Chapter 119 118: Tactical Wukong
This new-model Mercury-class Warship had a greater total mass than the previous models that used chemical fuel thrusters.
The previous Mercury-class Warships had a total mass of just over a hundred tons. This one, however, reached about 300 tons when fully loaded.
This was mainly because it was equipped with much more new-model equipment than the older warships.
When fully loaded, this Mercury-class Warship could carry 30 tons of chemical fuel and 100 kg of Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239.
The total mass of its fuel was significantly lower than the fifty or sixty tons required by the previous generation of chemical-fuel Mercury-class Warships. And despite its hull's total mass nearly doubling, this new warship's operational time during equivalent maneuvers was a full five times longer than its predecessor's!
Even compared to the intermediate model—the one that had already been upgraded with secondary compression thrusters but lacked the other new systems—its average operational time was still boosted by about 10%.
This was mainly because the secondary compression thrusters had been further optimized during this period.
Now, all the new-model equipment Li Qingsong had developed was installed on it.
The high-speed radar system, now miniaturized, was capable of continuously scanning the entire celestial sphere with extreme speed and precision. It was divided into 16 detector components scattered across 16 points on the hull, allowing it to scan in every direction—front, back, left, right, up, and down—without a single blind spot.
Eight of the newly developed high-speed turrets were mounted on it, also distributed across different locations to ensure there were no offensive blind spots.
Installed on these eight turrets was a total of 28 Electromagnetic Cannons and Laser Cannons.
This included four medium-to-large Laser Cannons and four medium-to-large Electromagnetic Cannons, for a total of eight powerful, long-range weapons responsible for offensive duties. The remaining 20 Laser Cannons and Electromagnetic Cannons were all smaller models, tasked with defense.
In addition to the weapons, propulsion, and sensor systems, its armored protection had also been significantly enhanced.
By incorporating Zero Fiber—the same material used to build the space elevator—as a "rebar" within the armor composite, the warship could now withstand repeated direct hits from the most powerful armor-piercing rounds of Gunpowder Guns without sustaining any damage.
While it still couldn't withstand high-powered Electromagnetic Cannon Projectiles, it offered extremely high protection against lower-powered projectiles, stray fire, and debris.
It also possessed excellent resistance to the high temperatures of Laser attacks.
Its communications system was also outstanding. Using a high-power directional antenna specially developed by Li Qingsong, the warship could maintain contact with the main base or other warships even in the most complex and chaotic battlefield environments.
Beyond all these upgrades, the most important one Li Qingsong implemented was this: the warship was intelligent!
Unlike previous warships, it no longer relied on most of its combat commands being issued from a rear base or manually entered by Li Qingsong controlling the Clones.
It carried a compact supercomputer on board.
This supercomputer utilized a parallel processing architecture of 64 two-nanometer chips, giving it an immense amount of computing power for a single warship.
This processing power wasn't just used to sustain the ship's various automated components; it also ran a local, tactical version of the Wukong AI.
The main supercomputer ran the strategic version of the Wukong AI, which was responsible for managing the overall battlefield situation and assisting Li Qingsong in making theater-wide strategic decisions.
The tactical version of the Wukong AI, running on this Mercury-class Warship's compact supercomputer, was responsible for basic coordination with nearby warships and for managing the tactics of the ship itself.
Countless combat techniques from simulated exercises, hard-won battle experience from allied forces fighting to the death, situational data from nearby ships—all of it flowed into the tactical Wukong AI. This data was processed by its superior algorithms, which then generated combat commands that could be executed automatically, without any input from the Clones.
This represented its higher-level intelligence. Beyond that, routine automated data processing—such as calculating how to rotate a turret and which Electromagnetic or Laser Cannon to fire for interception after the high-speed radar detected an incoming projectile—could be completed automatically in an instant, with no human intervention required.
As long as communications were possible, the tactical and strategic Wukong AIs would maintain a constant link, allowing the tactical version to receive real-time commands from its strategic counterpart.
However, if communications were lost—for instance, if the enemy deployed a high-yield signal jammer or the electromagnetic environment became too hostile—it wouldn't be a problem.
The tactical Wukong AI could conduct its own analysis, assisting the Clones so they could continue fighting on the battlefield.
Furthermore, the moment any satellite or friendly ship still connected to the strategic Wukong came within range, the tactical AI could immediately use it as a relay to reestablish the connection.
This tactical Wukong AI was like a single hair plucked from the main strategic Wukong, transformed into a perfect double.
For every tactical Wukong, the strategic Wukong had another double on the battlefield!
Creating tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, of such avatars was no longer a mere fantasy.
This was a complete, intelligent system of warfare. Its members weren't limited to just the Supercomputing Base and the Warships; in the future, it could be expanded to include all kinds of unmanned assets. Communication satellites, spy satellites, reconnaissance satellites, weaponized satellites, Interstellar Missiles, drone ship swarms, Interstellar Mine clusters, Cannon Platform clusters—all of it and more could be linked into a single, vast network.
Each and every one of the Clones was an extension of Li Qingsong's own consciousness. Through these extensions, Li Qingsong could collaborate with this intelligent war network down to the smallest detail, minimizing the impact of communication lag while maximizing the battlefield execution of his strategic decisions.
For now, he only had this one intelligent warship—and it was only the smallest, a Mercury-class—but that didn't stop Li Qingsong from dreaming about the future.
And this future felt so close, almost within his grasp.
Because Li Qingsong had already overcome all the technological hurdles, building such a war network was now merely a matter of time.
This intelligent Mercury-class Warship, running its tactical Wukong AI, was currently under the control of a Clone linked to Li Qingsong's consciousness. It maneuvered rapidly through space, launching a fierce assault.
Only when its fuel was completely exhausted did Li Qingsong reluctantly order it to return to base.
'It's time for mass production! I won't just build Mercury-class Warships. I'll build Venus-class Warships, and even... I'll build Earth-class Warships, too!'