The Falcon soars like a ghost through the stars.
Its tail ditched its rear thrusters like a rocket after its first acceleration to 482km/s, in favor of a compressed gas jet as steering.
The target's coordinates were at a distance of 417 astronomical units away from Hope, or 62.4 billion kilometers.
It would take four years to reach it at Peregrine Falcon's flight speed.
This is interstellar.
Every war, even a single probe can be made long by spatial distance.
In our solar system, the farthest Earth could reach Pluto in the Kuiper Belt was only 60 astronomical units.
4 years later.
The Peregrine Falcon's camera captured an object through the cosmic background in the dark starry sky.
Signal propagation took 2.4 days to propagate back to the Hope.
Looking at the huge celestial body on the screen, Jon looked astonished.
Although the image transmitted back did not tell the exact size of the celestial body, judging from its shape and roundness, it could not be small in itself.
Ella did the calculations on the side.
"Calculated, the radius of this celestial body is 8,426 kilometers, the surface area is about 892.18 million square kilometers, the volume is about 2.5058X10^12 cubic kilometers, and the gravity acceleration came back through the Falcon is 11.0547m/s^2."
The planet is huge.
The surface area was a full 380 million square kilometers larger than Earth.
Obviously, it was a stray planet that did not belong to any star system.
It might have originally been a planet at the core of a certain star system, but then something should have changed in its parent star, causing the planet's orbit to break away.
"The temperature of this void is -261.8 degrees Celsius, how did they give birth to a civilization in such space?"
Too many scientists on Earth aimed the birth of life at the habitable zones of star systems.
Not to mention Jon, even the top astrophysics gurus would be very surprised to see this scene.
Realizing that this temperature was already lower than the temperature inside the dormant cryopod, the atomic level would be affected, the movement of electrons would be slow, it wasn't even a matter of some carbon-based silicon base, no base could give birth to life at this temperature.
Ella also did an urgent probe.
"The planet's outer space temperature is higher than expected at -198.33 degrees Celsius."
"Presumably the planet possesses a fiery core."
Half a month later.
The Hope received the message again.
"Confirmed, the planet has many active volcanoes on its surface and possesses rich geothermal resources."
Ella pulled up a very blurry picture.
"Jon look here, here, and here, they are all relatively large craters."
"On this side there are traces of buildings existing, proving that this civilization relies on geothermal heat to survive."
Geothermal civilization.
There are also many volcanoes on Earth, but Earth's volcanic resources are far from enough to form a geothermal civilization.
The celestial body in the photo, on the other hand, was much larger than Earth, and its core was more active than Earth's, leading to numerous volcanoes on its surface and thus no fear of the cold.
Jon noticed something more in the outer space of the planet in the picture that came back than in the outer space of the picture that came back half a month ago.
"Zoom in on those dots."
He pointed to the dots for Ella to zoom in.
After zooming in, the outlines of those things came out.
It was spacecraft!
Densely packed, there were at least thousands of spacecraft.
"They should be getting ready to start a star sweep, intending to find out about us."
This was the only possibility.
Otherwise there was no need to gather so many spacecraft, and at this point in time.
After another seven days, Ella received one last message back from the Falcon as it was being shot down at the last minute.
The first Falcon had successfully completed its mission.
From the message this also analyzed a lot of information.
"What shot down the Falcon were lasers, coming from these areas, all major craters on the planet."
"This also proves that the civilization is extremely dependent on volcanic geothermal heat, with most of the planet's surface temperatures below -100 degrees Celsius, and that its population is definitely very small, probably in the range of 100-500 million."
"Due to its small population size, it wouldn't be able to eat the technological revolution triggered by the quantity dividend, which should be the main reason for its slow development."
"Geothermal heat also greatly limits its total amount of energy and the branching of its tech tree, according to the analysis of the speed of its spacecraft, this civilization shouldn't have controlled fusion technology yet, their magnetic development is underdeveloped, and they still use geothermal and nuclear energy for energy supply overall."
"The civilization's level should be 1 or 1.1."
A geothermal civilization that had just entered level 1.
The planet's surface was very dark, so its civilization pursued light, and in doing so, invented lasers.
Jon thought for a moment.
"To attack a civilization, what must be done is to inhibit that civilization's rate of development."
"All I can think of is to limit its energy sources and block its technological development."
"Ella, any suggestions."
Ella was able to generate a lot of information for military purposes.
"Ella proposes that energy development can be blocked first."
"Blocking technological development is a very tedious process, one needs to understand the direction of their civilization's technology, the level of development, whether it is from large to small or from small to large."
"The physics and chemistry of the universe, macro and micro follow a set of theories, which is called the Theory of Everything."
"But we can't assume that the other side is pursuing the Theory of Everything, their civilization may not have theoretically unified the gravitational, magnetic, weak and strong forces, but instead focus on one of the four fundamental forces separately."
"In short, until the direction of the enemy's civilization can be observed, it is impossible to theoretically destroy it by scientific means."
"The simplest and most effective way is violence."
In terms of civilization level, Jon did not achieve an absolute layer of crushing against this geothermal civilization.
That of science fiction was useless with him.
Ella generated a result.
"This civilization is a geothermal civilization, and it is possible to bring its civilization to a standstill by cooling its planetary core to limit its energy development."
Jon slid the screen to look at the scenario.
This scenario was more powerful than any war known to man.
It was a war of extermination waged against a planet, against a civilization.
The weapon recorded at the top was - Absolute Zero Weapon.
Planetary cores generate powerful energy due to fission, and absolute zero can freeze protons, neutrons, and electrons in atoms so that they no longer move.
Of course, absolute zero is simply not possible in the current universe, which requires more energy than the universe itself.
However, it is possible to create weapons that are infinitely close to absolute zero, the effect of which of course cannot completely freeze the protons, neutrons, and electrons, but can slow down their movement countless times.
As long as the fission was kept in a state of extreme slowness, then the planet's core would also be able to cool down.
"Let's follow that plan."
"How long will it take to produce it?"
Ella parked the Hope on a stray asteroid that was over 80 kilometers long and nearly 45 kilometers wide.
Hundreds of robots were repairing Hope's wounds.
"Estimated time is 25 years."
Twenty-five years wasn't that long in a war, especially an interstellar war.
"Too little!"
"One Absolute Zero weapon can only cool the planetary core for 40 years, which is far from enough, we need 10."
Since the decision to start a war had been made, it was necessary to think comprehensively.
It was important to leave plenty of room for development.
After giving the order, Jon entered the hibernation chamber once again, he couldn't waste too much time, after all, he was 41 years old now.
Waking up again would be the beginning of the war.