Chapter 126: Defence Line
The live-fire combat drills Tom was conducting at this stage had incorporated all the conceptualized weapons.
Besides conventional warships, various unmanned weapons also began to play a role, manipulated by Goku AI to execute different offensive tactics, testing the effectiveness of each strategy.
Sometimes, an A-side fleet would advance stealthily, believing itself to be undetected, attempting to ambush a B-side base.
In this airspace, the A-side fleet’s reconnaissance forces had conducted numerous searches, confirming no B-side forces were deployed there.
But in the vast, empty deep space, a group of nuclear missiles using separable nuclear-explosion propulsion suddenly activated, striking fiercely from an extremely distant location, with speeds reaching over one hundred kilometers per second, catching the fleet’s interception systems off guard.
Ultimately, some nuclear missiles breached the A-side fleet, exploding with a roar, their scorching light and heat vaporizing a portion of the A-side warships, directly crippling this A-side fleet attempting a sneak attack.
Other times, a B-side fleet would be fleeing for its life, engines at maximum power, trying to escape the battlefield. But just as it was about to break through, a group of space mines were automatically activated.
These space mines were small, weighing less than 1 kg in total. They did not use secondary pressurized propulsion or any other advanced propulsion technology, relying solely on the simplest, most primitive chemical propulsion.
Each space mine contained approximately 500 grams of fuel. At this moment, this fuel was jettisoned as if there were no tomorrow, accelerating them at full throttle.
Although chemical fuel has a low specific impulse, it has the advantage of high instantaneous thrust, providing immense acceleration in an instant.
Thus, in the next moment, these space mines reached speeds of several hundred meters per second, rushing toward the fleeing B-side fleet like a swarm of piranhas.
Due to the close proximity, the sheer number, and their prior concealment, the B-side fleet’s interception system, caught off guard, also failed to perform effectively.
Space mines, each loaded with 200 grams of all-nitrogen anion salt and possessing the equivalent destructive power of high-energy electromagnetic cannon projectiles, exploded at close range, either directly damaging the warship armor or releasing fragments and projectiles with extremely high kinetic energy, instantly plunging the entire fleet into chaos.
Space turrets deployed in interstellar space roared, unleashing their destructive power from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.
Countless spy satellites shuttled back and forth, diligently probing the enemy’s movements and deployments. If conditions were suitable, these spy satellites would even moonlight as armed satellites, taking out a few of the enemy’s communication points and disrupting their facilities.
Swarms of unmanned spacecraft, like schools of sharks, crisscrossed through space, swarming any suitable target they encountered.
A large number of supercomputing ships lay dormant in every corner of the starfield. Each supercomputing ship housed a strategic version of Goku AI, remotely commanding all unmanned forces within a radius of several million, even tens of millions of kilometers, and assisting manned warships in combat...
During the live-fire combat drills, Tom strictly adhered to one principle: the intelligence separation policy.
Although in essence Tom was commanding both the A-fleet and B-fleet, and knew all intelligence concerning both fleets, in actual command, the intelligence of the A-fleet would not in the slightest influence decisions regarding the B-fleet.
Even though Tom clearly knew the A-fleet had dispatched an ambush fleet, when making decisions for the B-fleet, he would still make them as if the B-fleet was unaware of the ambush.
Unless Tom had previously ordered the B-fleet to conduct a large-scale search and they had already discovered the ambush fleet.
In such a case, the B-fleet would specifically set up counter-ambush arrangements, turning the tables. When commanding the A-fleet in combat, Tom would likewise not alter the A-fleet’s combat plan based on the B-fleet’s intelligence.
Because under normal circumstances, the A-fleet could not possibly know the B-fleet’s plans.
The same applied to the strategic version of Goku AI. The two Goku AI systems were strictly isolated, with no intelligence intermingling.
Under these circumstances, various weapons were deployed in rotation, and countless tactics emerged. The almost infinite data from real battlefields allowed the strategic version of Goku AI to grow rapidly.
By now, Tom increasingly realized that war AI would be indispensable in future interstellar warfare and would hold an extremely important position.
But at the same time, Tom also more clearly realized that AI is always just AI.
Before the birth of true strong artificial intelligence—that is, AI that can truly possess creativity and wisdom like a living organism, possessing true life—no matter how powerful AI is, it will still only be an auxiliary.
Under any circumstances, humans are the most important.
Just like now, even though Goku AI is already so powerful, it still cannot operate without the on-site decision-making and maintenance of clones.
Similarly, on the battlefield, manned fleets are the most important, and also the most elite and powerful in combat.
Many arduous combat missions can still only be accomplished by manned fleets. Goku AI can provide much assistance, but it ultimately cannot replace real people.
"But it doesn’t matter. My AI can’t replace real people, and the AIs of other civilizations likewise can’t replace real people. And my AI is even more powerful than theirs."
Tom thought this, and once again gathered the entire solar system’s resource supply, investing it into the seemingly endless live combat drills.
Countless factories roared day and night, hundreds of millions of clones held their posts, and countless spacecraft bustled back and forth. This endless stream of materials was ultimately transformed into components, engines, armor plates, and projectiles produced by the factories, all of which then either silently or explosively became space debris or interstellar dust on the space battlefield through various means.
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, several decades had passed. At this moment, Tom finally halted the live-fire combat drills.
The booming solar system, where just moments before both sides had been fighting to the death in an unending struggle, simultaneously ceased their attacks, as if the previous fierce war was merely an illusion.
All surviving fleets formed up and converged on their respective bases.
At this point, combining the intelligence he had acquired from large-scale deep space exploration, Tom estimated that the Bluetoth Civilization’s main fleet would arrive in approximately 40-60 years.
The lengthy combat drills had allowed Tom to accumulate sufficient war knowledge.
Goku AI had also evolved to an extremely high degree.
So, it was time to use this last period to do another, most important thing.
Build the solar system defense line!