Just as Bai Yi was preparing to go to the asteroid belt, the Border Guard's internal network received a text message from the Galactic Alliance Combat Command.
The tachyon telescope detected suspicious subspace fluctuations in a wandering galaxy 5,000 light-years away from the Milky Way. The frequency of the fluctuations matched the subspace engine used by the Crystal Storm with a degree of 99%.
From the perspective of the Milky Way, 5,000 light-years is a very dangerous distance. Considering the entire Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000 light-years, this distance is literally right under the Milky Way's nose.
Therefore, the Galactic Alliance attaches great importance to this. They have sent probes to the galaxy and put the First Fleet into combat readiness.
The First Fleet was the largest and most comprehensive fleet in the galaxy, with most of its ships converted from the original expedition fleet. After the expedition plan was aborted, these ships had served as the mainstay of the galaxy's defense.
The First Fleet is stationed above the vertical line of the galactic disk. As the area with the weakest defense in the Milky Way galaxy, the First Fleet was assigned here to fill this gap.
During the Great Crusade, a probe traveling 5,000 light years would require years of acceleration and deceleration. However, under the threat of the Crystal Storm, the entire galaxy was plunged into a bizarre arms race. Over the past two thousand years, people's living standards have barely improved, and all technology has been steered towards war.
It is precisely because of this far-fetched technology tree that a state-of-the-art subspace probe now only takes a few months to fly the same distance.
The message of the probe's departure was sent to all the fortress systems, artificial floating islands, and border guards in the Milky Way. Of course, this did not mean that they would participate in the reconnaissance team, but only that they would be prepared for the possible war.
Humanity knows nothing about the details of the Crystal Storm. Due to the distance, humans could only launch very expensive and advanced detectors to obtain a pitiful amount of information within a predictable timeframe.
Although it was unknown what method the Crystal Storm used, it was clear that the probes launched by the Galaxy could not escape the Crystal Storm's scanning. As long as these probes transmitted signals or activated the jump engine near the crystals, they would be immediately destroyed.
Tachyon telescopes cannot directly observe crystal storms. Due to the nature of tachyons, telescopes can only see the target's energy intensity and the spatial fluctuations left by the crystals as they enter and exit the subspace.
By studying the traces left behind by these energy levels and subspace fluctuations, people can infer the scale of these crystal storms. Currently, there are thousands of crystal storm clusters discovered, most of which are concentrated in the interior of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
But this does not mean anything, because there are a lot of subspace fluctuations at the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud, and the tachyon telescope can only see the pictures from hundreds of years ago. No one can guarantee that these crystal storms are still in the same place. They may have been heading towards the Milky Way hundreds of years ago.
The only thing to be thankful for is that no large-scale subspace fluctuations have yet been detected at the edge of the Milky Way. The rogue galaxy discovered 5,000 light-years away some time ago was the closest the crystal storm has ever come to the Milky Way, and the intensity of the spatial fluctuations was also limited. While the number of ships inferred from the intensity of the fluctuations is not small, compared to the energy clusters spanning dozens of light-years within the Large Magellanic Cloud, this is only a small advance guard.
At the end of the message, the command also asked all departments to speed up the construction of defense facilities. The command seemed quite dissatisfied with the current progress of the project and asked all departments to spare no effort to complete all planned projects within 100 years.
After reading the full text, Bai Yi was about to close the communication channel when he suddenly received a new message.
This message was not a full-screen broadcast, but a targeted one. The sender was the Pan-Galactic Strategic Command, and the recipients were all the border guards and local administrators in Bai Yi's star region.
"To all administrators, border guards, and fleet commanders of Sector 7732."
"Due to considerations of the war situation, the Second Fleet of the Pan-Galactic Defense Force will arrive at the following area in October of the Defense Era, 1997, and will begin stargate construction upon arrival. All departments must obey orders and cooperate with each other to ensure security and supply."
Bai Yi checked the coordinates on the star map. This area was roughly located in the center of the entire star field, less than 100 light-years away from where Bai Yi was. Building a stargate here would significantly increase the current area's military strength and mobility.
The stargate network is an important structure that maintains the flow of materials and information within the Milky Way. Stargates in different locations are connected to each other through subspace channels.
Although both the stargate network and the jump engine are a way of using the subspace for faster-than-light travel, there are essential differences between the two.
When a starship utilizes its own jump drive to navigate the subspace, the energy consumed increases exponentially with speed and distance. Furthermore, jump drives also impose certain limitations on ship mass and size. This is a key reason why starships that employ neutron armor as a defensive measure haven't become widespread.
But the Stargate Network is different. Stargates are anchored in space and do not move. When two Stargates are connected, they create a highly stable subspace channel within the subspace, creating a highly stable subspace environment. This allows even ships without jump drives to travel faster than light through these subspace channels.
At the same time, the energy consumed by subspace channels increases linearly with distance and is insensitive to the mass and properties of the objects passing through. Therefore, the subspace lines between stargates can connect extremely long distances. In addition to macroscopic matter, information can also flow through these channels.
In fact, Stargate has a very important function, which is to serve as the server of the entire galactic Internet.
If the construction and subsequent maintenance of stargates were not a very large expense, these stargates would have already been everywhere in the Milky Way.
While Bai Yi's location was at the edge of the Milky Way, it faced the crystal storm center 5,000 light-years away. While not directly perpendicular to the center of the Milky Way, the Milky Way's rotation would gradually close the distance between them over the next tens of thousands of years. Therefore, building a stargate here was perfectly natural and a sound decision.
Once a war breaks out after the stargate is built, battle reports from the front can be quickly transmitted to the rear through the stargate network, and the defense fleet located at the rear of the galaxy can also be deployed to the front line at the fastest speed through the stargate.
Bai Yi looked at the time. It was now April 1997, and there were still six months before the Second Fleet arrived. This period of time was enough for him to complete the transformation of the New Mars flying ship.
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