Chapter 501: Blind Spot of Thought! The Droplet Is the Trisolarans' Main Battleship!
"Here on Earth, humanity's technology is locked down by the sophons. But in the same way, Trisolaran technology has also been locked down by a higher civilization—though not intentionally."
"But when rules-based weapons ripple across the universe, it's like a nuclear disaster erupting on Earth—everyone ends up suffering."
Dr. Halsey had been mulling over and reflecting on Li Ang's description of the Trisolaran universe. In this desperate cosmos, even the seemingly powerful Trisolarans were nothing more than a newly formed primitive tribe.
As for the true culprits capable of collapsing universes, they might never appear from beginning to end. Even the Universal Universal Megacorp might not be able to force them to the table for negotiations.
Jack Wells' expression grew more serious as well. They all understood just how terrifying the enemies of this universe were. And no matter how insignificant the Trisolarans might seem in the grand scheme, they still had to be dealt with using everything they had.
How to defeat the Trisolarans, what problems to consider—they had to be absolutely meticulous.
"Do we need to worry about the Zeroers right now? For example… deploying some device to probe the Zeroers' eleven-dimensional home?" Jack Wells asked.
Dr. Halsey shook her head. "That isn't something we should be thinking about right now. Let's deal with the Trisolarans first."
For the Universal Megacorp, the Trisolarans themselves weren't much of a problem. The only difficulty lay in how to do it—they needed a complete plan as soon as possible.
Soon, under the joint lead of Dr. Halsey, head of the Science Nexus, and Alt Cunningham, the Universal Megacorp's senior executives gathered in the conference room. Li Ang joined via remote projection, making the final decisions for the plan.
"Ladies and gentlemen, today's council agenda is simple: the Trisolaran Droplet."
Dr. Halsey brought forth her research results. After this period of study and reviewing the Fleet International's footage of their warships being destroyed, she had basically figured out how the Droplets worked.
"The Droplet's outer shell is made up of tightly packed, quasi-metallic atomic nuclei bound under strong-interaction force fields. Inside, it contains an AI computer, a strong-interaction generator, propulsion systems for compressing electron rain, and a spatial force-field engine."
Her dissection was meticulous. As a top scientist, producing such schematics was no challenge.
"The Droplet's core components are actually quite minimal. Its mass is about the same as a truck, which means even the Mantis' robotic arms could easily grab it."
Hearing this, Jack Wells frowned irritably. He had little interest in the technical details; all he wanted was to crush the Trisolarans quickly.
"Dr. Halsey, just tell us straight—how do we catch the thing, or better yet, blow it to pieces?"
"This thing isn't even that hard to manufacture. Give it to the Science Nexus and the Engineering Division, and in less than a month they could put one together."
Halsey nodded. "Destroying a Droplet is actually simple."
"At its core, a Droplet is just a construct where the atomic bonds, normally held by electromagnetic forces, are instead locked by strong-interaction forces."
"If the energy density is high enough to shatter atomic nuclei, you could easily break the bonds holding the Droplet together. But of course, for present-day humanity, that's simply impossible."
"But the real trouble with the Droplet isn't its structural strength—it's the way it propels itself."
With that, she pulled up another set of data and explained:
"The Droplet's propulsion is based on a vortex-ring principle. The thrust rings are called vacuum Varsax electric-field vortex rings."
The Universal Megacorp, having explored more than a dozen universes over the past century, had already maxed out nearly every technological pathway. For principles this simple, their AIs could analyze and generate multiple variations with ease.
The Droplet's outer shell is tightly suppressed by its strong-interaction field, which also alters the state of its outer electrons.
They no longer exist as electron clouds but as a flowing electron rain. This rain is still in a quantum state, just uncertain in form. The key to propulsion lies in precisely controlling the timing of its collapse at the Droplet's nose.
Halsey displayed a holo-simulation generated by AI: "First, the special field forces the electron cloud to condense outside the shell into electron rain."
"Then the rain streams along the perfectly smooth surface of the strong-interaction material, pulsing rapidly toward the tail of the Droplet."
"Because the Droplet is streamlined—broad at the waist, narrow and long at the tail—the force field mirrors that shape."
"The closer to the tail, the smaller the space and the stronger the field. The electrons are compressed to extreme density, and their mutual repulsion grows enormous."
"When they reach the tail, a massive volume of electrons is crushed into an almost infinitesimal space. Under their immense repulsion, they store energy at near-nuclear-blast levels."
"Then the field is shut off. Inertia and repulsion force the electrons to burst out, forming the observed electron vortex ring."
Her explanation was professional yet clear. Many executives nodded as they listened—these principles weren't obscure to the Universal Megacorp's science teams.
Replicating their own 'Universal Megacorp-brand Droplet' wouldn't be hard.
Moving on, Dr. Halsey explained the Droplet's thrust source:
"Fresh pulsed electron rain is constantly forming on its surface. The direction of this electron rain's field matches the axial field of the ejected electron vortex ring."
"This creates a powerful repulsion between the two. That repulsion squeezes the Droplet's waist, driving it forward."
"During this process, the vortex ring expends energy as it does work, gradually decaying—its color shifting from blue to red until it dies out."
"The spent electrons, once they lose energy, return to quantum state. Then they are precisely guided back to the Droplet's nose to collapse again, forming new electron rain, producing new vortex rings, and pushing the Droplet forward."
Her breakdown made the mechanism easy to grasp. Even a rough soldier like Jack Wells could understand it.
"So what you're saying is—the Droplet can maneuver in vacuum with almost no dead angles, sliding about like the tip of God's pen."
V immediately realized the severity of the problem. If they tried using conventional antimatter missiles or similar weapons, there would be no way to hit a Droplet.
Its size was already tiny, and in the vastness of space it was like a drop of water in the sea. With such incomprehensible maneuverability, almost no missile could track it.
In the Doomsday Battle, the only reason Droplets didn't dodge the United Fleet's laser cannons or railgun fire was simply because they had no need.
If they wanted to evade, they could slip away at unimaginable angles—human weapons could never hit them.
From this perspective, conventional antimatter missiles were useless.
The Droplet's propulsion truly posed a serious problem.
"Do the Trisolaran fleet's engines also use this kind of propulsion?" V asked curiously.
If the Trisolaran warships used the same principle, their maneuverability might rival that of the Prometheus Legion of the Preacher.
But Dr. Halsey shook her head and said, "No, the Trisolaran fleet uses conventional antimatter annihilation engines, relying on drawing basic matter from the universe."
"If they really could apply this vacuum Varsex field vortex-ring propulsion system to their warships, their marching speed would never be as slow as one-tenth the speed of light."
"I think this has to do with the Trisolarans' philosophy of technological development."
At this point, Chisaji Fox added, "Haven't you noticed? The most astonishing technological creations of the Trisolarans are often things on the microscopic scale."
"The sophons, the droplets—every one of these inventions is extraordinarily precise and fascinating. Human thinking, by contrast, always assumes that the greater the technological marvel, the larger it must be."
"From the early days of WWI tanks to WWII aircraft carriers, and now to space warships, humans are habitually convinced that only massive constructs can inspire awe."
"But the Trisolaran civilization has gone the opposite route. In the microscopic realm, they are already able to manipulate nine dimensions out of eleven. The more intricate and minuscule their creations, the more powerful they are."
The clearest evidence of this was the Trisolaran sophon.
This little thing was no larger than a proton, yet it consumed the resources of their entire space fleet. Without question, sophons were the pinnacle of Trisolaran technology.
And the droplets were no different.
Though only three meters long, a droplet contained the Trisolarans' most advanced materials and propulsion technology. Its technological content was not as perversely extreme as the sophon's, but it was still something Earth's humans could never afford to provoke.
By contrast, those thousand-odd massive Trisolaran warships had become the most humiliating sight of this Doomsday Battle.
Just crossing two interstellar dust belts had cost them half their fleet, with catastrophic non-combat attrition.
If the fleet's hulls and propulsion systems were built like the droplets, they could never have suffered such severe losses.
The only explanation was that the Trisolaran civilization was lopsided: their mastery of the microscopic realm utterly crushed humanity's, but in the realm of massive constructs like warships, their level of technology might not even surpass that of humans whose science was locked down.
"In that case," someone remarked, "it's really the droplets that are the true 'warships' of the Trisolaran civilization. That weary fleet that trekked here is nothing more than a collection of transports, with little actual combat strength."
Jack Wells suddenly saw the light. Everyone had been misled by outdated habits of thought. Who ever said warships had to be made up of hulking iron behemoths?
Couldn't ten droplets count as the Trisolarans' warships?
"In that case, sophons are the true detectors of Trisolaran civilization. They came to Earth early on to lock down human science and monitor every move of human civilization."
"The droplets that the Fleet International mistook for tokens of communication were in fact the Trisolarans' 'main force,' sent to slaughter humanity's warships!"
Following this line of reasoning, V understood why droplets had directly entered humanity's observational range.
If these things really were detectors, then their foremost requirement would be stealth. Even the Megacorp's AI drones carried optical camouflage. How could a droplet have just brazenly shown itself?
Only sophons could truly fulfill the role of the Trisolarans' detectors!
After this round of analysis, the Megacorp executives realized how mistaken their original assumptions had been. Believing droplets to be detectors was entirely wishful thinking.
By this logic, the United Fleet's actions had been suicidal from start to finish!
Facing the enemy's main force, not only did they fail to stand ready, they even contracted their formation and rushed in to die—dragging the droplets right into their midst.
They had displayed ignorance, weakness, and arrogance to the fullest!
"So those ten droplets are the Trisolarans' main combat strength," V said thoughtfully. This battle would not resemble the old clashes of giant ships and massive guns. Instead, the contest would be waged on the level of microscopic technology, not traditional boarding assaults.
"Exactly. Which is why we must never again treat the droplets as ordinary detectors. They are the Trisolarans' most important armed force!"
Dr. Halsey nodded gravely.
"So what do we do next to take down the droplets?" Jack Wells asked.
They now knew that droplets were no mere detectors, but the problem still stood: what method could they use to destroy or capture one?
Droplets were extremely fast and highly maneuverable. For the moment, the Megacorp had nothing that could match them—not even its AI drones. Building something new on the spot was impossible.
"Is there any way to slow a droplet down, or restrict its movement angle, so that it can't evade our attacks?"
Jack Wells had barely finished his question before V shook his head in denial. "If we were at close range, we might use psionics to trap it."
"But psionics don't exist in the Trisolaran universe, and we have no way of forcing it to slow down with supernatural powers. If we use a superluminal suppressor, we risk causing other kinds of trouble."
"And now is not the time to deploy law-level weapons."
That left the Megacorp in an awkward bind. To destroy a droplet, they would inevitably need to use law-level weapon systems. But doing so risked drawing the attention of higher civilizations.
Without such weapons, though, they really had no good way to deal with this tricky little thing.
Even if they wanted to use gravity-field weapon systems, they'd have to wait until a droplet entered the trap's effective range. Otherwise there was no way to catch it.
But with sophons constantly tracking the Endless-class carrier's position, droplets would never draw close without good reason. At the first hint of danger, they would react instantly.
What looked like a simple task had turned out to be astonishingly complex and thorny!
Just as everyone fell into silence, each lost in their own brainstorming, Li Ang's holographic projection suddenly flickered. He spoke up with his solution: "Everyone, my plan is—"
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