Xiao Yu’s fleet was steadily evolving toward a complete social structure. After all, the current nomadic style of development wasn’t suitable for use by a large-scale civilization. Right now, the size of Xiao Yu’s fleet wasn’t yet too massive, and he could still barely manage with this approach. But what about later, when the number of intelligent lifeforms under his command reached four hundred billion, or even four trillion? When the number of starships reached thirty million or more?
That would bring about a very practical problem, the issue of a permanent base of operations.
In the future, Xiao Yu’s responsibilities would only grow. He might need to mine rare minerals here while simultaneously waging war hundreds or even thousands of light-years away. Xiao Yu alone couldn’t be everywhere at once, and superluminal communication couldn’t span such vast distances. If he were to construct relay stations, there would be concerns over their safety and reliability. After much deliberation, he came to one conclusion, the most stable solution would be for him to remain at the center, while delegating tasks to the intelligent beings under his command.
Of course, having a permanent base would likely only come after reaching Level 6 Civilization. A Level 6 Civilization possessed space technology, it could tear open the great universe and create a small universe to serve as its stronghold. Xiao Yu believed that the so-called ‘safe zones’ of the Guardian Civilization were precisely such constructs. In terms of both security and concealment, a small universe offered incomparable advantages, far superior to simply choosing a random planet somewhere in the cosmos.
This attempt to establish a military was, in fact, Xiao Yu’s first experiment toward eventually creating a fixed base of operations. He was beginning to test what it meant to no longer handle everything personally, and to start delegating his responsibilities.
And so, under Xiao Yu’s command and control, a large-scale social restructuring began.
Massive recruitment campaigns were launched. Although the Dwarf Race’s brain development level still wasn’t enough for them to make meaningful scientific contributions, they were extremely well-suited for military service. As a result, all across the Forty One Home-class starships, Home One through Home Forty One, recruitment posters were plastered everywhere.
“Become a soldier, protect our homeland!”
“Fight for our glory! Fight for the Master!”
Slogans like these were seen throughout the fleet. And the results were exactly as Xiao Yu had expected, within just a month, he received over twenty billion applications. The Military Committee, led by Luka Two, got to work immediately. In a remarkably short amount of time, they drafted all the necessary protocols, enlistment criteria, training manuals, social integration plans, training programs, and more. A report over three million words long was quickly submitted to Xiao Yu. He spent less than a second reviewing the entire document in full, then convened another meeting with the Military Committee. After several days of detailed discussion and minor revisions, he approved the report.Thus, the creation of the military officially began, proceeding in full accordance with the approved plan.
The entire initiative was overseen by Luka Two, with Xiao Yu merely offering occasional assistance. During this period, Xiao Yu’s primary focus remained on fleet construction and technological research.
The research project led by Luka Four, to reduce mass while enhancing material properties, achieved complete success. As a result, the one trillion tons of Level 4 Alien Beast flesh was processed by Xiao Yu into approximately fifteen billion tons of material with vastly superior performance. The weight was reduced several dozen times over. These materials were distributed and stored across twenty Home-class ships, to be used when needed in the future.
Under the leadership of Luka Three, the development of the ship-mounted negative matter cannon had made a major breakthrough. For the first time, the volume and mass of the negative matter cannon had been reduced to the point where it could be installed even on Province-Class starships. But Xiao Yu still wasn’t satisfied. He aimed to reduce it further, down to the level where Town-Class or even Village-Class starships could be equipped with them. In Xiao Yu’s strategic vision, the negative matter cannon would become a standard-issue weapon alongside gravity bombs, material disintegration beams, antimatter bombs, and death ray weapons.
Though the destructive power of the negative matter cannon at this scale wasn’t necessarily greater than those other weapons, it had one key, unignorable advantage, faster-than-light velocity.
Just imagine, if two fleets were thirty million kilometers apart, a death ray would still take one hundred seconds to reach its target. But the negative matter cannon? It would hit instantly. That’s an enormous tactical advantage. Moreover, under faster-than-light travel conditions, the negative matter cannon was the only usable weapon. Of course, Xiao Yu still had access to spatial weapons, which could also be used during FTL movement.
Under Xiao Yu’s leadership, all scientists plunged into intense work. Five months later, the first military force was successfully formed. This army totaled 500,000 personnel, all assigned to warship operations, that is, soldiers trained to control starships in combat.
In truth, this first batch of 500,000 soldiers was purely experimental. Xiao Yu was almost certain that they would never encounter real combat during their service. However, through their training, the foundational military system would gradually take shape. The first group of military officers would emerge. Combat doctrines and military theorists would begin to appear. This was essentially building the skeleton of a military force. And over the next two hundred years, this skeleton would slowly be fleshed out, eventually gaining real combat capability.
Of these 500,000 soldiers, 400,000 were Dwarves. The remaining 100,000 slots were divided among the other intelligent species, Luka included. This ratio had been specifically ordered by Xiao Yu. Since the Dwarf Race was currently unable to contribute in other areas, they should contribute more in this one.
All 500,000 troops underwent virtual training. After all, commanding starships was not hand-to-hand combat, it didn’t require peak physical fitness. Virtual training was similar to the method used during biological experiments on the ten million Dwarves. A helmet was placed on the subject’s head, their nervous system was connected, and they were transported into a virtual world, where they trained by piloting starships in simulated combat.
Of course, this was only a temporary solution. As Xiao Yu gradually withdrew from civilian administration and freed up large amounts of computational power, he began designing ships specifically for these soldiers to operate.
The entire fleet plunged into a state of full-scale busyness. All intelligent lifeforms, alongside Xiao Yu, operated like clockwork, unceasingly active day in and day out.
Fifty years passed.
At long last, the miniaturized negative matter cannon small enough for Town-Class and Village-Class ships was successfully developed and widely deployed. As a result, Xiao Yu added a new task to his agenda, retrofitting all existing ships with the negative matter cannon and integrating it into their existing weapons systems.
This was a monumental undertaking. Xiao Yu planned to spend the next fifty years completing it.
Meanwhile, the retrofitting of the spatial weapons was also finished. A total of four spatial weapons were installed on four Nation-Class ships, the China, the Russia, the USA, and the Japan. These four ships became the absolute core of Xiao Yu’s fleet.
During this time, military development had also made major strides. The original 500,000-soldier force had expanded more than tenfold. By now, over six million intelligent beings were serving in the military. Combat branches had diversified as well. From a single type of soldier at the beginning, the force had grown to over a hundred different military specializations. These included: Ground combat units for planetary warfare, Special operations troops, skilled in concealment, capable of deep infiltration with only personal survival gear and Boarding units, specialized in breaching enemy ships and fighting in confined interior spaces.
In this process, a great number of militarily gifted individuals began to emerge. The proportion of psychosocial scientists in the Military Committee shrank significantly, eventually reduced to a mere advisory group. A flood of military doctrines and combat theories emerged, and various schools of thought clashed daily in intense debate. Of course, since there had yet to be any actual battles, the validity of these theories remained untested.
As for fleet expansion, backed by Xiao Yu’s massive computing power, new starships were being constructed constantly and continuously added to the fleet. During this period, Xiao Yu’s computational power had increased again, roughly tripled compared to before. But because the new-generation ships required more computing resources, this increase only allowed for the addition of about one million new ships.
Including another 500,000 ships designated for the growing military force, the total size of Xiao Yu’s fleet was projected to reach approximately 4.5 million ships by the scheduled completion time.
“If we calculate based on multi-unit coordination and multi-ship class integration, then a fleet of 4.5 million ships would likely include 10 to 30 Nation-Class ships, 500 to 600 Province-Class ships, around 5,000 to 7,000 City-Class ships, and the corresponding number of County-, Town-, and Village-Class ships. Assuming that each County-Class ship requires 100 intelligent beings to operate, then… hmm, we’ll need about 200 million soldiers to fully control them all. These 200 million troops must be thoroughly trained professionals. Add to that the necessary ground forces, boarding units, logistics personnel, and so on, and the total military force would reach approximately 500 million. Based on population ratios, supporting an army of 500 million would require a society with 100 to 200 billion inhabitants.”
“In my calculations, a basic or even intermediate Level 5 Technological Civilization operates roughly at this level.”
“In other words, the military power of the Molian Civilization should be more or less equal in scale to my current fleet. But I have spatial weapons and Four-Dimensional Shields, these are overwhelmingly decisive armaments…”
“So then, Molian Civilization, just wait for me.” Xiao Yu thought, full of confidence.
Just then, a strange message quietly entered Xiao Yu’s mind,
“Hello, Xiao Yu…”