Hawke was not worried that the alien technology he encountered would exceed his own by much.
Although theoretical reasoning suggests that aliens, especially intelligent aliens, should exist in large numbers, the Fermi paradox suggests that intelligent alien civilizations are far less numerous than expected. Those beyond their own technological level should be even fewer. Hawke does not think he will be unlucky to that extent.
There was another reason Hawke wasn't worried. The hydrogen bomb was the most accomplished weapon under the two cornerstones of relativity and quantum theory. In other words, as long as the alien civilization encountered had not yet broken through the shackles of these two theories, then it could not possess a weapon more powerful than the hydrogen bomb. If that was the case, why should Hawke be afraid?
Civilizations develop with similarities. For example, in ancient Earth, several civilizations that did not communicate with each other coincidentally chose gold as the equivalent. This is the concrete expression of the similarity of civilisations. Hawke was convinced that technology should develop from easy to hard, and that there could not be a civilisation in the universe that studied science from hard to easy. If there were intelligent extraterrestrial civilisations, there was a high probability that they would have gone through the stages of cold weapons, thermal weapons and nuclear power. As long as they had not yet broken through nuclear power to the next stage, Hawke had nothing to fear.
It is important to understand that Hawke's power is, basically, a special case. Hawke's fleet has no social structure, which means no internal conflicts, no loss of power due to internal tug-of-war, conflicts, etc. In other words, Hawke's power is united and can be brought into play 100 percent of the time. Moreover, thanks to Hawke's powerful computing power, Hawke's power, can even be overpowered. As long as there is no grade difference between the opponent's technology level and his own, then under the same technology, Hawke can absolutely sweep everything.
This is where the combination of the intelligence of the human brain and the computing power of the computer is a huge advantage.
After the successful test flight, Aurora replaced Hope on the mission to collect fusion fuel on Saturn; after all, the size difference dictated that Aurora was more efficient. Hope returned to Titan and took on various routine maintenance tasks on the moon.
Everything, in an orderly fashion, was going on.
Six months later, the first proto-Earth meteorite arrived in Saturn's orbit. Hope was already a million kilometres beyond Saturn's orbit, ready to meet it.
In the quiet of space, with the massive planet Saturn as a backdrop, facing the direction of the Sun, a tiny black dot, with a long trailing flame trailing behind it, came rapidly towards Saturn.
Gradually, gradually, as Hope's speed increased, Hope and the meteorite maintained a relatively stationary position, and together they flew towards Saturn at a speed of over thirty kilometres per second.
Hawk slowly approached the meteorite, securing it and then, manoeuvring the droids, installed six small fusion engines at its best placement point and a huge parachute on the other side.
With everything ready, Hawke steered the Hope away from it. After calculating the best orbit, the fusion engines began to fire up, propelling the meteorite away from its original offset orbit and towards the correct one. At 100,000 kilometres from Titan's atmosphere, the seven engines, together with the original one, started to fire, pushing it in the opposite direction and starting to slow down.
Its speed relative to Titan began to decrease slowly, from 25 kilometres per second, to 15 kilometres per second, to 5 kilometres per second, and it continued to decrease slowly, to less than one kilometre per second by the time it came into contact with Titan's atmosphere.
The first small meteorite was fine, but if the largest one, with a mass of 300,000 tons, had hit Titan head-on, it would have had an impact on Titan's crust, causing a massive earthquake that would have destroyed several of Hawk's bases.
At only ten kilometres from the atmosphere, the meteorite, with the recoil of seven fusion-powered engines, had reduced its speed to 300 metres per second. Then, it crashed headlong into the atmosphere.
The thick atmosphere of Titan rubbed violently against it, turning its surface red. However, with such great friction, its speed was further reduced.
The parachute also opened. It was a large high-strength parachute specially made by Hawke for these meteorites, and the whole parachute was spread out and estimated to be several hundred square metres in size. This parachute, together with the fusion engine and air friction, will provide enough cushioning for the meteor to land smoothly.
It is losing altitude. Around the expected landing area, ten Wind God helicopters are keeping a close watch on the area.
With the combined effect of three different forces, the meteor's final speed of landing was sixteen metres per second. This speed, equivalent to a snail's crawl, smashed the ground of Titan into a crater twenty metres deep and sixty metres in radius. The shockwave was so strong that even Hawke, a thousand kilometres away from the impact point, observed it.
Fortunately, however, everything was within acceptable limits. Ten Wind God helicopters flew over together, lowering the thick steel cables, which were secured to the meteor by robots, and together the ten Wind God helicopters pulled it up and towards the titanium-zirconium processing base.
The whole process was uneventful.
Three days later, the second meteorite arrived. It was a large meteor with a mass of 200,000 tonnes, and Hawke steered the Hope and fitted it with more than 50 small fusion engines before it landed safely, but it also left a crater several hundred metres in diameter on the ground.
Thus, every few days, a meteorite fell from the sky, and these meteorites, brought plenty of titanium and zirconium to Hawke.
Now, Hawke was well supplied with all kinds of raw materials. There were sufficient black worm corpses, sufficient numbers of Jupiter spirits, sufficient technological reserves, and sufficient construction resources. With the support of the huge resources, Hawke had a new plan.
"It's time to start fleet construction." Hawke silently mulled it over.
In Hawke's plan, the stellar fleet of Far Space Court IV would consist of at least three "county" class ships, at least thirty "township" class ships, and thousands of "village" class ships. After all, it was a long journey from the Solar System to the Sky Court IV star system, a distance of about 10.5 light years. At Hawke's estimated maximum speed of 500 kilometres per second, it would take over 6,000 years.
Six thousand years is a long time, basically equal to the development time of the entire human society, or even a little longer. In such a long period of time, the wear and tear of the ship itself, the damage to its parts, etc., all needed to be taken into account, and a smaller fleet simply wouldn't do.
Even in Hawke's plan, at least half of the thousand or so ships would be material ships. That is to say, they would be used for stockpiling supplies after they had maintained their navigational capacity. Even so, in Hawke's estimation, it would be a blessing if half of the entire fleet was left when they reached their destination.
So the choice of the purpose of the voyage was very important. There was only one chance to make the wrong choice, and it would be a great pleasure to arrive at the destination and find it empty and devoid of anything.
When it really came to that situation, Hawke had no other choice but to wait for death.
In the Sky Court IV star system, it was certain that there was at least one wood-like planet where Hawke could get an ample supply of fusion fuel to replenish, and presumably one Earth-like planet where Hawke could get a supply of building materials to build a new ship. Even if the presumed Earth-like planet did not exist, it did not matter, for Hawke knew that the Sky Court IV star system also had a huge number of asteroid rings where raw materials could be replenished as well.
The long distances and the long time it would take to navigate across them were the greatest impediment to interstellar voyages. If Hawke was still powered by chemical fuels, it would be impossible to think of interstellar voyages.
The universe, it's too big. The relationship between Celestial Court IV and the Sun is the equivalent of a neighbourhood relationship like a front yard and a back yard, but with human power, it would take such a long time to get from this point to that point.
That is why in the past, human beings have conceived the idea of interstellar voyages by means of immense spaceships with at least thousands of people on board, because in this way, they could ensure sufficient reproduction, and they had to rely on the succession of generations of human beings to fulfil the dream of interstellar voyages.
Hawke, of course, had no worries in this regard. As long as there was enough fuel to keep the central computer on, time was a mere number to Hawke; a thousand years and ten thousand years were just different in numerical size.
By now, it had been almost ten years since Hawke had left Earth. Within those ten years, many things had happened. From the escape from Jupiter, to the landing on Titan, to the completion of the first base, all sorts of things, little by little, had flowed through Hawke's mind.
"Home is good, it's safe and comfortable, but if you don't go out there, how can you achieve great things? The fleet building program, let's start."
With a sigh, Hawke began his plan.