Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones

At this moment, Tom's more than one billion clones simultaneously went into a frenzy of operation.

The current situation had deteriorated beyond repair. For other civilizations, such as the Bluetoth Civilization, there would be no hope of survival under such circumstances.

Even if the Bluetoth Civilization had defeated him in the solar system and had him as an aid, enabling them to complete material collection in the shortest possible time and then move on to the next star system, the Bluetoth Civilization would absolutely not have been able to avoid being captured by the Mechanical Disaster.

The moment the Mechanical Disaster appeared in the solar system, the fate of the Bluetoth Civilization's demise was already sealed.

Even if they hadn't been destroyed by him, they would have been destroyed by the Mechanical Disaster.

But… he was not an ordinary civilization!

This desperate situation for ordinary civilizations might not be without a glimmer of hope for him!

Tom had already understood this glimmer of hope.

It was something that an ordinary Electroweak Civilization would absolutely not dare to think about, nor would they be able to accomplish.

Developing technology while on the run!

During the long process of interstellar migration, in the vast, empty space, while fleeing, he would simultaneously develop technology!

As long as he did not dock at a star system and remained adrift in the vast void, the Mechanical Disaster Fleet would be unlikely to find him.

Because the cosmic starry sky was too vast, no matter how powerful the Mechanical Disaster Fleet was, they could only search star systems and not the entire interstellar space.

They would not find the detectors he secretly deployed in the solar system to investigate the Mechanical Disaster Fleet.

They would also not find his fleet once it entered space to drift!

He wanted to take all of these large scientific devices, totaling over 1,500 sets and weighing over 3 billion tons, which he had painstakingly created, and conduct large-scale experiments in space, including but not limited to particle collider experiments, gravitational wave observation experiments, neutrino observation experiments, ultra-high temperature, ultra-high pressure experiments, and all other experiments closely related to the development of fundamental physical theories!

Only by doing so would he have a chance, however slim, to break through to a third-level Strong Nuclear Civilization before the Mechanical Disaster caught up to him.

Only by breaking through to a third-level Strong Nuclear Civilization would he have a chance to survive in the face of that Mechanical Disaster!

But…

These large scientific devices not only had extremely high mass themselves, but transporting them on a long journey would require consuming even more materials, and operating them would also consume countless energy and materials.

A single high-energy particle collider alone would require a dedicated nuclear fusion power plant for electricity, with its power consumption comparable to a large spaceship at full propulsion. And there were over 1,500 such large scientific devices.

Furthermore, to achieve technological breakthroughs, he would undoubtedly have to go all out and use all his brainpower. In that case, the number of clones constantly maintained in a conscious state would no longer be the previous 1 billion for migration, but at least 2 billion.

How much more material consumption would this add?

A more critical point was that if more materials needed to be carried, the corresponding increase in the number of ships was not one-to-one.

Assuming the mass of the previous fleet was 1, and excluding fixed propulsion fuel, the maximum material carrying capacity was also 1, then if he wanted to increase the material carrying capacity to 2, the fleet's own mass would have to increase to 4 or 5.

If the material carrying capacity increased to 3, the fleet's own mass would probably have to increase to 10.

Because fuel is also part of the mass.

More materials mean more fuel. More fuel means even more fuel.

Just as Tom's rocket, built to launch probes into the Inner solar system, weighed tens of thousands of tons.

After a simple calculation, Tom discovered that to achieve his goal, his material carrying capacity, excluding fuel, would have to be at least five times that of the materials carried when he first left the solar system.

Correspondingly, the total size of his fleet would have to expand to 30 times its previous size!

When he left the solar system before, the fleet's size already astonished the Bluetoth and exceeded the limits of an ordinary Electroweak Civilization.

And now, a fleet 30 times its previous size—this scale, and the industrial strength required for such a scale, made even Tom feel a sense of dread when he thought about it.

This fleet was simply too massive; even for someone like him, existing in the form of a "Disaster," it would require at least 300 years of single-minded, dedicated construction, doing nothing else, to achieve.

300 years… that was too long; Tom couldn't wait.

"Then… abandon unnecessary baggage."

Tom gritted his teeth: "The massive number of unmanned warships, abandon 90 % ! Only carry a small portion of unmanned warships!"

During migration, if they encountered a Strong Nuclear Civilization similar to the Mechanical Disaster, then no matter how many unmanned warships there were, they would be useless.

If they encountered an Electroweak Civilization like the Bluetoth Civilization, then the existing unmanned and manned warships should already be sufficient.

"Aside from unmanned warships, everything else that can be streamlined will be streamlined. For daily consumption like food and water, enhance material recycling efficiency to reduce spaceship weight…"

After an overall assessment, the size of the fleet he needed to build was reduced to 20 times the original, and the time required was also significantly reduced, from 300 years to about 200 years.

But… it was still too long!

The longest time Tom could accept was 30 years.

The reason was simple: the Mechanical Disaster could arrive at any time, and exceeding 30 years would entail too great a risk.

However, in 30 years, to complete the construction of a fleet 20 times the current size, to build ten thousand giant Aerospace Carriers, fifty thousand heavy transport ships, five thousand large drum-shaped ships, three thousand large scientific research ships, fifty thousand other various ships, and all the materials, deuterium, minerals, chemicals, etc., required by all these ships and personnel…

How could this be possible?!

Even if Tom worked all his clones to death and overclocked the supercomputing base running Hestai AI until it smoked, he still couldn't complete such a massive construction task.

So, what to do?

After a moment of thought, Tom made up his mind.

"Currently, the only feasible method is to complete this task through improvements in two aspects.

Firstly, by leveraging the interstellar navigation experience accumulated over hundreds of years of interstellar voyages, and the scientific conjectures and technical ideas gathered, comprehensively improve and optimize the fleet's performance and efficiency, minimizing material consumption as much as possible.

Secondly, in five years, conquer quantum computing technology, significantly enhance the performance and intelligence of Hestia AI, and thereby greatly improve my industrial strength, completing the task of building a fleet 20 times its previous size within 25 years!"

Quantum computing has significant advantages over traditional electronic computers in certain fields.

Because, unlike electronic circuits which can only be in two states at a time, quantum gates can simultaneously be in three states: on, off, and both on and off.

This means it possesses extremely high parallel processing capabilities.

Suppose an electronic computer is tasked with reading a very thick book; it can only read it page by page in sequence.

A more advanced, higher-computing-power electronic computer would merely turn pages faster.

But a quantum computer is different. A quantum computer can act like a group of people simultaneously flipping through the book, with each person only turning a portion, completing the task of reading the book with higher parallel computing capability.