the system will be overloaded. The third critical value means that the spacecraft is about to die—the shield refresh cannot keep up with the pollution speed, and the margin drops below zero. Each new refreshed shield will bring There is an abyss reaction, so this value may even turn into a negative number. In this case, the structure of the deep-submersible ship begins to be polluted, and there is no possibility of returning to the sea. Continue to perform the task for a short period of time. In the previous task, the graph was normal when it was above the first threshold, and at the middle of the second to third threshold ... You see, the jitter is like a line chart , Even rising continuously. "

I looked at the significant curve, it fell steadily in a very stable range from the highest point to the first red warning line, and it also stabilized a long distance after crossing the first warning line, however After a certain moment, the smooth curve suddenly jittered, and the heights were erratic, and by the time the second critical point was approached, it would have shook almost like the late Parkinson's.

"There is a discontinuity deeper in the abyss, which changes from time to time and is unevenly distributed. We did not mention this in the old empire data we found at first," Tavel shook his head. Each layer has a different concentration, so the dividing line between these layers is not fixed. They not only drift at any time, but also suddenly flip: pollution suddenly decreases, then suddenly rises, and then suddenly decreases, then This forms the part of the graph that jitters violently. "

Sandora immediately realized the danger of the situation: "That is to say, after diving to a certain extent, it is very likely that the ship was 'stuck' and fell into despair?"

Tavel nodded solemnly: "That's it. After the deep submersible reaches its design limit 'depth', the situation becomes extremely dangerous. Although it can theoretically work at that depth, the abyss may drift at any time. It is also unpredictable. Our equipment is likely to be involved in the vortex of destruction before the response. The chance of trying to escape is basically zero. Theoretically this is the case. "

This is the first time in a deep dive, and it is also a huge challenge, which means that the actual working depth of the deep dive ship must be far less than its design strength: otherwise the ship will be full at any time may. I looked at the graph. The place where the most severe jitter was almost graffiti, and it was scary to watch: "Should there be a rough limit to this fluctuation range?"

"Basically it will not exceed five percent of the full value of the shield," Tavel sighed. "But it does not rule out that there are more unstable discontinuities deeper. We know too little about the depths of the abyss, And the records of the old empire lack such records ... "

I glanced at Harlan, who was thinking beside me. Suddenly remembered one thing: the first generation of deep diving ship was designed by Occam, and Harlan was the old owner of Occam. Why didn't Harland know the existence of this discontinuity?

"I really don't know," Harlan said, hearing my question, "I'm also wondering what's going on ... I also participated in the deep dive plan of the old empire, although I never asked technically. Details, but at least I have read the reports. No one has mentioned any discontinuities. Such a situation of great influence cannot be concealed once it appears. "

Sandora frowned, thinking: "Then there are only two explanations: First, discontinuities are not a common phenomenon. We don't know what kind of structure is the 'space' inside the abyss. So it is very likely that the deep-submersible ship we made broke into a dangerous area. Second, the discontinuity zone is not a long-term phenomenon. It may not have existed in the old empire period. It only appeared in the abyss after the establishment of the new empire .If the second hypothesis holds, then our understanding of the abyss will probably be subverted ... "

"Abyss is also evolving?" Harlan glanced at Sandora.

"At least it's not 'dead,'" Sandora seemed to touch her right arm unintentionally: there was where she sealed her abyss power, "we always thought that there was only one door to the abyss. But now But knowing that the gate of the abyss that destroys the homeland world is different from all the gates of the abyss that we know today. We have always felt that there is nothing in the abyss, but now we find that the lowest level of it has become calm ... these are challenging Common sense. So I don't mind if my common sense is subverted again: the abyss is likely to continue to evolve, it grows and changes. It looks like it has remained unchanged forever, but it should have ushered in a certain cycle. "

I made Sandora's statement creepy. But I have to admit that this possibility exists, and I also remembered those scenes observed in the first deep dive test: there are weird "cloud" structures in the abyss, and there are places where pollution is highly concentrated. Now look at Coming there is also a kind of "non-uniformity", although it is not worth mentioning at all compared to the "discontinuous zone" observed today, but that kind of non-uniformity at the time also made us suspect that there was some kind of "internal abyss" change"……

Perhaps, as Sandora said, the abyss is not "dead", it is always changing, and it may be about to usher in a cycle.

"Let ’s do it for the time being. Watch the situation of the discontinuity at any time and master its laws as much as possible. This can only be the case before the research on the abyss is further advanced." Sandor tapped the table gently, then looked at the tower Will, "Hurry up and make the No. 3 deep dive ship. If that ship 'falls' and crashes to the bottom of the abyss, at least we have a spare on hand."

Tavel nodded, then raised his finger and pointed at Anthes: "Your Majesty, one more thing ..."

You listen to this statement, Your Majesty "men"-except for Tavill and Anthes, the emperor is the emperor. Probably only the magical polity such as the Schilling Empire can be realized.

"What's the matter with your ancestors?" I looked up at Anthes, but Tavel almost scared me down with a sentence next to him: "The ancestors hope to carry out a deep dive with the next batch of inspection teams."

I came down with cold sweats and grabbed Ansels' arm, shaking it vigorously: "Master, this is not the same as what we said at the beginning! Didn't we just say that we just watch the excitement from the outside ?!"

"I'm not in a whim," Anthes said patiently when I was done, "I know we're a little embarrassed, and it's caused you a lot of trouble, but this time there is a reason."

"Why?" I couldn't help looking at Tavel. "What's going on?"

"Let me explain," Harlan interjected suddenly. "First of all, you know that the apostles who have been polluted have higher resistance to the abyss, like those of us who were once fallen apostles, can Stay awake for a long time in a very high abyss environment ~ www.readwn.com ~ Although the fallen apostles are not completely immune to the destructive power of the abyss, compared with ordinary creatures, our resistance has reached a level of semi-immunity. Therefore The first members of the manned deep dive in the plan are those of us who have been converted. "

I nodded, I knew that. The No. 2 deep-submersible ship manufactured by Tavel has the conditions for manned navigation. Although it is not perfect, it is more than enough to perform short-term missions. Therefore, we naturally prepared a deep-dive team and started to wait for all tests to be completed. People experiment. Initially, the candidate members of this deep diving team were ordinary Spirit Masters, but Harlan offered to replace them with the high-level fallen apostles (former fallen apostles) he brought for a simple reason: fallen apostles Resistance to the abyss is high. Even if the spacecraft fails or the internal purification mechanism fails, their chance of survival is very high.

Did the ancestors want to participate in the manned trial because of "resistance"?

Seeing the expression on my face, Harlan knew what I was guessing. He nodded swiftly: "Resistance. We accidentally found that our ancestors' resistance to the abyss even exceeded that of the abyss, and the concentration in the abyss was lower than two standards. In the case of the unit, they can even directly contact the source of pollution without any protective equipment: usually this level of pollution is already lethal to mortals. "

Sandora and I were stunned. (To be continued ...)