Capítulo 256: Chapter 256: The Voyage of the Pioneer
"It's time to take our first step, a significant leap for our civilization."
A spaceship, 700 meters in length, was docked beside an asteroid factory. Its shape resembled a tailless whale, with a slight curve on the upper half and a large bulge on the bottom, making it look like a ship that could sail the waters.
But it was indeed a spaceship, weighing 740,000 tons and packed with cutting-edge technology.
A being, appearing almost human in height but with a body as slender as a stick insect, and limbs as thin as skewers, gazed at the masterpiece of its civilization with joy.
At this moment, it turned to look back at its home planet.
It was a planet with only 87% of Mars' mass, with a thin atmosphere and an icy surface. It took approximately 417 Earth days to complete an orbit around its star, and only during 78 Earth days of each orbit did the ice on the planet's surface melt due to the closer proximity to the star during this period.
And on this harsh planet, their civilization was born.
How difficult it was.
"If a civilization can emerge on a planet like ours, there should be many civilizations in the universe, but in our recorded history of over 14,000 Enze (equivalent to about 16,000 Earth years), there has been no concrete evidence of extraterrestrial life. Does this mean that our civilization is extremely advanced?"
Every civilization would have such doubts.
From a higher perspective, like that of the Federation, it's clear that many civilizations don't encounter extraterrestrial life in their early stages because the universe is vast, and the space that a civilization can occupy is limited.
Additionally, the more advanced a civilization is, the more stringent the conditions for its birth.
Civilizations like the Olive Branch, the Silk, and the Federation took tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years to become relatively advanced among second-level civilizations.
To become even stronger, one might need millions of years, or even multiple millions of years.
In the Federation's theoretical model, a typical third-level civilization would take around 30 to 40 million years to develop, with some faster ones achieving it in 10 to 20 million years. If a civilization experiences multiple technological explosions, it would still require at least 5 million years.
While this may not be considered long in the lifespan of the universe, it's certainly not short either.
If we consider the time it takes for a planet to evolve from the lowest life forms to intelligent life, and factor in the destruction and self-annihilation of civilizations for various reasons, the cycle and probability of finding third-level and above civilizations become incredibly long and small.
But these are things that can only be understood and seen from a higher perspective.
"Our civilization has completely mastered our home planet and has started to develop the surrounding planets, utilizing our star for energy generation."
"This time, we want to take our first step and embark on an interstellar colonization. It's a grand endeavor, and we will enter a true interstellar era."
To explore beyond their star system in the early stages of interstellar travel is a foolish yet brilliant decision.
If there are no other civilizations in the star system, this move will undoubtedly drive the development of advanced technology and increase resource exploitation.
After all, most of the matter in a star system is within the star itself, and more than 90% of the matter outside the star is inside planets. The exploitable resources on planets and asteroids account for only one-ten-thousandth of the total matter in a star system.
Moreover, most of this exploitable matter is silicon, carbon, and other elements that are abundant but not as advanced in application in lower-level civilizations.
These elements can be used for infrastructure but are not suitable for building spaceships or other energy devices.
Therefore, overall, the resources in a star system are quite limited, especially when most stars in the universe are red dwarfs.
"Fire it up!"
The leader of this civilization waved its six arms.
The spaceship ignited its engines, and the stabilizing mechanical arms released it. It began to accelerate forward.
The first stage of acceleration was not achieved by the spaceship itself but by the propulsion devices at the rear, similar to rocket boosters. After the acceleration fuel was exhausted, these propulsion devices would detach, and there were three such devices in total. Finally, the spaceship's own propulsion system would take over for the final acceleration.
After three days, it reached a super-high speed of 241.75 km/s.
The nearest star system was 3.39 light-years away, a slightly larger system than theirs. The main star had 27% more mass than their home star, and the system had four planets, two of which were gas giants.
It was an ideal system.
The journey would take 4,000 years.
The mission was controversial. Most life forms believed that if they waited a thousand years, they could build a spaceship that could catch up with the first one, so why waste resources on the first spaceship?
However, like with any other technology, most people didn't know how many failures there were before the successful product they saw. No technological breakthrough is achieved overnight; there are always pioneers collecting data.
All researchers understood that the mission of this spaceship was not about reaching the destination but the process itself. It was a symbol, a hope for the civilization's advancement.
If nothing is there, who would believe in themselves?
This was what it carried.
The spaceship was officially named "Pioneer," symbolizing not just the ship's voyage but also the civilization's journey.
About 134 years later, the spaceship left the star system and entered deep space.
This moment was worth celebrating.
The original life forms that witnessed the spaceship's departure had long since perished, and a new generation had taken their place, witnessing it all.
However, 482 years later, the civilization lost contact with the Pioneer.
The frozen life forms on the Pioneer woke up to the ship's alarm and found that they had severely deviated from their course. High-energy particles in interstellar space had struck their ship, causing the main computer to malfunction.
Over a thousand life forms frantically worked to repair the ship and correct its course.
About 29 days later, the ship's radar detected an object rapidly approaching. This object was moving faster than any meteor they had observed, and it was also enormous.
In just a few days, the object was upon them.
The life forms abandoned their instruments and used their eyes to look through telescopes.
Then, they witnessed a scene they would never forget.
A massive object, initially just a tiny dot, grew larger than the surrounding stars within an hour. Soon, they could see its details with the naked eye, and after two hours, it filled their entire field of view.
They stopped using telescopes and looked directly through the glass at the object.
They saw a huge, dark vessel passing in front of their ship. It was like a planet flashing by, with each groove on its surface large enough to hide their entire ship. Every rivet was heavier than their ship, and the thick barrel of its cannon could accommodate an entire city. And this was just a small cannon on its hull; there were thousands of such cannons on the ship.
"Civilization, a powerful advanced civilization."
The life forms on the Pioneer were trembling at this sight, and they couldn't even steady their bodies, falling one by one onto the ship's floor.
But it wasn't over yet.
More signals appeared on the radar.
They looked, and saw ship after ship, each slightly smaller than the previous one but still enormous. Each protrusion on these ships could dock several Pioneers.
What a powerful civilization this was!
Their civilization seemed so insignificant and laughable in comparison.
At this moment, the faith of all life forms on the Pioneer was shaken, and their hope for the future of their civilization vanished.
Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder