The temporary base that Tawil built in two days was designed according to the classic structure of a pioneering station. This kind of station used a relatively dense asteroid as the apex, built with superalloy as the skeleton, with a large number of landing platforms and small ports on the edge of the skeleton for engineering drones and various ships to dock. The inner ring of the skeleton was distributed with first-level engineering nodes and second-level engineering nodes. These facilities were responsible for preliminary cutting and scanning of the collected samples, removing worthless ore debris, and sending valuable, crude mineral samples to the material transfer station. The material transfer station sent the mineral samples directly to the large laboratory in the center of the base through hyperspace equipment. This set of simple and efficient system could ensure that the entire station always operated at the highest efficiency, and as the size of the supporting drone cluster and engineering ships expanded, it would continue to extend into the surrounding space. When developed to a certain level, the exploration station could be upgraded into a space bunker or a military node. The modular equipment of the Empire only needed to be slightly modified, and a space city could be built on the crisscrossing superalloy frame. In fact, this was how the capital world's Kuiper Belt base originally came about: its predecessor was just a pioneering station.
Using the basic pioneering station as the foundation, constantly upgrading the structure, and finally evolving into a military station, space fortress, colonial city, military node, and other advanced facilities, this was one of the common upgrade processes of the Empire's space facilities.
Of course, our current pioneering station had no plans to upgrade in this way. Although Sandora had considered pulling this remote world into the territory of the Empire and building it into a military core universe, this asteroid belt itself was not worth building a base. The only thing useful to us was the stones from the homeworld.
The large laboratory in the center of the workstation was a honeycomb structure, housing a large number of modular sample analysis rooms. The meteorites collected by the engineering drones were sent here for various tests to determine the time when they crossed the world barrier, and to try to determine the current situation of the homeworld from the clues on these stones. Of course, it would be better if we could find the coordinates of the homeworld, but this seemed unlikely. The spatial flash here had ended tens of thousands of years ago. Even if this universe and the homeworld had brushed past each other, they were now far away from each other.
Tawil brought us to her current workshop. Strictly speaking, it was the workshop of the current mass projection. Because we knew that Tawil's number of people was now calculated in terms of a basketball court …
This was a vast hexagonal hall. It was probably because of the use of space expansion equipment that it was very spacious. Dozens of gravity-free platforms were neatly arranged in the hall, half of which were floating on top of unattractive meteorite fragments. The distance between each platform was about ten meters. The autonomous robots responsible for handling the laboratory chores were nimbly flying back and forth between these gaps, checking the working conditions of each platform, or assisting the cutting beams on the platforms to dissect the meteorite samples. Assistant technicians in white uniforms gathered next to certain platforms in small groups, analyzing data, discussing intensely, or acting as emojis. They must have made some major discovery. In the past two days, every scientist in this station had experienced countless major discoveries. They had discovered a new material from their homeland, verified a footnote in their ancestor's memory, learned some new information about their homeland, and it was enough to excite them.
The scientists of the Empire had never been a reserved and calm group. Every one of them had a fiery heart …
"This is the largest sample analysis room. Every type of meteorite has to be stored here." Tawil brought us to the nearest gravity-free platform. "We have discovered thirty-seven materials from our homeland, both metallic and non-metallic. They match the information of our homeland recorded in the memory core. Look at these things … "
As Tawil spoke, he looked around the hall. "These ancient things from our homeland … Our creator used these things to build the ark, and even used these things to create the first original form in the fifth generation. I can't imagine that we would have the opportunity to see these primitive minerals with our own eyes. The entire research team is now in a state of excitement. This is the second time since we discovered the original form, we have been so excited because of something related to our ancestors."
Tawil mentioned the fifth generation. I knew that. Back then, Sandora had also introduced the history of the Shiring Apostles to me. They had divided the entire Schilling civilization into generations. From the first Schilling man to the establishment of the New Empire, it was counted in generations. The most admirable aspect of this chronology was that it did not record history from the perspective of a particular race, but from the perspective of the entire civilization. The first to the fourth generation was the history of the Schilling people. It was also the childhood of the Schilling civilization. It recorded the time when the Schilling people formed tribes, explored the entire universe, and realized the edge of the world. The history of this period was already incomplete. Only a few fragments in the core memory of the Shiring Apostles could describe it.
The fifth generation was the turning point of this civilization. In this generation, the Schilling civilization encountered the abyss and jumped out of the world. The old Schilling people went extinct, and the new Shiring Apostles were born. The new race replaced their creators. "Humans" were replaced by "Apostles." The homeland became a term of history. The "Schilling civilization" was taken over by a young race. They stepped into the endless void without hesitation. This was also the reason why the number "five" was so significant in the Schilling civilization.
The last page of the fifth generation was the beginning of the history of the Xiling Empire.
It was rare for the history of a civilization to be like this. It was the general history of a civilization, but in the middle of the history, the "protagonist" had changed. The race in the first half of the history was completely replaced, but the history of the civilization did not change its name and continued to pass on. The Schilling people handed over their civilization to the race they created and disappeared into the depths of the void. The Shiring Apostles took over the civilization from their ancestors and swore to pass it on. They even turned it into an unprecedentedly powerful Empire by any means necessary. Absolute dedication, absolute loyalty, moving forward to the goal, regardless of the consequences. This was the factor carved in the soul of every individual named "Schilling". It was paranoid and terrifying.
It was also because of this chronology that the Shiring Apostles directly called the era of the Schilling people's home planet "the era of our home planet". Even though the apostles had not been born at that time, not even a blueprint, they still believed that it was the beginning of their own history.
It was only when I heard Tarver suddenly mention the fifth generation that I suddenly thought of these things. However, Shadora was obviously thinking of more things, and more specific. She frowned as she looked at the meteorite samples floating on the gravity-free platform and then turned to Tawil. "All the materials found are natural minerals?"
"Yes, natural minerals." Tawil's expression seemed to be a little regretful. "These materials should come from a broken rocky planet in our home universe. The analysis of their composition shows that they were formed in a similar age, so the probability of them coming from the same celestial body is very high. There are no man-made objects among the material samples found. Perhaps the place where the home world was leaked just happened to be far from where the ancestors were active. Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that we haven't found those man-made objects. After all, the engineering team hasn't completely searched this area, and some of the home world materials might have been pulled into orbit close to the sun by the gravitational perturbation in the galaxy. That's the theory. "
"We'll do our best." Sandora nodded. "But don't get your hopes up too high. The universe is vast, and the creators were unable to leave their traces on all the celestial bodies. It's normal that we can't find their relics. "
Under Tawil's guidance, we saw all kinds of mineral samples. During this period, two new valuable samples were sent in. After cutting them, Tawil got two complex compounds, but unfortunately, these compounds were still not man-made. I knew that she and Sandora hoped to find the "relics" left by the creators in these home world materials, but the possibility of this situation was too low. From a probability point of view, it was probably no better than betting on the two-toned ball for 20 consecutive times and not getting killed in the end …
But the information we have now is enough to satisfy us. Now, Tawil can basically confirm that the home world is still alive, and it was still in an abnormally active state at least 20,000 years ago. According to the data she collected from the samples, the parameters of the home world materials can be accurately measured. This is very important: if a material can be accurately measured, that is, it has the only measurable physical property on a macroscopic level, then it must come from a stable universe. Because when the universe is on the verge of the "mathematical doomsday," that is, the chaos of the laws of the universe will lead to the collapse of the universe, everything in the world will fall into a state of "uncertainty." This uncertainty is not the same as the uncertainty in quantum science. It refers to the loss of "nature" on a macroscopic level. An object will have no mass or infinite weight. It may be solid, or it may suddenly flow. It can become anything in your sight, or it may suddenly disappear. This is the state of the internal materials before the universe is seriously infected by the abyss. The meteorite samples we collected in the asteroid belt are not like this. They look normal.
"Even in the worst case, 20,000 years is not enough time for a stable universe to be destroyed."
Tawil finally pointed to a light gray ore sample and concluded.
"Wait, I have a question." Sandora pondered for a moment and suddenly looked up. "How old are these ores? I am not talking about the age when they came to this universe, but the history after their formation in the home world. "
"Your Majesty, this is the most confusing part." Tawil immediately understood what Sandora was thinking. "We have conducted a chronological analysis of all the samples we found and determined that the oldest element among them was formed 12 billion years ago."
I thought for a moment and realized that I still did not understand. So, I tugged at Sandora's sleeve. "What do you mean?"
"Our home world has been destroyed by the Abyss until now … I do not know how long it has been exactly, but it is definitely more than billions of years." Sandora exhaled. "And the material samples we found are too young. According to the data Tawil analyzed, these material fragments evolved normally after our home world was eroded by the Abyss. It is a miracle that our home world has survived until now. It is impossible for it to maintain a normal universe evolution after being eroded by the Abyss! "
"Not only that," Tawil added. "All the samples we found do not have any traces of the Abyss. It is as if they came from a normal universe."
"Are you sure?!" Sandora suddenly raised her head and looked at Tawil in disbelief.
"Absolutely, Your Majesty." Tawil nodded vigorously and then pushed the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "After confirming that these materials came from our home universe, we began to find various phenomena that greatly differed from the 'Ancestral Memories'. This is also what I mentioned before, the 'amazing' thing about these materials. First of all, they are very young, which shows that our home world is still evolving normally. Secondly, all the material samples do not have any signs of the Abyss, and theoretically, our home world should have been completely contaminated by the Abyss. Thirdly, it has nothing to do with the samples, but the abnormality of our home world itself. A universe should not have such a long lifespan, even if it is not contaminated by the Abyss, a healthy and normal universe should not have such a long lifespan! "
I remembered what God the Father had said: Any natural world has a beginning and an end, and the universe that was born in the Void would eventually return to the Void. "Returning to zero" was the eternal truth of the Void. Currently, other than the two Protoss and the Xiling Empire, all universes had a limited lifespan. There might be some abnormally robust worlds with extremely long lifespans, but it was obvious that the home universe of the Shiring Apostles had far exceeded its theoretical lifespan.
Even if there was no Abyss Erosion, that universe should have died of old age one day in history. This was the biggest doubt that Sandora and Tawil faced.
"Our home world is definitely a natural universe. It was not created by God, and the creator did not have the technology to control the universe's lifespan," Sandora said decisively. Before this, she was like the other Shiring Apostles, immersed in the joy of discovering the news of their home world, and unconsciously neglected the details in this aspect. Now that she had calmed down, the abnormalities of the home world had begun to raise suspicions.
I spent a few minutes sorting out Sandora and Tawil's high-end conjectures, figuring out what the focus of the matter was, and then using my limited brain cells to figure out how to explain this phenomenon. But I soon gave up: I obviously did not have a brain as amazing as Shallow Shallow's. My imagination level was not on the same level as Shallow Shallow's …
"At present, there are only two possibilities," Tarver suddenly said slowly. "First, something earth-shattering happened in our home universe after the ancestors left. The Abyss that infected the entire world might have been purified, and then the entire universe was transformed by some external force. This external force allowed our home universe to survive to this day. All of this happened after the ancestors left, and to this day, no one knows what happened. Second, the Shiring Apostles' ancestral memory … may have a problem. Theoretically, yes. "
"I don't think there's a problem with the ancestral memory," Sandora immediately shook her head. "And the second conjecture cannot explain the lifespan of our home universe. Personally, I'm leaning towards your first conjecture. No matter what, we have to find our home. Only by going there and checking out the situation can we explain everything. "
Sandora's suggestion was definitely not an easy goal to achieve. Without knowing the world's coordinates, to accurately find a specific universe in the vast Void was a job that would give the Protoss a headache. Admittedly, the Empire had a super Void Radar like the Garden of Departure, but the range of that thing was still a drop in the ocean compared to the entire Void. In the past, when we searched for a new world, we at least had a general range. We either knew which quadrant the target world was in, or we could be sure that the target world was not too far from the capital universe. But the "home world" of the Shiring Apostles did not fall into any of those categories. Even though we had samples from our home world, these samples had been away from their original world for more than twenty thousand years, and the information they carried that could be used to locate their home world was no longer accurate and readable.
It felt like asking an eighty-year-old blind man to search for his missing father among 1.4 billion people when he was two years old, and he was not allowed to ask …
"Ah Jun, what are you thinking about again?"
Sandora's voice suddenly rang in my ear, and I was pulled back from my wandering thoughts. I scratched my head awkwardly, and was too embarrassed to communicate with her about my missing father. I knew that it was not appropriate to let my mind wander in such a serious situation, but the topic of Sandora and Tawil was a little too high class. Whenever I encountered such a high class topic, my ability to wander would increase exponentially as time passed. See, in just two sentences, I had wandered off again.
"What do you think we can do now?" I thought about it and raised a very practical question. "We won't be able to find the coordinates of our home world in a short period of time, and it will take time to analyze that armor fragment. Why don't we send someone to check the World Barrier a few more times? Since there was a sudden spatial flash, it means that the two worlds were quite close in history. Perhaps there were traces of collision on the World Barrier. "
This was the only solution that I could come up with based on my limited knowledge. I knew that it was still equivalent to asking the blind man to search for his father, and the only difference was that I had helped him eliminate the possibility of a woman …
"That's the only way." Sandora nodded helplessly. "But twenty thousand years have passed, and with the self-recovery ability of the World Barrier, even if there were traces of collision, there wouldn't be much left."
Regardless of how useful this solution was, a team of engineers still set off for the World Barrier to conduct a scan, which was akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. What we could do next seemed to have ended — at least the things that I could help with had ended. Alright, I wasn't able to help much from the start, are you guys satisfied?
In short, the professionals had already begun to work on their fields of expertise, and like most of the time, I had nothing to do at this moment. After wandering around the base for half a day, I suddenly remembered that Shallow shallow seemed to be hanging out with the little ones outside, so I decided to go and see what they were up to.
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