Voyage of the Stars

The test of warp navigation was completed smoothly without any accidents. Then humans made several small warp test ships and ran to the few remaining gas planets to test warp navigation, and then to the stars.

The result is indeed as people expected. In areas close to planets and stars, warp navigation is easy to deviate, especially in the position close to the star. Humans have an unmanned test ship that directly crashed into the star.

After many tests, people can basically determine that the gravity of stars like the sun affects warp navigation in the range of about 0.8 to 1 astronomical units. The reason why it is not a definite value is that the so-called influence also depends on the stability of human equipment, that is, the level of warp navigation technology.

The more thorough the research on warp navigation technology and the more advanced the warp engine, the less affected by the star's gravity. Even when the navigation technology in this area develops to a very high level, the influence of the star's gravity can be completely ignored.

Just like when the awakener and the harvester directly attached to the star's chromosphere to start warp navigation.

As for the impact of the planet, the range is also small because the gravity is not strong. After testing, it was found that human test ships basically have no impact unless they enter the orbit of the gas planet. For planets like the Earth, human ships do not need to worry about the warp problem unless they enter its orbit to dock and transport between the ground and the orbit.

In other words, after all ships are upgraded, the human fleet can be driven directly into the star system, as long as they are careful not to run into the star range face to face, which is not much different from theoretical calculations.

Think about it, gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces. Although its mileage is infinite, it is still not enough for spacecraft that can directly generate gravitational potential wells and achieve warp speed, unless they run face to face or encounter extreme celestial bodies, such as neutron stars and black holes.

This result makes human scientists very satisfied, because it means that humans can achieve rapid maneuvers in and out of the star system in the future, and can quickly enter the warp state and leave after discovering danger.

The warp navigation experiment also has another purpose, which is to test the warp speed that humans can achieve at this stage.

In fact, strictly speaking, it is not very accurate to describe warp speed with speed, because warp speed sailing is not the movement of ships in the traditional sense, but everyone can understand it, so there is no need for humans to change these words.

After many rounds of testing, scientists have come up with the current warp speed level of humans. At the beginning, when the warp engine was not running at full power, the test ship only ran at 1 times the speed of light, that is, the speed of light.

As people increased the warp speed parameters and increased the engine power, the warp speed of the test ship immediately soared, from 1 times the speed of light to 10.079 times the speed of light.

This value is very accurate because it is exactly the same as the result calculated by humans from the warp speed-related formula. According to this company, scientists can also calculate that based on the current human "gravitational potential well" warp speed, there is theoretically a next level of warp speed. They have calculated it, and the result shows that it is 38.941 times the speed of light.

However, this warp speed multiple of the speed of light cannot be achieved by the current human warp engine at full power.

Scientists are full of confidence in this regard. They believe that there is definitely room for improvement in the current human warp engine. As long as we continue to improve the process and improve the level of creation, humans will definitely be able to achieve 38.941 times the speed of light in the future.

1 times the speed of light, 10.079 times the speed of light, and 38.941 times the speed of light are three warp navigation multiples. Human scientists directly divide them into three warp levels, and this warp level is also directly transferred to the warp gear of the ship by human engineers.

Yes, warp gear.

There are three gears in total, warp 1 is 1 times the speed of light, warp 2 is 10.079 times the speed of light, and warp 3 is 38.941 times the speed of light. Of course, human warp ships now have only two gears, warp 1 and warp 2, and warp 3 has not yet been achieved.

This gear is not set arbitrarily, but is based on the calculation formula of the gravitational potential well technology and the calculated degree of space distortion. Not only that, it also shows that there is a reaction in the creation. The 10.079 times the speed of light of warp 2 is like a technological threshold.

Human engineers still remember this. When they were testing the warp engine, they found that the first generation of warp engines could not break through the double-digit times the speed of light. Later, after years of research, they found that the problem was the process precision. After the manufacturing process precision was improved to a higher level, the warp engine they manufactured broke through the shackles of 1 times the speed of light in one fell swoop, and achieved a gradual improvement from 1 times the speed of light to 10.079 times the speed of light.

In fact, the human engineers at this time did not realize that the reason why they could directly break through the shackles of 1 times the speed of light in such a short time was entirely due to the human mechanical expertise. Humans have always had very advanced mechanical technology, even more advanced than civilizations of the same level such as the Red Flame Civilization, which enabled them to succeed so quickly.

It can be said that humans, unknowingly, relied on their mastery of machinery to cross a small technical barrier of the fourth-level civilization.

According to the classification of civilization levels by the top civilizations in the Milky Way, after entering the fourth-level civilization, humans quickly jumped from the primary stage of the fourth-level civilization to the intermediate stage of the fourth-level civilization.

Of course, humans don’t know this now. It’s not until one day in the future when they encounter a civilization with a speed of only 1 times the speed of light that humans realize how much other civilizations envy them for breaking through the shackles of 1 times the speed of light in such a short time.

Not only that, when humans themselves don’t realize it, human engineers even think that with the current level of human manufacturing technology, it doesn’t seem to be very difficult to break through the shackles of 10.079 times the speed of light. Probably, if they make another breakthrough in mechanical technology, they can manufacture warp engines with higher precision and higher efficiency.

And all humans think that it’s not difficult to improve their own mechanical manufacturing technology. They all think it’s just a matter of time. The mechanical proficiency derived from becoming a wandering civilization has brought benefits to humans that they themselves don’t even realize.

Similarly, humans now don’t realize what it means if other civilizations know about their talent in mechanics.

It wasn’t until they found that more civilizations were trapped at the level of 1 times the speed of light or 10.079 times the speed of light that humans realized that what they thought was natural back then was difficult for some civilizations.

(PS: The warp speed multiple value is borrowed from Star Trek. If I don’t mention this, someone will definitely criticize the author, just like some chapters in the previous article.)