Voyage of the Stars

Judging from the current situation, the fleet of the unknown civilization is far more powerful than humans.

It doesn't count as bad, it doesn't count as good, it doesn't count as too much, so Yue Yuan bases his calculations on 120 large tracks to calculate the number of capital ships of the unknown civilization's fleet.

Humanity only has 10 Shan-class battleships. If the laws of the development of space science and technology are universal, then the battleships of unknown civilizations that are also first-level civilizations must also be Shan-class.

Then, the combat power comparison is 1:12.

It can be said that there is a huge disparity in strength.

Therefore, if we want to gain more initiative, it is not enough to rely on the asteroid belt for defense. Human beings also need to master more information that is beneficial to themselves and not beneficial to the other party.

So Yue Yuan then shouted to the first officer in the bridge: "Show me the stars within 50 light-years of Aldebaran on the big screen."

"Yes, Yue Shuai."

The first mate of Lyra turned around and clicked a few keys on his workbench. Then the original map of giant gas planets was shrunk to a corner and replaced by a map of stars with the dark universe as the background.

Yue Yuan raised his head slightly and squinted his eyes to look at the star map. Then, he raised his hand to switch the screen to remote sensing mode, and then slowly flipped the starry sky map.

There are a lot of stars.

Yue Yuan looked at the mark in the lower left corner of the map and found that there were 372 stars of various types within a fifty-light-year radius centered on Aldebaran.

Seeing this situation, Yue Yuan put down his hands and spoke again: "'Light of the Milky Way', connect the dust cloud channel parameters to the star map system, and calculate the possible routes of the unknown civilization's fleet, and give me the possible routes." Mark it out, no need to consider special circumstances.”

"It's been done as you requested."

The 'Light of the Milky Way', which has become a universal quantum computer AI, reacts and calculates very quickly. As soon as Yue Yuan finished speaking, the big screen was directly refreshed, and then all other irrelevant stars were faded, leaving only three specially marked ones. star.

"These three stars are the possible stars deduced from the dust cloud tracks." Yue Yuan once again turned his attention to the star map. It is certain that if this unknown civilization did not change its route midway due to special circumstances, then their The triggering place should be one of these three stars.

"HIP22336, Tamai San, Tamai Masuji."

Yue Yuan muttered the names of these three stars, and looked at the route probabilities marked by the calculation results of the 'Light of the Milky Way'.

The straight-line distances between these three stars and Aldebaran are 35.35 light-years, 38.5 light-years, and 32.82 light-years respectively. The probabilities of routes marked by ‘Light of the Galaxy’ are 26.6%, 28.3%, and 45.1% respectively.

Yue Yuan said that there was no need to consider special circumstances, so the 'Light of the Tianhe' did not include the possibility of the unknown fleet changing its route midway into the calculation program, so the sum of these three sets of data was exactly 100%.

"Tamai Masuji?" Yue Yuan focused his attention on the line marked with 45.1%. One end of the line was Aldebaran and the other end was Tamai Masoji.

It's not that the other two stars are impossible, but in order to predict the enemy from the worst-case scenario, Masuji Tamai must be used as the imaginary starting point for the unknown fleet because it is the closest.

"32.82 light years!"

After muttering something, Yue Yuan raised his eyelids again and glanced at Capella, which was the original starting point of mankind. It was also marked on the star map, 35.99 light years.

Seeing this set of data, Yue Yuan's bright eyes sparkled and a smile appeared on his face: "Haha, it's all about the expedition! Okay!"

Fortunately, humans arrived at Aldebaran first, otherwise the offense and defense would have been interchanged now.

Although this distance is closer than where humans come from, the difference is not too big. Assuming that the route is also at 15% of the speed of light, it will take at least 218 years. If it is 14% of the speed of light, it will be 234 years, which is the same as 240 years for humans. The year is not much different.

What's more, it is possible to come from HIP22336, Tamai San, which is farther away.

Since humans are short of all kinds of energy and materials after traveling long distances, there is no reason why the other party is still at full status if they are both first-level civilizations.

From this point of view, when this unknown fleet arrives at Aldebaran, it will inevitably be short of supplies and energy.

It is true that after accelerating to the maximum speed, the fleet flies by inertia, but the idea of ​​flying by inertia is only an ideal state. Taking into account the deceleration effect of interstellar dust, the engine still needs to be boosted occasionally.

Coupled with the daily energy requirements inside the spacecraft, the nuclear fusion reactor must continue to work during the voyage.

And because of the thrust-to-weight ratio of the spacecraft, the more fuel is added, the greater the total mass of the spacecraft, so the more fuel is required to push the spacecraft to 15% of the speed of light. More fuel, in turn, increases the total mass of the craft, so there is a 'fuel line'.

Precisely because of this reason, the spacecraft cannot ignore the quality of the fuel for the sake of range.

This is why humans at this stage, or in other words, first-level civilizations need to rely on star systems to stop and replenish fuel when conducting interstellar voyages.

In fact, as long as there is no way to solve the quality problem, this problem will exist.

Therefore, Yue Yuan concluded that when this civilization arrived at Aldebaran, it must also lack energy and supplies.

With this information, Yue Yuan had another calculation in his mind. That is: humans can hide first, wait for the unknown fleet to finish slowing down, and then jump out to contact them.

Why not reach out before they slow down?

Yue Yuan believes that if they contact before accelerating, they may adopt some more fuel-saving deceleration methods, such as using the red dwarf star in the outer orbit of Aldebaran B to decelerate.

That's right, it's a gravity slingshot.

The gravity slingshot can not only be used to accelerate, but also to slow down.

The gravitational slingshot effect of a red dwarf star is entirely possible to save a lot of fuel for the unknown fleet.

In the process of completing the deceleration, the energy of the unknown civilization will definitely be further consumed.

Of course, there is another possibility, that is, the unknown fleet simply stops slowing down and continues flying forward past Aldebaran. But Yue Yuan has looked at the star map. The nearest star to Aldebaran in that direction is about 18 light-years away, and he has to change the route midway. This is undoubtedly more risky, and there are problems with fuel, supplies and spacecraft maintenance. If you are not careful, you will be buried in the sea of ​​​​stars.

So he thinks this possibility is unlikely, unless this unknown civilization is more frightened than humans.

So the best judgment is of course to wait until they finish decelerating before jumping out.

As a leader, every judgment Yue Yuan makes will directly affect the life and death of mankind, so he will try his best to find evidence from data.

Just like this judgment, the difference between contact before acceleration and contact after deceleration is only more than ten hours, but the results are different.

Moreover, a lot of useful information can be judged from the opponent's deceleration time. The most important piece of information is how many G's the unknown fleet uses to decelerate.

The more exhausted the opponent is and the scarcer the supplies and fuel are, the greater the human initiative will be.

There is no reason to use our temple to make the enemy exhausted.

When the other party is exhausted, even if the negotiation fails and war breaks out, humans will just wait for work.

Therefore, it is not said to wait for work, but to judge based on the specific situation. If the other party comes to Aldebaran from a star within 10 light-years, then it may not be waiting for work, but humans have been driven straight into it.