Chapter 508: The Ones Who Destroy the Cosmic Environment Are Often the Advanced Civilizations!
Seeing the look of bewilderment and shock on Song Zhaomei and V's faces, Qiansihu shook his head helplessly. "This is the inevitable outcome under the Dark Forest situation."
"Faster-than-light travel has essentially become the exclusive privilege of advanced civilizations. Ordinary civilizations have no means or channels to achieve FTL travel. For them, even reaching the speed of light is a luxury."
"The communication barrier between civilizations makes the chain of suspicion stretch on endlessly. If it were like in some other universes, where all civilizations could communicate through FTL travel, then perhaps the Trisolaris Universe wouldn't have ended up in its current state."
After speaking, Qiansihu sighed again.
When it came down to it, the reason the Trisolaris Universe became this kind of Dark Forest situation was entirely man-made.
Civilizations like Trisolaris, struggling desperately on the very line of survival, were not weak because they lacked willpower. It was simply because the larger environment was unfavorable.
And ordinary civilizations neither had the ability nor the qualification to ruin the cosmic environment. The real culprits behind Trisolaris' painful and difficult technological stagnation were those old-timers who had seized the advantage of early development.
Dimensional-reduction strikes, lightspeed-reduction strikes—these calamities were concocted by those unscrupulous advanced civilizations.
They were the ones whom the Universal Megacorp truly needed to deal with.
"Don't be too discouraged. There is some good news: it's very likely that other advanced civilizations already possess the Grand Unified Model of this universe. In fact, more than one civilization may have it."
"As long as we can find a way to acquire this model, we could then use law-level weapons for precise, targeted strikes. That way, we wouldn't need to drain this universe with the Aether-Coupling Engine."
Qiansihu smiled faintly. He knew all too well how difficult it was to establish a Grand Unified Model of a universe—sometimes the destruction of an entire universe was required to obtain it.
But once the universe itself was gone, the acquired model would lose validity, since it could not apply to any other universe.
If the Universal Megacorp could obtain the Grand Unified Model of the Trisolaris Universe, it would essentially be like turning on a full-map cheat, instantly seeing the positions of all enemies at a glance.
That would be of immense benefit to the organization's coordinated operations.
"Do we have the confidence to deal with these advanced civilizations?"
Song Zhaomei furrowed her brows. The Universal Megacorp had never before clashed directly with civilizations capable of deploying multiple law-level weapons. The coming war would hardly be simple.
"At least in my view, we have a fifty–fifty chance."
Qiansihu adjusted the arm of his glasses. "For scientists, that probability is already not low."
V interrupted the two. "Enough. No matter the odds, this isn't the time to be discussing it. First, we need to figure out how to deal with these Trisolarans."
Of course, V also understood that there were civilizations far stronger than the Trisolarans. But at this stage, the Universal Megacorp hadn't yet encountered them. One step at a time; one bite at a time. Overreaching too soon only risked injury.
Thinking too far ahead was meaningless right now.
Later, when it came to battles of higher dimensions, they would no longer be ordinary scientific affairs but clashes of godlike beings hurling supernatural forces, battles where the very laws of nature would twist.
Such conflicts could not be described in simple words. Only the abstract imagination of children could vaguely approach their essence.
Soon after, the research conference convened by Alt Cunningham began. The meeting proceeded smoothly, and in just a year, the Megacorp's research teams had already made impressive progress.
At the conference, Li Ang affirmed the contributions of each researcher and declared his full support for technological development in the microscopic domain.
Encouraged by the governor's trust, the Megacorp's scientific hub was greatly boosted in morale. In their continuous exploration of the microscopic world, they gradually began to piece together ideas for plans to hunt the sophons.
Among them, the eccentric, obsessive scientist Hermann Gottlieb from the Pacific Rim universe was a leading expert in microscopic research.
With his wholehearted cooperation, the Universal Megacorp gradually gained the ability to locate the sophons.
After all, to capture prey, one first had to know where it was.
But sophons were only the size of a proton, capable of moving at the speed of light. Their positional shifts made them far harder to detect than finding a needle in an ocean.
If a sophon was determined to evade the Megacorp's observations in the microscopic field, they might never find its trace even in a lifetime.
Fortunately, sophon movements and positions were not entirely without pattern.
In order to lock down human science, Trisolaris had to dispatch sophons moving at nearly the speed of light to simultaneously interfere with the results of multiple particle accelerator experiments on Earth.
And in this process, the Megacorp could pre-arrange setups and lock onto sophon positions based on their movement trajectories.
But merely recognizing a sophon's position and trajectory was far from enough—the real challenge was how to damage or capture it.
In the microscopic realm, protons were already the fundamental unit of matter, essentially distinct from macroscopic entities.
They could be shattered, but not completely destroyed.
In fact, from Hermann's experimental observations, when a sophon was broken into several parts, multiple sophons would emerge.
They shared a close and stable quantum linkage, much like cutting a magnet in half only yielded two magnets.
Though each sophon fragment had reduced functionality, under its autonomous repair program they would quickly reassemble into a sophon identical to the original.
This was exactly what happened in every human high-energy particle collision experiment. The sophons interfered with experiments by substituting themselves for target particles, accepting the collisions, and thereby misleading human data.
Once a sophon completed its disruption task, it needed only a millionth of a second to self-repair before moving on to sabotage the next particle accelerator.
This meant that using conventional methods to destroy a sophon was simply impossible. The only feasible ways might be antimatter annihilation or singularity bombs made from dark matter.
The lowest-cost method, of course, was antimatter.
In theory, just one anti-hydrogen atom would be enough to annihilate a sophon. This was even more resource-efficient than destroying a droplet.
But the problem was how to hit the target.
Sophon movement was faster and more agile than droplets. If it detected an anti-hydrogen atom ahead, it certainly wouldn't blindly crash into it.
On top of that, antimatter was so unstable in nature that it could barely exist under normal conditions. Once outside of a special containment vessel, it would self-annihilate within less than 0.1 seconds.
Thus, trying to fire antimatter to hit a sophon was harder than asking Zhang Fei to embroider a flower. Even figuring out how to preserve antimatter in open environments long enough was a problem that could stump them.
When the group fell into silence, Hermann voiced his idea: "A proton carries a positive charge. Even if the Trisolarans modified it into a sophon, its basic properties wouldn't have changed."
"We could create a powerful electromagnetic field to imprison it first. After that, how to handle it would be up to us."
However, Alt Cunningham immediately shook her head, rejecting the plan. "We thought of this method a long time ago, but how to set up a strong electromagnetic field is itself a difficult problem."
"In the ideal case, we could lay down a powerful electromagnetic field along the path of the sophon's flight, lying in wait to catch it in one sweep."
"But that's only in theory. You have to remember, every move we make on Earth is under the sophons' surveillance. The moment they detect that we're trying to generate a strong magnetic field, there's no way they'd throw themselves into the trap."
"Most likely, the second we prepare to activate the field, the sophon would already have slipped beyond its range, leaving us with nothing but an empty net."
The sophon itself was essentially a Trisolaran AI built upon a supercomputer, with a degree of autonomous thought. While it didn't understand human thinking very well, its scientific observation capabilities were formidable.
So, from any angle, trying to capture a sophon with a strong electromagnetic field would inevitably alert it—doomed to be a futile effort.
"Then I'm afraid the only option left is to cut in from the microscopic domain—build a proton killer just like the sophon, and intercept it."
Herman gave a helpless, bitter smile.
"But what if we try a different approach? What if we set up strong electromagnetic fields around each particle accelerator? Wouldn't that at least stop sophons from interfering with human experiments?"
V spoke up.
If such a method could help humanity break free from the technological blockade sooner, it might even trigger a technological explosion here on Earth, sparing Universal Megacorp some headaches.
But Dr. Halsey, standing to the side, shook her head in denial. "That method has already been tried."
"Yes, it can keep sophons out for a short while, but over time, it becomes useless."
V was startled. "Why is that?"
"Protons carry a positive charge—that's undeniable."
"But resolving the issue of charge isn't that hard. A sophon only needs to absorb some electrons in advance to neutralize its positive charge, letting it pass through the electromagnetic field in a neutral state without difficulty."
Dr. Halsey sighed. "Finding the exact number of electrons to match is no easy feat, but for a sophon, it's only a matter of spending some time."
"Counting on electromagnetic fields to block sophons is pointless. Trapping one that way is far too difficult."
Hearing this, V couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath. He hadn't realized how troublesome a sophon could be, enough to stump so many brilliant minds.
If they kept discussing it like this, the problems would just branch endlessly.
The only truly effective solution seemed to be accelerating progress in microscopic science. Without filling those knowledge gaps, any shortcut would be meaningless.
The Trisolarans had secured far too great an advantage through their mastery of the microscopic realm—especially in terms of information asymmetry.
"Do the sophons know our location yet?"
V turned to Alt Cunningham.
They had been in the Three-Body universe for some time. Even if the sophons had detected their presence, that would be acceptable. What mattered was whether they'd forever be trapped at a disadvantage in the information war.
Alt Cunningham waved her hand, expanding the holographic screen. The solar system unfolded in front of them. She pulled up a map and pointed to several fast-moving red dots.
"Those five red dots are the Trisolarans' sophons. Three are orbiting Earth, another is stationed near Jupiter to monitor Fleet International."
"The last one is hovering around the War Moon, circling endlessly. I think it hasn't found a way inside yet, so it can only linger nearby, searching for an opening."
V's brows knit tighter. Just as expected—they had already been discovered by the Trisolarans.
The only fortunate thing was that headquarters hadn't been fully exposed to sophon surveillance yet. At present, the sophons only knew that something was wrong here, but not the specifics.
Right now, Universal Megacorp felt somewhat powerless against the Trisolaran edge in microtech—but conversely, the Trisolarans were equally powerless against the Megacorp's own technologies.
Neither side could do much to the other.
The difference was, the Megacorp was relying on its immense technological productivity to rapidly catch up in the microscopic field, while the Trisolarans had no way to close the gap with the Megacorp.
As long as time dragged on, it would be the Megacorp—and human civilization—that laughed last.
At that moment, the long-silent Chisaji fox suddenly spoke. "What if we lure a sophon into the War Moon, then trap it with an energy field?"
The War Moon of Universal Megacorp relied on the Inheritance Provisional warship's light-bending stealth technology and powerful energy fields to maintain its near-perfect disguise.
Chisaji fox believed that once a sophon entered the War Moon, shutting down the field would leave the thing trapped, a turtle in a jar.
V froze for a second, then quickly reacted. If the War Moon deliberately exposed itself to a sophon, it really would be easy to lure it in.
But wouldn't that be inviting a wolf into the house?
Alt Cunningham immediately shook her head in refusal. "Impossible. Leaving aside the risks to us, three sophons at most would be enough to monitor the War Moon."
"We can't expect the Trisolarans to send all five just to watch it. Capturing only a few sophons—what's the point if we can't catch them all?"
In truth, what worried Alt Cunningham the most wasn't the feasibility of the plan, but its political consequences.
If a sophon managed to sabotage things in secret and endangered the Megacorp's governor, they would all be blamed as the culprits, unable to escape responsibility.
Li Ang's personal safety outweighed the success of any integration campaign in the Three-Body universe.
"Besides, our energy shields don't activate or shut down that quickly. Sophons move at light speed. The instant they sense a trap, they can easily escape."
The Infinite Godmind at the Science Nexus had long since run through countless simulations of possible schemes—including the very one Chisaji fox suggested.
It did carry some chance of success. But the risks of failure, and the consequences that would follow, were beyond what they could bear.
Too much classified information and intelligence could never be allowed to fall into Trisolaran hands.
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