A brilliant star appeared in the corner of the view, and the sunlight was weakened and filtered to prevent it from stabbing the eyes of everyone on the bridge.Hao Ren asked the data terminal to adjust the lens of the external monitor and saw the situation around the star.The so-called "Planet Erim" is long gone, the planet that was gradually dismantled into pieces thousands of years ago, and now it is a continuous floating island of space orbiting the original planet, like a series of fragments of similarly sized cones floating in space.In order to extract the last bit of resources from the planet's underground, and to replenish the planet's depleting energy cycle as much as possible, those elves resolutely dismantled their entire planet, turning it into a fragmented state that could accept the sun's energy to the maximum and accommodate more people.It was only after the rock formations deep in the mantle were dismantled and reshaped into these floating islands that they were given valuable living space and, even more preciously, a testing ground.Those space floating islands have obvious traces of artificial shaping, their main body is the rock of the planet itself, but the floating island can be seen around the huge artificial "hoop", those already a little dull, the material between rock and metal man-made structures not only maintain the stability of the floating island's form, but also produce a kind of energy cover to level one side of the island, the other side is a huge ugly rock foundation, in the uneven inverted hanging mountains can see the ancient and huge mechanical structure, they are the floating island's power device, gravity generator, energy stations, and material recycling plants.The mechanical structures are probably thousands of years old, and there is no trace of damage in them, but it is clear that the people who made them do not have the energy and resources to repair them."
That's our home," Hilda calmed down at the moment, standing up and pointing to the holographic projection, "Some of the floating islands away from the main residential area are testing grounds, where we used to test space-time cores and super-powered magic accelerators.If we don't disassemble the planet like this, we won't even be able to find such a testing ground.The Magic Accelerator needs to be built on a solid and massive foundation, which cannot be carried by a conventional space station, and it could even tear half a planet apart if it explodes.Therefore, it cannot be placed on the home planet.There was a generation of scholars in history who built as much of a massive space platform as they could to barely carry out such dangerous experiments, but a fusion furnace explosion caused the platform to crash and nearly destroy the entire Northern Hemisphere, and these experiments were suspended until the planet was remodeled – but that was also in the past.Now that the Space-Time Core and Magic Accelerator experiments have been stopped, we really don't have the resources. ”"The floating islands with the bright energy shield are ecological islands, and there are ecological domes under the shield, and we have preserved the ecosystems of the planetary age as much as possible, transplanting them into a huge artificial circulation system that provides us with valuable complex organic matter and ......
It is also the only remaining luxury of my people.Each Erem elf can rest in the vaults fifteen days a year, but no more, as those vaults have a limit to their carrying capacity and are aging with some critical systems.They're actually going down, too.If they shut down, I'm afraid we'll have to rely entirely on factory synthetics to survive, and that will kill a lot of people: the Erem Elves are a slow-evolving race, healthy individuals have a thousand-year lifespan, the environment is deteriorating far faster than we can adapt to, and every time an ancient facility goes down, there will be a large number of old elves......
Even the prime-age elf died. ”"The floating islands that are connected by bright beams of light to each other are inhabited areas, and most of the elves live on them.They are specially designed to have the lowest energy consumption and the most robust circulation.Architectural planning is more reasonable, in other words......
It can be delayed much longer, and most of the crafting factories are on those floating islands, even if other floating islands, such as the proving ground, are accidentally destroyed.These settlements can also survive as much as possible. ”The spacecraft gradually approached those space islands in low-speed cruise mode, and Hao Ren found that there was a special group of individuals in the floating islands: they were hovering at the edge of the island chain, the whole was dim, and the "hoops" on the borders of some islands had even been damaged and fallen off or even disappeared, and the remnants of man-made buildings could still be faintly seen on the floating islands, but the energy shield over the land had obviously been extinguished.The earth, without a glimmer of light, seemed lifeless, like depleted space rocks."
What's that?""
The Land of the Dead," Hilda sighed, "we have shaped these seemingly magnificent spatial entities, but that doesn't mean we're highly skilled - these floating islands were built in a near-desperate way out of necessity, not technologically mature enough, not even theoretically perfect, and many of the islands have different structures, because the original designers themselves didn't know which ones would last longer.In addition, many floating islands are defective at the beginning of construction, and they cannot be repaired if they break down later, so there are constantly floating islands that are damaged, extinguished, and then become like that. ”Now even Lily was quiet, she was even a little afraid of the strange sight in front of her, she clamped her tail, but her ears were straight up: "What about the people up there?"
”"Most of the time it can be rescued and transferred to other islands," Hilda nodded, "This will increase the ecological pressure on other islands, so after each rescue transfer, a period of resource restriction laws will be implemented, mainly to limit newborns and reduce per capita supplies, and some old people will take the initiative to enter the 'Prayer World' and let the body accept euthanasia to make room for other young adults."
It can't be helped, we have to keep the whole race alive as much as possible. ”"This place ......," Hao Ren opened his mouth for a long time before he knew what to say, "it's more serious than I thought." ”As an earthling, a rookie censor who hadn't had time to experience too many events, Hao Ren couldn't imagine how many incredible things were happening in the vast void, and the disasters and dooms he saw from various stories could not be compared to the chain of space islands in front of him.Before he came here, he had thought about how he could help Hilda and her people - such as borrowing the Empire's Worldgate system and his contacts at Kuiper Station to see if he could send some supplies here, or buying some technology or ships from the vendors of the Fiali Void Consortium to give to these Erim Elves, as an Inquisitor he had a certain amount of "Imperial Ration Points" every month, but he had not used these things yet, It was only when he heard that these ration points could be exchanged for unusually abundant supplies from the major civilizations of the macro world, so he came up with the above idea.Only now it seems that all his plans will have to be revised.These Erim elves are far from being helped with a little bit of supplies or a little belated technology."
Your creativity and resilience are indeed commendable," the data terminal couldn't help but say something, "it's just that you haven't been able to discover the mystery of the faster-than-light engine - sometimes a fork in the tech tree can destroy a civilization, especially for a race like yours that is not congenitally well-off, as long as a technology is not developed in time, there is often no chance of turning over."
You can see that you've worked hard, but it's just ......
In the end, it didn't work out. ”Hilda sighed, "yes, the last spatial teleportation experiment also failed. ”When the Giant Turtle Rock Platform approached those island chains, it obviously attracted the attention of the Elrim elves, Hao Ren noticed that the communicator suddenly reported a large number of unknown contact signals, and some bright points of light quickly circled out from the backsides of several habitable floating islands and quickly approached the spaceship, and only after the camera pulled over did Hao Ren see that those were some triangular flying machines with rough edges and a gray-white metallic luster, and the shell of each aircraft was flashing bright runes, which were obviously different from the general impression of spaceships.Those are supposed to be the ships made by the Elim elves, but unfortunately they can't cross the slow long distance of tens of millions of light years.These gray-white triangular flying machines quickly came to the vicinity of the Giant Turtle Rock Platform, and Hao Ren slowed down the spacecraft to almost a standstill, so those "small spaceships" dozens of meters long stopped and did not make reckless moves such as rapid detour.The pilots inside them must have been in a state of great shock and nervousness, and the people in the bridge could even feel the emotion pervading through the cold space and the layers of starship armor.
(To be continued.) )