Li Yao had been in the Imperium for a long time. He had a deep understanding of the main-force warships that the Imperium relied on to dominate the sea of stars. He knew that the military of the Imperium had a brief period of revival of the doctrine of cannons almost three hundred years ago.
Before, as the design of the Crystal Suit and the maintenance technology of the Colossi were more and more developed, and the individual combat ability was higher and higher, the warships were more and more inclined to be a combination of firepower output platforms and comprehensive supply platforms instead of the vanguards that were always at each other's throats.
If a hundred experts, wearing the Crystal Suit that had been armed to the teeth, broke into the enemy's starship, it was possible that the starship, which had cost billions, would be destroyed. Even if they could not destroy the enemy's starship, they would only lose a hundred experts at most. Those experts could always take down a lot of the enemy's people before they were killed.
Under such a disadvantageous price-performance ratio, it was obviously not cost-effective to build a larger starship at the cost of tremendous military expenses. It would be better to devote the resources to the construction of the Crystal Suit legions and the maintenance and imitation of the Colossi.
However, as the technology of the Crystal Suit and the Colossi developed, so did the firepower output, the spiritual shield, and the unmanned operation technology of the starship. "Cannons" had always been the dream of the soldiers. Finally, somebody proposed that when the technology of the crystal processors and the Spiritual Nexus were developed to the maximum, the battle puppets, the drones in various forms, and the remote-controlled space torpedoes could be congregated into a surging tide. Together with enough cannons, they would be able to destroy all the enemies, including the most powerful Crystal Suit and the Colossi!
"The Colossi are by no means invincible. As long as there are enough battle puppets and drones, and the firepower of the cannons on the starship is fierce enough, they will certainly be able to defeat the Colossi in a continuous, impenetrable web of fire!
"If they cannot be defeated, it will be because there are not enough battle puppets and turrets, and the web of fire is not dense enough. If a hundred thousand turrets can be built on a starship, what kind of enemy can't they destroy?"
That was the argument of the cannons and warships at that time.
Also, they were not just talking about it. They had also run theoretical calculations and tests for decades in the most authoritative military laboratory of the Imperium, proving their opinion in countless virtual battlefield tests. The "super arsenal warships", which were equipped with hundreds of thousands of spiritual puppets and drones and at least ten thousand heavy cannons, were indeed crushing the regular Colossi. Even if the virtual index of those Colossi was adjusted to the level of the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators, it was barely possible for them to break through the barrage of fire of the "super arsenal warships".
The military of the Imperium couldn't help but be tempted by such a result.
After all, the core cockpit of the Colossi, or the "spiritual residence", had not been grasped by the Imperium yet. Even though they could copy and assemble the arms, legs, and weapons of the Colossi, once the "spiritual residence" was blown up, the Colossi would be as good as scrap.
There was no telling how long the war between the Imperium and the Holy League would last. If it continued for another thousand years, the Colossi on the Imperium's side would be fewer and fewer. The Holy League, which boasted abundant primeval heritages, obviously had more advanced technologies to maintain and copy the Colossi than the Imperium did.
If the Colossi on the Imperium's side were all used up in the end, and the Holy League still had some Colossi left, it would be very awkward.
It was exactly because of such concerns and the stimulation of the "perfect performance" of the virtual war in the laboratory that the military of the Imperium initiated the construction plan of the super arsenal warships. The new super warship was named "Adamantine"!
The size, space, and firepower of the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships were more than ten times larger than the largest arsenal warships that the Imperium had ever built in the past. In fact, they were more like a combination of an arsenal warship, a comprehensive supply ship, and even a space fortress.
In the initial design, the military had stuffed at least thirty thousand turrets of various types, almost a hundred of the most advanced array fire control crystal processors, and more than half a million battle puppets and drones into every Adamantine Super Arsenal Warship, making them the 'perfect warships, the Armageddon Warships, and the ultimate warships that could end all wars' that the designers had bragged to the Council of Elders!
Was the actual combat ability of the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships really as amazing as the designers and contractors claimed, and were they able to beat up the Colossi?
The question was destined to be an unsolved mystery forever.
Perhaps, if the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships were truly built according to the highest standards, they would indeed be invincible enough to blow up the Colossi and end all wars.
But before that, what they would end first would be the finances of the Imperium.
The whole process of the construction of the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships was a cliché and sad story.
Perhaps it was not wrong to say that "firepower is paramount, and drones are invincible", but the designers' ideas were too advanced and ambitious. The designers greatly overestimated the development speed of the crystal processors of the Imperium and underestimated the technical difficulties of combining tens of thousands of turrets. Or rather, in order to get the Council of Elders to approve the construction plan of the super warships as soon as possible, the designers, the few largest arms contractors of the Imperium, and the stakeholders in the Council of Elders all showed strong optimism in the Immortal Cultivators. They turned a blind eye to the "minor difficulties" and proposed a budget that was certainly not cheap but still affordable. They also promised that the warships would be ready for combat in twenty years at most.
The Council of Elders at that time agreed to the plan. Sixteen "Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships" were built in the docks at the same time. It took them a hundred years to build.
During the period, not only were there natural disasters caused by the technical difficulties, but the upgrades of the crystal processors and the battle puppets had also overturned the original designs many times. The original plans and budgets had long been tossed into the wastepaper baskets in every corner. The new construction cost was higher and higher. In the end, the cost of the construction of every Adamantine Super Arsenal Warship was more than twenty times the original budget!
However aggressive the Imperium of True Human Beings was, and however much the Council of Elders craved the birth of super warships, they were about to collapse when faced with such a budget and an indefinite time of completion.
"The Adamantine Super Arsenal Warship is the most powerful warship ever built, but it belongs to the Holy League! It is about to destroy the entire Imperium just by lying in the docks without moving at all! "
Many elders of the Imperium bashed the table and roared.
But there was nothing else they could do except roar. Astronomical resources had been devoted to the plan. It was not like they could sell the sixteen unfinished Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships as garbage right now, right?
Besides, the resources that had been invested would not vanish into thin air. As they flowed to and fro, wouldn't they eventually flow to the stakeholders large and small?
Even the elders who were roaring and bashing the table might have reaped some benefits in secret, too!
Just like that, the construction plan of the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships turned into a never-ending black hole, burdening the army of the Imperium for a hundred years. The Holy League's invasion, crushing the Black Wind Fleet, and occupying five heavy industrial worlds of the Imperium might have had a lot to do with the weakening of the plan. Furthermore, the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships were partly responsible for the severe economic crisis after the war!
By the time the war of the Holy League's invasion of the Black Wind Sector broke out, the parties of the Imperium finally could not stand the endless delays anymore. The relevant contractors seemed to have felt that a lot of people would be killed if the delay went on, too. The sixteen Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships were finally put into service.
However, because of the heated war in the frontline and the lack of budget, the sixteen Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships were not finished yet. They were essentially "premature babies" that were congenitally deficient. The designers and the contractors were quite certain that if the sixteen super warships could not carry out the theoretical maximum combat ability, it would not be their fault but a matter of time and budget. If they were given another thirty to fifty years, and two to three times the budget, the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships would certainly be able to blow up all the Colossi!
It was not hard to imagine the performance of the sixteen gargantuan "premature babies" when even the designers and builders were not confident enough.
On a real battlefield, they completely lost the destructive aura on the virtual battlefield, and their clumsiness and fragility were exposed. Also, because of the high cost, the four Kurfürst families were reluctant to send the super arsenal warships to the fiercest battlefield at all. After only two of them were heavily damaged by the Holy League, the remaining fourteen super arsenal warships fled back to their mother ports in a hurry.
The Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships were a complete joke. In the hundred years that followed, the "cannons and warships doctrine" of the Imperium vanished, and new super warships were never produced again. The daily maintenance cost of the sixteen "premature babies" was already astronomical enough that even the four Kurfürst families could barely afford it. How could they possibly drag them into the docks to complete the real construction?
Therefore, today, a hundred years later, they were still premature babies who could only carry out 30% of their combat ability. They were abandoned by the best fleets of the four Kurfürst families and assigned to the second-tier main-force fleets. The "Eight Adamantine Warships" were built with them as the cores, and they were projected to the battlefield to annihilate the reformists.
"I know that the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships are not highly praised, but that's caused by many factors. In fact, even though they are unfinished premature babies and can only carry out 30% of their combat ability, they can still intimidate any enemy as long as they are determined to fight a life-and-death battle."
With a bitter smile, Jin Yuyan said, "Their poor performance on the battlefield against the Holy League does not mean that they will show mercy to our garrisons. Just now, you tried your best to fool so many Immortal Cultivators, but the sixteen Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships are the pillars of the coalition army of the four families. If they are not completely defeated on the battlefield, nobody will defect and join us easily.
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