amaotonovel Chapter 120: The Creation World (2)
Chapter 120: The Creation World (2)
The saying "Two tigers cannot share one mountain" is indeed true.
Due to their longer development and evolutionary period, the Dragon civilization was significantly superior to the silicon-based mechanical civilization in terms of warship weaponry and speed. However, the silicon-based mechanical civilization possessed terrifying expansion and evolutionary capabilities. Therefore, when the Dragon civilization's expeditionary fleet first encountered the silicon-based mechanical civilization's expeditionary fleet, neither civilization exchanged greetings and immediately engaged in combat. The Dragon civilization's expeditionary fleet, leveraging its superior firepower and speed, swiftly destroyed the mechanical civilization's expeditionary fleet. However, the mechanical civilization's distress signal had already been transmitted into interstellar space.
Thirty years later, this signal was intercepted by the mechanical civilization.
A full-scale war broke out between the Dragon Civilization and the Mechanical Civilization.
Like any interstellar struggle between intelligent civilizations, the Dragon and Mechanical civilizations expanded wildly, plundering interstellar resources and manufacturing large numbers of advanced warships.
The Dragon Civilization was well aware of its disadvantages. After initially destroying the Mechanical Civilization's expeditionary fleet and acquiring useful information from their technology and wrecked ships, the Dragon Civilization immediately assembled its first massive interstellar expeditionary force and set off for the Mechanical Civilization's home planet. However, due to the fleet's travel speed being only half the speed of light, it would take eight hundred years to reach the Mechanical Civilization's home planet (a distance of four hundred light-years). On its several home planets, the Dragon Civilization mined resources and vigorously developed technology to achieve near-light speed. The development of warships and weapons was also ongoing. Every member of the Dragon Civilization knew that the war with the Mechanical Civilization was a fight to the death, so the Dragon Civilization was constantly in a state of war. In short, the Dragon Civilization was racing against time.
The first interstellar expedition of the Dragon Clan civilization reached near-light speed after three hundred years of interstellar travel. One hundred years after the first expedition reached near-light speed, the Dragon Clan's home planet dispatched a second, massive interstellar expedition, which also reached near-light speed, with more advanced warships and weaponry.
The mechanical civilization, taking advantage of the time the Dragon civilization's interstellar expeditionary force spent traveling through space, rapidly developed and evolved, producing supercomputers, intelligent robots, giant mechanical weapons, and metal "Dyson spheres." To the Dragon civilization, the mechanical civilization was developing a terrifying weapon: self-replicating robots, endowed with the ability to evolve rapidly.
The first interstellar expeditionary force of the Dragon Clan, after nearly 580 years of travel, arrived at the star system of the Mechanical Civilization's home planet. A fierce battle ensued. The Mechanical Civilization's warships were far too numerous, like a pack of wolves besieging a hungry tiger. A month later, only a dozen or so warships from the first Dragon Clan expeditionary force escaped. More than two hundred warships from the expeditionary force were captured by the Mechanical Civilization.
The dragon warships captured by the mechanical civilization were naturally dismantled and subjected to in-depth technical analysis. Thanks to these warships, the mechanical civilization's technology was greatly enhanced.
The captured dragons were subjected to the most brutal torture. The mechanical civilization dissected and analyzed the various parts and structures of the dragons' bodies, developing biological weapons against them on one hand, and modifying their creations, such as intelligent robots, to make them semi-mechanical and semi-biological on the other.
The intelligent robot's body began to ooze a dense liquid, and its brain and limbs developed bio-like electrodes. It could be said that mechanical civilization was gradually absorbing the biological advantages of dragons, constantly modifying and evolving itself.
Two hundred years after the first Dragon Expeditionary Force was annihilated by the Mechanical Civilization, the second Dragon Expeditionary Force began to establish itself on a terrestrial planet near the star of the Mechanical Civilization's home planet (the distance between the two camps is about ten light-years), and began to build a base to prepare for a long war with the Mechanical Civilization.
Through technological and biological research on the first dragon expeditionary force, the mechanical civilization achieved rapid development within two hundred years. The mechanical civilization then began its counterattack.
The mechanical civilization, with its numerous warships, began its second expeditionary force of the dragon race, ten light-years away.
The mechanical civilization, escorted by a large number of warships and heavily defended, first began to occupy the sun of the planet where the second batch of dragon expeditionary forces were based. The sun of this planet became a "Dyson sphere," providing energy for the mechanical civilization's warships and equipment.
The second expeditionary force of the Dragon Clan naturally could not afford to lose solar energy, so the Dragon Clan base dispatched a large number of warships to engage in a battle for solar energy with the mechanical civilization's warships.
Near this sun, the two sides engaged in a fierce battle.
What terrified the dragons was that, thanks to the Dyson spheres, the mechanical civilization's warships unleashed incredibly powerful energy beams, easily cleaving dragon warships in two. Furthermore, the dragon warships' laser-based weapons were largely ineffective against the mechanical civilization's energy shields, and the mechanical civilization's warships were simply too numerous. In terms of both weapon quality and sheer numbers, the dragons were at a clear disadvantage.
It is conceivable that even with planetary-based air defense weapons and dragon warships protecting it, the planet where the second wave of the dragon expeditionary force was based would quickly fall to the mechanical civilization in less than two months of fighting.
In the planetary conquest war, the terrifying intelligent robots of the mechanical civilization played an extremely important role. These robots were invincible. They descended from the sky, and the robot army attacked the dragon strongholds and military fortresses in an overwhelming manner. Due to their large size and inconvenient movement, the dragon army was quickly defeated by these agile and fierce robot armies.
Many dragon creatures were captured alive, and most of them were sent to large "processing plants" established by the mechanical civilization. These large "processing plants" extracted bodily fluids, brain matter, organs, and tissues from the dragon creatures' bodies in order to supply the needs of cyborg-biological intelligent robot clones.
The poor dragon creatures of the second expeditionary force of the dragon civilization became nutrients and supplies for these semi-mechanical, semi-biological replica robots.
Batch after batch of semi-mechanical, semi-biological cloned robots emerged from the planet's massive "processing plant." These robots began to possess the thinking abilities of the dragon's brain. Through the memory recall of the dragon's brain, the cloned robots began to analyze various technological, military, industrial, social, and energy information about the dragon civilization's home planet.
Twenty years later, a large number of warships, combining the technology and military techniques of mechanical civilization and dragon civilization, carrying a massive army of cloned robots, began their journey from this planet toward the mother planet of the dragon civilization. However, the speed of these warships had not yet broken the speed of light, meaning that it would take them four hundred years to reach the mother planet of the dragon civilization.
The Dragon Clan is an intelligent and creative species. A hundred years after the mechanical civilization set sail, the Dragon Clan produced its first "giant"-like great scientist. He proposed the "Big Bang" theory, believing that this "universe" was created by the Big Bang and is still expanding. Currently, the "universe" is basically flat. However, to his surprise, through the analysis of the gravity of distant stars and various spectra, the speed of light in this "universe" seems to be rapidly decreasing!
One can imagine that when this great scientist of the dragon race put forward his idea, it was even more shocking than the fact that all the dragon creatures believed that the dragon race was unique in the "universe" but later encountered mechanical civilizations and went to war.
Thus, in addition to developing technologies for warfare against mechanical civilizations, such as warships and various weapons, the Dragon Clan civilization began in-depth research into this "universe".
After nearly a century of in-depth research into the "universe," the Dragon Clan scientists are extremely pessimistic. They have finally discovered that their travel speed cannot exceed the speed of light, and there is no such thing as "warp drive." In other words, this "universe" is simply too vast for them. Even more critically, the speed of light in this "universe" is constantly decreasing, and one day, this "universe" will be completely annihilated.
Breaking the speed of light became the second priority for the dragon scientists. The first priority, of course, was to develop military technology to deal with mechanical civilizations.
Eighty years later, two hundred and eighty years after the mechanical civilization set sail, the Dragon Clan produced a second "giant"-like great scientist who proposed the famous "Law of the Speed of Light," which states that "the speed of light of matter in the spatial domain of an isolated system depends on the energy density (directly proportional) and the matter density (inversely proportional) of that spatial domain."
The proposal of this "law of the speed of light" had a profound impact on the dragon race, and it can be said that it determined the future and destiny of the dragon race.
Based on this "law of the speed of light", the Dragon Clan began to develop "faster-than-light" weapons and "faster-than-light" travel technology. However, "faster-than-light" travel technology was not realized until the mechanical civilization army appeared.
When the mechanical civilization army was 60 light-years away from the Dragon civilization's home planet, the Dragons detected the wake effects of this mechanical civilization fleet.
Therefore, the Dragon Clan leadership launched an important "Sixty-Year Plan," which would take thirty years to upgrade all warships and equip them with "faster-than-light" strike weapons. At the same time, some Dragon Clan creatures would be transported to an Earth-like planet about forty light-years away, which was almost completely upgraded, to prevent them from being annihilated by the mechanical civilization. These relocated Dragon Clan creatures would build military factories and strongholds on this planet.
The Dragon Clan's home planet began massively expanding its ground-based weapon systems, and the terrestrial planet they migrated to was also undergoing military buildup. The suns of both planets were also being utilized, with energy continuously transmitted from the sun to warships and the ground via a transmission system. Naturally, both suns were heavily guarded by warships.
After four hundred years of sailing, the mechanical civilization fleet finally entered the star system of the dragon civilization's mother planet. A large portion of the dragon civilization's fleet had already assembled along the mechanical civilization fleet's route.
When the two fleets were a certain distance apart, the Dragon Clan fleet opened fire first. Because it was a "faster-than-light" attack using X-rays and gamma rays, the Mechanical Civilization fleet was caught off guard, and many of their warships were destroyed.
After suffering the first wave of devastating attacks, the mechanical civilization fleet turned around and fled back at near-light speed. Since the dragon warships were almost as fast as the mechanical civilization warships, the two sides began to engage in a chase, competing in terms of the energy supply capacity of their respective warships.
After a decade of pursuit and interception, the Dragon Clan had not achieved good results. Considering that they were carbon-based life forms and could not compare with silicon-based mechanical beings, and that they could not afford to waste time and life, the Dragon Clan fleet began to return to its home planet. Ten years later, they returned to the Dragon Clan's home planet.
In addition to manufacturing advanced warships and weapons on several planets, the Dragons continued to research and develop "faster-than-light" travel technology, genetically modify Dragon organisms to increase their fertility and lifespan, and develop supercomputers.
The dragon race's leadership knew that, compared to the mechanical civilization, the dragon race had to accelerate its population growth, and expanding its military and preparing for war was now the common goal and responsibility of all dragon beings.