Chapter 126 125: Grand Development of the Solar System
As with the electromagnetic artillery, the immense size and mass of these nuclear missiles meant they could only be installed on Venus-class and Earth-class Warships. Mercury-class Warships were unable to mount them.
Once development was successful, Li Qingsong immediately began considering how to integrate them into his existing warship designs to maximize their combat effectiveness.
Li Qingsong quickly formulated dozens of different plans.
He employed the same method he had used for the electromagnetic artillery: he built multiple variants of the Venus-class Warship according to the different plans and let survival of the fittest on the battlefield determine the best design.
With the addition of electromagnetic artillery and Nuclear Missiles, complementing his existing Electromagnetic Cannons and Laser Cannons, Li Qingsong knew his weapon systems were finally complete.
And so, after several more years of live-fire combat exercises, once the optimal designs were finalized, Li Qingsong launched an all-out shipbuilding initiative.
This massive construction effort wasn't limited to just Warships. Li Qingsong was also developing another category of weapon systems.
Unmanned weapons!
Unmanned Warships, Unmanned Cannon Platforms, unmanned satellites, missile clusters, swarms of small unmanned vessels, and so on.
The Unmanned Warships were divided into multiple types based on their specifications and models.
The largest Unmanned Warship was only 20% smaller than a Mercury-class Warship, weighing over 200 tons. It was packed to the brim with various weapons and munitions, giving it immense combat power.
The smallest Unmanned Warships, on the other hand, weighed only about a ton, measuring no more than two meters long and half a meter wide.
They were equipped only with the weakest Electromagnetic Cannons and Laser Cannons, possessing low attack power, low defense, and low maneuverability. On the battlefield, they were pure cannon fodder.
But that was fine. They were designed to be cannon fodder from the very start.
Unmanned Cannon Platforms were far more powerful than their warship counterparts.
They could be built to immense sizes, allowing them to house powerful Electromagnetic Cannons and Laser Cannons, as well as electromagnetic artillery and Nuclear Missiles.
Their offensive and defensive capabilities were both extremely strong.
Under the control of its own tactical version of the Wukong AI, it could independently engage nearby targets and conveniently reposition itself at the command of the strategic version of Wukong.
The unmanned missile clusters involved prepositioning missiles throughout space, with their bodies and fuel stored separately. Until activated, they lay dormant like venomous snakes in the darkness. Once launched, they struck like assassins on a one-way mission.
With the massive influx of new weapons and equipment, the live-fire combat exercises around the Jupiter System—which had already raged for over a decade—grew even more brutal, with tactics becoming increasingly cunning and unpredictable.
Over the course of a dozen years, more than 5,000 Warships and over 100,000 Clones had been lost to the sea of stars!
To sustain these exercises, the total amount of materials Li Qingsong had supplied had already surpassed tens of billions of tons!
The cost was astronomical, but the rewards were equally staggering.
Fed on an endless stream of real battlefield data, the Wukong AI grew increasingly intelligent and its combat capabilities became ever more formidable.
At this point, Li Qingsong made a new decision.
It was time to begin the great development of the Solar System!
First, his technology was now advanced enough to handle construction and transportation across the entire Solar System.
Second, while the live-fire exercises were effective, their material consumption was staggering—so much so that the resources of the entire Jupiter System were becoming strained.
Therefore, it became necessary to start mining for energy and resources on other planets.
And so, he brought out the very same Space-Air Carriers that had once ferried him from Ceres back to the Inner Solar System.
After their propulsion systems were refitted, a fleet of fifty Space-Air Carriers, each carrying millions of tons of cargo, departed for various planets throughout the Solar System.
Their first destination was the nearest one: the Asteroid Belt.
Dozens of the larger, more resource-rich asteroids and dwarf planets within it became Li Qingsong's primary development targets.
Supported by the computing power of the Supercomputer Spaceship and with Clones handling decision-making and maintenance, the now highly sophisticated Divine Craft AI took on the vast majority of the construction work.
On one celestial body after another—some spherical, some elongated, some irregularly shaped—machinery roared day and night.
Further inward, Mars also became the site of a massive construction project.
Mars was the planet Li Qingsong valued most.
The reason was simple: it was the most suitable for large-scale development and possessed the largest reserves of resources.
Unlike Earth, which held a special significance for him and thus could not be subjected to large-scale industrialization; unlike Venus, whose surface environment was so harsh that even his advanced technology would struggle with large-scale development; and unlike Mercury, which was too small and too close to the Sun.
Compared to the moons of the gas giants, Mars was also large enough to fully support industrial development on a massive scale.
To accelerate the development of Mars, Li Qingsong went so far as to transfer his primary consciousness there. He personally directed the Clones, overcoming the most difficult and complex initial construction challenges that the Divine Craft AI couldn't handle. He remained there for a full two years before returning to the Jupiter System to resume his large-scale production.
Venus and Mercury also saw the arrival of their own Space-Air Carriers.
Although both planets had their drawbacks, some degree of development was still warranted, albeit on a smaller scale.
Beyond Jupiter, the three gas giants—Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—were also visited by fleets of Space-Air Carriers.
There too, large-scale construction commenced under the control of the Divine Craft AI, with Clones handling decisions and maintenance.
Thirty years passed in the blink of an eye.
Now, across the entire Solar System, all eight major planets—with the sole exception of Earth—had been utterly transformed.
Once desolate and lifeless planets were now covered by one factory after another.
Giant smokestacks and towering blast furnaces punctuated the landscape, while countless roaring, howling machines churned across the planetary surfaces.
Giant space elevators, reaching heights from thousands to tens of thousands of kilometers, now stood on Mercury, Mars, several dwarf planets in the Asteroid Belt, and various moons of Saturn and Uranus.
The Space-Air Carriers once used for interplanetary travel were all decommissioned, replaced by even larger and faster motherships.
Thus, Li Qingsong had connected the entire Solar System.
At every moment, vast numbers of ships crisscrossed the Solar System, and a constant, massive stream of resources flowed toward the Jupiter System.
The relentless combat exercises had now been running for decades and showed no signs of stopping. The only difference was that the number of participating Warships had swelled to one hundred thousand, and the training grounds were no longer confined to the Jupiter System. They were now scattered across the Solar System, with a presence on every planet.
The Solar System now existed in a state of dichotomy: on one hand, a bustling network of cargo transport; on the other, fierce and brutal space combat.
The two occurred simultaneously without interfering with one another, as if taking place in two separate worlds.