Chapter 384: Warp Drive
The vast army of the Troi Empire appeared to be bearing down on the Genesis System, but in reality, they were still nearly eight light-years away.
However, their warp drives were indeed impressive. These drives were based on the main engine technology found aboard the “Treasure Starship” unearthed years ago by the Rikens, a ship originally planted by the Ji Race. It was a system they had never fully understood.
Warp drives represented an advanced application of gravitational technology. By converting energy into gravity, the drives distorted space, compressing it ahead of the spacecraft and expanding it behind.
The axis of this distortion determined the ship’s direction of travel. Within this configuration, the ship traveled along a stable zone of flat spacetime called a “warp bubble,” effectively riding a wave of spatial distortion.
From the perspective of the warp bubble, the spacecraft was stationary relative to its local flat spacetime. It was the bubble itself that moved, circumventing the conventional limitation that an object cannot exceed the speed of light within its local frame.
Years ago, the Troi Empire had also unearthed a Ji Race ship, but the experience had been akin to a calculated ploy. Like a tantalizing bait-and-switch, the Troi were allowed to “toy with” the ship for a few days, enough to spark their curiosity, only for it to be taken back. If they truly wanted to unlock the secrets of the warp drive, they’d need to pay a steep price.
For the Ji Race, this price was measured in points—astronomical sums accumulated through massive contributions of scientific manpower and resources.
In the early days after being “invited” to join the Confederation and suffering their first major losses, the Troi civilization retained a great deal of vigor. Fueled by resentment, they believed they could crack warp drive technology on their own, using the data they had collected from studying the Treasure Starship.
However, warp drives represented a critical technological watershed, defining whether a civilization could expand across multiple star systems while maintaining stability. Even the inherently gifted Ji Race had struggled with this technology for tens of thousands of years, plunging their civilization into a “Dark Age” that severely weakened them.