Chapter 1609: Planetary Highway System

Without leaving time for the two of them to digest the information contained in this sentence, Lu Zhou got up from the sofa, reached out his index finger, and flicked in the air.

Soon, a translucent holographic panel appeared in front of him. His index finger tapped on it lightly, and instantly, it dispersed into particles of light and reorganized into the appearance of the solar system.

Looking at the holographic image projected in front of them, the faces of Chairman Li Guangya and Commander Sun Liwei showed a confused expression.

After staring at this star map for a long time, Commander Sun Liwei frowned slightly and asked, “What’s this…?”

“Interplanetary highway system.” Looking at the trajectories outlined between the planets, Lu Zhou’s index finger selected the one that connected Mars and the Earth-Moon system. “In short, in addition to the warp drive, we also have a special and relatively stable method for the rapid exchange of matter and information with the help of hypers.p.a.ce channels.”

Li Guangya frowned slightly.

“Can this… be achieved?”

“Of course it can be achieved, or I wouldn’t be saying this.”

Lu Zhou took a look at Li Guangya and continued with a calm tone.

“In fact, in theory, if we use this acceleration method, it will be easier to achieve a jump than using a warp drive that is installed on a single s.h.i.+p. We only need to open a fixed channel at both ends of s.p.a.ce, and the exchange of matter and signal will naturally occur on the endpoints of both sides. Considering that the gravitational coordinates of the two doors are relatively fixed, the real-time calculation steps of the hypers.p.a.ce channel will be much simpler than the single-s.h.i.+p transition.”

In fact, the things Lu Zhou described were not entirely his ideas.

A large part of it came from what he saw and heard in the second part of Void Memory. Using the gravitational ties between ma.s.sive celestial bodies to open up hypers.p.a.ce channels was the core principle of the warp speed technology mastered by the Calan Empire.

Related tests had been successful on the Z-particle oscillator. Lu Zhou had reason to make further speculations. The “stargates” deployed around the world in the Calan Empire also used the same technology.

As for how those stargates could keep the hypers.p.a.ce channel stable…

This was the next thing to think about.

At least, he already knew that this technical idea was roughly feasible.

After listening to Lu Zhou’s description, Sun Liwei fell into deep thought.

After about a minute, he spoke in a hesitant tone.

“… I don’t know if I understand this correctly, you mean that this hypers.p.a.ce channel maintained through two portals is equivalent to inserting a tube in s.p.a.ce, and every time information and matter is exchanged, it goes through the same path, so the energy consumption is relatively low? And the warp drive is equivalent to installing a drill bit for each stars.h.i.+p, and each transition is equivalent to re-drilling a hole in the universe? So the energy consumption will be relatively high…”

“If you really don’t understand hypers.p.a.ce theory… It’s fine if you interpret it this way.”

Without expecting much of the old man’s theoretical knowledge, Lu Zhou’s index finger continued to click on the holographic image.

Soon, with the touch of his fingertips, the line connecting the Earth-Moon system and Mars continued to expand outward, and the positions at the end spread out in two inverted circles.

The fragmented structure looked confusing, but from a macro point of view, it was surprisingly simple. The whole device was like a fis.h.i.+ng line, connecting the two planets together.

“The technical principle of the entire project is actually very simple. According to the disturbance of the gravitational field when the Z particle falls from a high lat.i.tude to a low lat.i.tude, the s.p.a.ce-time curvature distribution between the Earth-Moon system and Mars is changed, forming a folded area.

“As you can see now, we deploy a Z-particle oscillation device on both sides and keep it vibrating at a specific frequency, thereby forming a stable and open channel between the Earth-Moon system and Mars.”

With that, a virtual stars.h.i.+p appeared on the holographic image.

When the stars.h.i.+p reduced its speed and pa.s.sed the ring on the side of Earth, the entire stars.h.i.+p was like a bullet being pushed into a barrel and getting “sucked” in at an incredible speed before going into the transparent hypers.p.a.ce channel. Less than two seconds later, it was “spit” out of the tunnel.

Looking at the two people who were shocked by the holographic model in front of them, Lu Zhou smiled faintly and continued, “The whole project is divided into two parts, and the technical difficulty may be relatively high. After all, even for me, many concepts are just vague guesses, and more experiments are needed. But judging from the magnetic field generation technology of this era, the engineering difficulty to realize the entire project shouldn’t be too high.”

It took a long time for him to recover from the shock, but Commander Sun eventually gulped and said with a tone that was trembling with excitement, “What about safety? Is the hypers.p.a.ce channel opened in this way reliable? If a sudden power failure occurs or a similar technical failure causes the channel to be closed suddenly, will the stars.h.i.+p inside… not come out?”

This was his biggest concern.

Speed was the eternal pursuit of the aeros.p.a.ce forces, but if the safety considerations were ignored because of speed, then they would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

It took a century for the Pan-Asian Cooperation to create their invincible fleet, which could be called the strongest in the solar system. If it was destroyed because of a faster-than-light transition, it would be a miserable loss…

“Don’t worry about this. Even if the hypers.p.a.ce channel is suddenly closed, the s.p.a.cecraft inside will reappear at the source of gravity, which is, somewhere between the two planets. The exact location depends on the stage of the transition, but it will come out.” Lu Zhou continued, “This is a conclusion based on the data I collected on the Qinling, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost in hypers.p.a.ce. In fact, even if you wanted to cross dimensions, it would not be so easy to enter the gap between the surfaces of the universe from the n-dimensional universe.”

Unable to hold back the curiosity in his heart, Li Guangya couldn’t help but ask, “What if we want to enter the gap between the surfaces of the universe? Is there any way?”

“The center of the galaxy may be the nearest entrance, of course… This is just my speculation, maybe there are other ways.” Lu Zhou smiled and continued, “But I bet you won’t want to go there.”

Li Guangya asked curiously, “Why?”

“Because there is nothing there. Our universe is as fragile as a piece of paper.” Looking out the window, a trace of memory appeared in Lu Zhou’s eyes, as if he was thinking of something far away. He said concisely, “Those who have been there or have seen it… They call it the Void.”