170: New warships

The discovery of the STC-Ω ark remains was like a potent dose of medicine, a mixture of ultimate hope and ultimate warning, injected into the civilizational bloodstream of the Human Federation.

The shadow of the Great Collapse, caused by humanity touching the forbidden fruit of time during the Dark Age of Technology, failed to cool the Human Federation's enterprising spirit. Instead, like a mirror reflecting the dangers of its own path, it spurred them to expand and arm themselves with greater speed and cold efficiency, as if racing against an inevitable reckoning.

Resources are the blood of civilization; territory is its bone.

Han Zhe set the tone at the Supreme Strategic Meeting: "The analysis of STC-Ω requires endless resources. The repair and expansion of the Firmament Network require endless resources. The construction of new fleets requires endless resources. To confront the Necron Dynasty, Chaos, and any future threats, we need endless resources."

"We cannot sit and wait for resources to fall from the sky. We must take them proactively, seize them, and digest every reachable nutrient."

"The Endless Siphon expansion plan is to be launched immediately."

Endless Siphon was not a single military operation, but a multi-pronged, three-dimensional predatory comprehensive strategy:

1. Deep Extraction within the Galaxy: Launch high-efficiency mining protocols in the controlled Segmentum Obscurus, the former Sotek Dynasty territories, and the newly stabilized Order Pure Land on the edge of the Eye of Terror.

Disregarding ecological costs, use planetary disintegration technology, core energy extraction arrays, and atmospheric component stripping factories to transform planets into pure raw materials and energy at an unprecedented rate.

Simultaneously, strengthen the purification and recycling efforts in the Tau Sector Wasteland. Under the Human Federation's new technology, that vast land of death is transforming from a mere buffer zone and source of pollution into a slowly awakening treasure trove rich in rare elements and twisted technology.

2. Accelerated Extragalactic Colonization: The Star Sea Seeding Project has entered an explosive phase. Based on the successful template of Hope Town, over twenty new colonial fleets have been assembled, carrying a new generation of colonists (codenamed Pioneer Sequence) optimized and enhanced by the Reshaping Crucible. They sail toward fertile star belts deep in Extragalactic systems, strictly screened by adjudicators for excellent resource endowments.

Their mission is not just to establish self-sufficient colonies, but to become the Human Federation's resource outposts and industrial nodes in the Extragalactic region, continuously channeling Extragalactic resources back to the Milky Way through newly established ultra-long-range material transmission channels (combining research on Eldar Webway fragments, Necron phase technology, and Extragalactic stable space characteristics).

3. Targeted Civilizational Harvesting: While Ouroska and the Thanatos Dynasty have been designated as final reckoning targets, the Human Federation has not stopped harvesting other small-to-medium alien civilizations or lost technological relics.

Specially formed Reaper Task Fleets are active on the galactic rim and in unknown sectors. Their goal is clear: find, evaluate, and then destroy civilizations possessing unique resources, special technology, or strategic locations at minimum cost, plundering everything of value and erasing traces of their existence.

Certain remote Eldar Ark Worlds, large Ork resource planets, and even some sleeping ancient civilization ruins have begun to quietly disappear into the shadow of the Human Federation.

Under this nearly predatory development model, the Human Federation's resource stockpiles and industrial capacity expanded at an unprecedented rate. These massive resources were immediately poured into a new round of armament upgrades.

Based on preliminary analysis data of STC-Ω temporal alloys, Necron phase stabilization technology, Crystal Hive energy lattice technology, an upgraded version of Living Alloy, and a new application model for abyss of order energy, the design for the next generation of capital ships has been completed.

The Chief Technologist displayed dazzling blueprints beside the holographic star map: "Codenames: eternal-class titan ship; adjudicator-class battleship (to replace the existing arbiter-class); Imprisoner-class Heavy Platform (specializing in reality stabilization and space-time defense)."

The eternal-class titan ship had a sharper, more fluid silhouette, its armor possessing a flowing dark-gold metallic luster. This was Chrono-Steel, a new composite armor merging the self-repair properties of temporal alloys with the biological adaptability of Living Alloy.

Its main battery system integrated an upgraded Conceptual Disintegration-Resonance Cannon, Lattice Disruption Rays reverse-engineered from Crystal Hive technology, and an experimental Time-Stasis Projector (capable of briefly slowing the flow of time in a target area, greatly weakening its evasion and defense capabilities).

The shield system combined phase deflection, Order Field reinforcement, and a preliminary "Time-Anchor Defense Module," significantly increasing resistance to space-time attacks.

As the backbone of the fleet, the adjudicator-class battleship featured more balanced firepower, maneuverability, and defense. They were commonly equipped with enhanced Desecration Protocol launchers targeting Chaos and psionics, as well as specialized Phase Interference Arrays against Necrons.

The Imprisoner-class Platform was like a mobile fortress. Its core was a scaled-up Nullifier network node, capable of deploying ultra-powerful reality stabilization fields and time-anchor domains, serving as the keystone for the fleet against Celestial Orrery-type strikes and in positional warfare.

In the shipyards, the lights never dimmed. One by one, vanguard warships exuding cold deterrence rolled off the production lines, joining the growing fleet. The military power of the Human Federation, in both quality and quantity, was advancing in a direction that would suffocate any traditional power in the galaxy.

However, just as the Human Federation was frantically expanding and arming, focusing almost all its attention on digesting the STC-Ω legacy, preparing for war with the Necron Dynasty, and consolidating Extragalactic outposts, that supreme will—temporarily repelled but never far away—reacted once more.

This time, it was no longer a divine gaze projected across the stars, nor a direct divine punishment. It was a deeper, more direct, and wilder intervention.