Bai Yi still had no idea what happened on Luo Fan. When the explosion occurred, he was wiping the drone's camera with lens paper.
These drones were recently produced and had a very simple structure consisting of an engine, controller, and sensor equipment. They were more like aerial photography devices than military drones used for attack or reconnaissance missions.
The reason for building these drones is that the subspace sensors that Bai Yi had previously deployed at the edge of the galaxy showed that a group of space whales were entering the galaxy.
This is one of the rarest species in the entire galaxy. Bai Yi cannot miss the opportunity to see it with his own eyes.
The Space Whale Ti'kaon is considered the largest space creature. Biologists and archaeologists generally believe that they existed since the early days of the Milky Way.
The Tikeons' anatomy is similar to that of whales on Earth, and they are actually believed to have evolved from ocean-dwelling whales. Even after billions of years of evolution, they still have distinct fins and tails, and when navigating space, they twist their bodies to create paddling-like motions.
The reason why Ti'kaeon can travel through space has always been a hot topic of discussion. A scientific research organization once tracked a Ti'kaeon for 1,500 years and ultimately determined that these whales follow a technological path completely different from mainstream human space travel.
The thrusters commonly used by human spacecraft provide power by ejecting fluid in the opposite direction. However, these space whales, as living organisms, cannot carry large amounts of labor or withstand the high temperatures caused by combustion. Therefore, they do not eject anything backwards when sailing, but instead move by directly manipulating space itself.
This method is similar to a warp drive. Essentially, it compresses the space behind you to stretch the space in front of you, and then uses the rebound force of the space itself to carry you forward.
Similar equipment had appeared in the United Nations labs thousands of years ago. However, compared to subspace engines, this type of engine had no advantages in energy consumption and power, so it never became mainstream.
But there are also common points between the two.
For example, these whales also use the warp lanes between stars for interstellar travel. However, they are more sensitive to gravitational interference when entering the warp, and need to be farther away from the star to enter the warp. Therefore, whales often spend several months traversing the entire galaxy, moving from one end of the gravitational field to the other.
The drone was ready, and a giant black metal hand picked up the drone and placed it on the acceleration track.
The acceleration track is Bai Yi's latest work. It can launch some objects with smaller volume and mass directly into the subspace and travel in it at a speed far beyond common sense.
However, at present, this thing can only play a drone-sized toy within the star system, and it can be regarded as an experimental product.
Place the drone at the starting point of the accelerator, and the entire acceleration track will slowly turn, with the end of the track pointing in the direction of the space whale.
3…2…1…
As the light bulb on the indicator changed from red to yellow and then to green, the drone, originally on the track, instantly transformed into a blue arrow and disappeared into the boundless darkness with a whoosh.
The drone itself lacked a jump core, so its navigation through the subspace relied entirely on the pre-set parameters of the acceleration track. Fortunately, the acceleration track's landing point was extremely precise. Ten minutes later, as the drone emerged from the chaotic subspace, its onboard sensors immediately detected a school of whales in the distance.
This is a fully mature whale group, with a roughly estimated number of individuals at around eighty or ninety, a number that is approaching the upper limit of the Ti’kaion group.
Although the Ti'kaeons are social creatures, their communities follow a strange rule. Whenever a pod reaches 100 individuals, the newborn whales, upon reaching adulthood, will split off, led by a certain number of elders. These split-off individuals will form a new pod, where they will reproduce and thrive until the current pod also reaches 100, at which point the cycle begins again.
They seem to have relied on this method to expand and continue the species to this day.
The drone had already approached the pod. The leading whale was the largest of the group. It measured over 5 kilometers long, its earthy brown skin riddled with indentations. These marks, combined with its size, suggested it was likely over 7,000 years old.
The oldest known Ti'kaion is over 30,000 years old, and reverse engineering of tissue samples suggests a lifespan of 35,000 to 40,000 years. This 7,000-year-old elder is still in his prime, suggesting this group of whales may have evolved from descendants of an even older group.
Ti'kaion is a parthenogenetic, viviparous creature. At birth, each Ti'kaion contains a number of immature eggs. These eggs begin to develop at specific stages of the individual's growth and grow into embryos when needed.
There is a certain degree of division of labor and cooperation in the Ti'kaeon society. Because the gestation period is as long as 7 to 10 years, in most cases only 5% of the individuals in the entire fish school will be pregnant, and the remaining whales act as guards and predators.
These whales rely on free hydrogen ions in the universe for energy and will also nibble on meteorite ice if they have the chance. The predators use their large bodies to ram the ice, then take the fragments in their mouths and bring them back to feed the pregnant individuals.
Drones traveled through the schools of fish. These space whales were very gentle and would rarely fight back even if attacked. Based on anatomical data, biologists believed that the nerve conduction speed of these creatures was only half that of modern humans, while the brain capacity was comparable to that of gorillas.
This caused Tikaeon to be unusually slow to react to pain. So it wasn't that they weren't afraid of pain, but simply couldn't react quickly enough.
Because of this, the Ti'kaeon were once hunted to near extinction throughout the Milky Way. In many civilizations, their meat and gelatinous tissue are considered a potent tonic. In fact, a unique civilization in the Sagittarius Arm even celebrated the hunting of Ti'kaeons as a festival.
Two thousand years ago, the Galactic Alliance's Biological Conservation Organization designated the Space Whale Tikion as a Class A endangered species, prohibiting its capture and hunting throughout the galaxy. After thousands of years of recuperation, this endangered species gradually recovered.
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