Chapter 530: Low-Light-Speed Black Domain! Singer Civilization: Friend, You Slipped Up!
Aside from the sophons, the droplet probes naturally became part of the Universal Megacorp's spoils as well. But the technological content of these constructs wasn't particularly high—something the Megacorp could have developed independently.
Still, something free is always better than nothing.
Next came the Trisolaran civilization's lightspeed navigation devices—their curvature engines.
Although the Megacorp had long since mastered superluminal technology and could bring it out at will, the Trisolarans' curvature-drive engines had their own unique qualities.
In fact, compared to the Megacorp's curvature technology, theirs was somewhat more refined.
In the Three-Body universe, the function of these curvature-drive ships was not merely limited to travel. Rather, they could change the survival environment of the universe itself!
Curvature drives alter the structure of space. Along a single flight trajectory, only one ship may pass. Any ship attempting to follow and alter curvature to achieve lightspeed must rely on a drive of greater power.
Otherwise, subsequent ships traveling the same trajectory could not reach lightspeed, and would be forced to move at a crawling pace.
In other words, within that path of altered space, the vacuum speed of light had effectively been reduced.
If curvature drives were continuously employed along trajectories, lowering the vacuum light speed to an unbelievable degree, it was theoretically possible to reduce the speed of light to zero.
However, the Trisolaran civilization could at most reduce it to 16.7 kilometers per second. Such low-light-speed space was called the Black Domain.
This was a death zone from which not even light could escape. Once light entered, its speed would immediately fall from 300,000 kilometers per second to just 16.7 kilometers per second.
From lightning-quick, it became as sluggish as a snail.
Compared with lightspeed navigation itself, this was far more fascinating to the staff of the Science Hub Department. On the surface, the Black Domain seemed merely like a side effect of curvature drive. But in their eyes, it was instead the most effective kind of limiting weapon.
"What do you think the Black Domain could be used for?"
Newly joined at the Megacorp Science Hub, Luo Ji asked this curiously of Qiansi Hu, Ot, and the others.
"This is a technological blockade far more extreme than the sophons," Chisaji fox replied.
A Black Domain does not dissipate quickly. It can only be undone through the slow, natural re-adjustment of universal curvature—like cutting down a forest and waiting for it to regrow.
By cosmic standards, that restoration would take at least hundreds of millions of years.
Earth itself has existed only 4.5 billion years. The Big Bang occurred a mere 13.8 billion years ago. In that span, countless civilizations could rise and fall within the hundreds of millions of years needed for natural recovery.
This essentially meant that a formed Black Domain was enough to lock a civilization's future in place.
Hearing this, Luo Ji quickly pieced it together.
If the Megacorp dispatched over a thousand curvature-drive ships, accelerating to lightspeed from the Solar System in all directions, the resulting paths could overlap and expand into a single whole.
Thus, a Black Domain enveloping the Solar System would be formed, lowering the speed of light there to 16.7 kilometers per second.
The consequences would be obvious: anyone trapped within this region would not only be unable to advance civilization, but even basic long-distance communication would collapse.
For example, modern communications rely on radio waves—electromagnetic waves in vacuum travel at the speed of light.
If that light speed were forcibly reduced to 16.7 kilometers per second, then a phone call from Europe to America would suffer at least an 800-second delay.
Normal communication would be impossible.
Human civilization would regress to a state even before the Industrial Revolution.
Even more terrifying, the reduced light speed would be slower than the third cosmic velocity. That meant the Black Domain would seize and imprison every ray of light—a veritable black hole in truth.
A civilization imprisoned in such a black hole could use no communication devices at all. It would be as if some heavenly law had shackled them to an alternate world.
"So, we could use this method to limit another civilization's technological development," Luo Ji mused.
With the Megacorp's productivity, deploying such a fleet of curvature-drive ships would be no problem.
If it were just to seal a single planet, then a mere hundred ships would more than suffice. That was even more lethal than sophon-based technological blockades.
At this point, Paul suddenly recalled the Megacorp was constructing certain fantasy realms in the Birch World. Perhaps this Black Domain technology could be used to seal those worlds.
With both Black Domain and sophons as methods of containment, they could create batches of low-martial cultivation fantasy worlds, such as Joy of Life or Ever Night.
Then, as if struck by inspiration, Luo Ji said: "Could it be that some civilizations have already used this Black Domain technology to seal their own regions?
"To make a sort of cosmic safety declaration, avoiding attack by higher civilizations."
Luo Ji's mind was sharp—he had already anticipated what Chisaji fox had been about to explain.
Indeed, using the Black Domain as a way of broadcasting a cosmic safety declaration was precisely the tactic some lower civilizations employed to beg for mercy.
In simple terms: crippling themselves, killing their own future prospects, so that advanced civilizations would deem them harmless and no longer bother to waste effort striking them.
In fact, the Black Domain itself might already be one form of Dark Forest strike—reducing light speed to erase a civilization's threat.
"Dr. Luo Ji, your insight into the workings of this universe is astonishingly keen. Yes, this method has indeed been adopted by many civilizations, seeking to avoid annihilation by higher ones," Chisaji fox nodded.
In the Three-Body universe, there were such "cemetery civilizations," dwelling in low-light-speed zones. They used this method to lock themselves away, forever renouncing expansion.
Through self-imprisonment, they escaped attack—at the price of abandoning all future possibility.
Yet this so-called cosmic safety declaration was more a customary convention than a binding law. Like sparing a foe who had already flashed their surrender signal in a game—it had no real force.
If the Singer Civilization still insisted on dropping a dimensional strike, these low-light-speed civilizations would be just as doomed, left only to await death.
So this cosmic safety declaration was, in essence, nothing but a futile ostrich act. A self-castration survival tactic despised by higher civilizations—the lowest of the low options.
Naturally, the Megacorp would never use such a ridiculous method to seal the Solar System. They would only use it against others.
"Right now, we are patiently waiting for the Dark Forest strike from other higher civilizations. This is a perfect observational opportunity," chisagi fox revealed of the Megacorp Headquarters' plan.
Though a Dark Forest strike had already occurred once, the target star system 187J3X1 lay 50 light-years from the Solar System—far too distant for the Megacorp to observe.
They had no way of learning the precise outcome.
That was why the strike destined for the Trisolaran system, only 4.2 light-years away, was of such vital importance.
Only by discerning the adversary's true methods could they know how to make their next move.
...
...
The Singer had no personal name. It was merely a janitor of civilizations, faithfully guarding its post. Because it liked to hum songs through its vocal organs while working, it was called the Singer.
It traveled aboard a ship called the "Seed," leaving its homeworld to carry out a cleanup mission in the low-entropy world.
The task itself was not complicated. All it needed to do was consult the coordinate data and determine which civilizations had exposed their positions in this deadly game of hide-and-seek—then "clean up" as a friendly reminder:
Friend, you've been exposed.
Hide yourself well, carry out the cleaning—that was the survival law of the universe.
For them, this was not difficult. When a janitor saw a burning cigarette butt on the ground, all he had to do was stamp it out and toss it into the trash.
The Seed's storage bay held a vast stockpile of light particles. How many star systems had been destroyed with them so far, even the Singer itself no longer remembered. The records were all stored in the Seed's main database anyway.
But the work had become trivial.
Because the Singer civilization's homeworld was now locked in war with a border civilization, both sides pouring immense resources into the conflict, the Singer's cleanup missions were gradually ignored.
Not that it mattered.
The Singer civilization was not the only force that cleaned low-entropy worlds. Across billions of them, there were countless janitors like itself.
The job was always being done—one more or one less made no difference.
After all, being a janitor was easy. Finding unextinguished cigarette butts was simple too. The universe had no shortage of potential civilizations. All you needed to do was lure them into exposing themselves.
What's more, cleanup barely consumed resources. A single light particle was enough to ignite a star.
Just then, the Singer received a set of coordinates transmitted by gravitational wave broadcast along the Seed's flight path.
The strange thing was that the coordinates pointed directly to the broadcaster's own location.
It was an absurd mistake. No competent hide-and-seek player would shout out where they were hiding.
"A civilization that is not very clever."
The Singer hummed softly as it retrieved a light particle from the Seed's storage.
It locked its gaze onto the star system indicated by the coordinates. The core aligned with the Singer's line of sight, like a bow drawn taut and ready to release.
Field-tentacles gripped the light particle, just about to launch it, when the Singer's eyes lingered once more on that place, and its tentacles loosened.
That star system had no planets—only three suns with wildly chaotic orbits, forming a hellish world utterly unsuited for low-entropy civilizations to survive in.
"How strange. Has this place already been cleaned?"
Of course, destroying planets was also a form of cleanup, but it was more troublesome and time-consuming.
After all, each star was itself a vast powder keg, its structure maintained by an exquisitely balanced energy system. If the calculations were correct, a tiny disturbance could set off a chain reaction inside the star.
And once the reaction spread, it would shatter local equilibrium, unleashing an even greater explosion—enough to annihilate the entire star system.
So ordinarily, light particles were aimed at stars. Directly targeting planets could never ensure a clean sweep in one strike.
Besides, destroying planets consumed far more material, a grave waste of resources.
Janitors were not allowed, nor was it necessary, to fixate on any single planet. The simplest, most final method was to destroy the star itself.
At once, the Singer carefully scanned the Trisolaris system, searching for debris from destroyed planets. No matter the weapon used, there should have been traces left behind.
Even a faint wisp of cosmic dust would mark a planet's annihilation.
But something uncanny happened.
The star system contained no planetary remnants at all, as if no planets had ever existed there.
That raised a question: if no planets existed, then where had the gravitational wave signal been transmitted from? Civilizations could not possibly arise within stars themselves.
So why did the signal point to a system without planets, without life?
Could it be an error in the system, misdirecting to the wrong star system?
But the Singer soon dismissed that thought, because it spotted the trails of a curvature drive lingering in the system.
Strangely, the origin of those trails was an empty patch of space—as if they had emerged out of nothing.
Or perhaps…
There had once been a planet there, but for some reason it had vanished, leaving only curvature trails behind as proof of its existence.
"Maybe they used some technology to hide the planet."
The Singer mused. Some civilizations did indeed possess such technology, beyond the reach of ordinary scans.
That would require more advanced observation tools. The Seed had one on board.
But just as the Singer prepared to activate the device known as the Great Eye, an elder from the homeworld appeared to stop it. Ordinary janitors were not qualified to use it.
"What are you doing? The Great Eye isn't available for idle use."
The Singer elder spoke coldly.
The Great Eye was a four-dimensional observation instrument, capable of disregarding distance to view anything. But the cost of activating it was exorbitant.
At a time when the Singer civilization had to tighten its belt for war, every unnecessary expense was strictly forbidden.
"There's a strange low-entropy civilization here. I just want to take a closer look." The Singer answered honestly.
"All you need is a glance from afar, enough to confirm whether civilization traces exist. Even if you can't be certain, one light particle isn't expensive."
The elder grew displeased with this overly curious junior. Using the Great Eye once cost as much as maintaining ten janitors.
This one had no right to employ such a powerful tool.
Seeing the elder's firm refusal, the Singer no longer pressed the matter.
Janitors were the most common and ordinary workers aboard the Seed, always looked down upon, treated with disdain.
The Singer was merely one of the lowest among them, unqualified to argue. So it had no choice but to proceed with the cleanup of the Trisolaris system. Any civilization that left traces must be erased.
Once more, the Singer retrieved a light particle from the Seed's storage—this time preparing to hurl it at one of the Trisolaris suns.
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