NOVGO.NET Chapter 1280 - 726: Defense Plan
Chapter 1280: Chapter 726: Defense Plan
Sure, here is the translated text:
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Du Shiliang did not receive any blame.
After Wang Jiarong received the recovered ships, cargo, and personnel, she expressed her gratitude to him and requested more escort power. The entire caravan started moving again.
Although there was still worry about pirate attacks, the caravan’s mission had to be completed properly.
Reports sent to the Alliance Government and the Military Affairs Department were not criticized either.
Marshal Tadeusz communicated with Du Shiliang.
No time was spent on reviewing past events. Tadeusz was most concerned about the overall plan for the Alliance Navy’s security work throughout the entire Alliance.
A single plundering event was not critical; the sudden appearance of the Dark Spirit Race, as a new enemy, catching the Navy off guard was also understandable.
Tadeusz would not question Du Shiliang in these aspects.
However, this situation must be prevented and must not occur again in the future.
The Alliance Government is also highly concerned about this.
Previously, the Alliance had never faced particularly severe pirate challenges. Even during wartime, the safety of interstellar transportation was relatively high.
The Dark Spirit Race, an elusive organization, posed a significant challenge to the maritime security of the Alliance.
Tadeusz was eager to know whether the Navy Headquarters’ defense plan was reliable.
Since Yelisia left, Du Shiliang has been the acting chief responsible for the Alliance Navy, feeling a lot of pressure. He was, in fact, somewhat unsure about how to deal with the Dark Spirit Race due to lack of experience.
Fortunately, if he didn’t have the expertise, someone else did.
Judge Martini had been long active in the Eastern Cosmos Domain, where attacks from Dark Elf pirates were common, providing a set of conventional measures for reference.
Moreover, there is the more important Heretic Tribunal. Experts who are specialized in dealing with various Aliens could offer significant help through their unique interrogation methods for Dark Elves.
With the help of these two parties, Du Shiliang managed to present a barely passing plan.
It focused on proactive engagement and sweeping operations, with passive patrol defense as a supplement.
Regarding the so-called passive defense, the frequency of the Alliance Navy’s dispatches increased significantly. More escorting for Alliance caravans, spreading the fleet out a bit, and pre-emptive scouting of important trade routes and tax fleet paths ensured security.
This is a relatively conventional method, but one cannot solely rely on passive defense.
As long as the Dark Spirit Race sneaks into any star system, they can easily build a low-cost Veil Spirit Gate on a deserted asteroid or an uncolonized, non-habitable planet in the vast universe. Once completed, they could open a gate from their home in Comoros, allowing them to come and go freely.
With such high flexibility, passive defense is inadequate and would lead to a defense line riddled with holes.
More importantly, reliance was placed on proactive measures to explore and eliminate potential Veil Spirit Gates established by the Dark Spirit Race in each star system.
Destroying the gate would prevent them from coming through.
However, these gates, with diameters usually around tens of meters, are like a grain of sand in the cosmic scale, making them very difficult to find.
Furthermore, they do not need to be built on habitable planets; they just need to be anchored to a location where the Veil Spirit Gate can be stabilized.
Experts from the Tribunal have some methods for quickly locating these gates.
To be honest, the reliability isn’t particularly high, but it’s relatively more efficient than aimlessly searching.
At the same time, the Alliance has an advantage many areas confronting the Dark Spirit Race do not.
That is Spiritual Energy.
The Storm Mage Corps do not belong to the Alliance Military, Alliance Government, or the Alliance Legal Affairs Center. Their role is more akin to the Sainte-Lys Nun Association or the Phoenix Interstellar Warrior Group, being an independent organization outside regular jurisdiction, including the Mage Corps itself, as well as the Alliance National Mage College established on many planets.
In a way, they are the Psychic Cultivator’s Association of the Alliance.
In terms of power structure, they report directly to Mr. Gu’s leadership.
Of course, in reality, they still rely on the Alliance’s finances, and before Gu Hang left, he also instructed the Mage Corps to cooperate with the work.
In practice, Du Shiliang’s plea for help from the Storm Mage Corps received a positive response.
The Mage Corps also wanted to improve and needed to demonstrate their value.
It was so under the Governor, and it was the same when the Governor temporarily left.
With the help of batches of Spiritual Masters, combined with the Tribunal methods, this approach provided a relatively reliable solution for detecting Veil Spirit Gates even in their silent state.
Besides eliminating Veil Spirit Gates, there should be tight measures to prevent the Spirit Race from establishing Spirit Gates.
The good news is that the Spirit Race does not directly use Subspace Engines for interstellar navigation—researchers believe it’s not due to a lack of technology but out of fear of becoming easy prey to the Subspace Evil God interested in them once entering Subspace.
Therefore, the Dark Spirit Race conducts interstellar travel using Star Realm Tunnels instead of the convenient Comoros Veil Spirit Gate for swift navigation, or simply through regular travel.
The Dark Spirit Race’s ships slipping in to build Veil Spirit Gates are often small in scale and have very advanced ship stealth technology. It is a technology humans manage on ships of traveler size, but they accomplish it on Escort Ship scale.
This means that even if interstellar outposts were built at warp points, it would still be easy to let them slip through.
Unless many outposts are established at every warp point, equipped with Judges and Psychics for long-term stationing.
But this is clearly not feasible; there are simply too many and the costs are too high.
However, this can be done in key hub regions.
In conclusion, after hearing Du Shiliang’s entire report, Tadeusz was relatively satisfied.
He also approved the budget Du Shiliang needed, and the General Logistics Department and the Navy Logistics Department collaborated with the United Government’s production department to start further outpost construction and settlement plans.
The Alliance officially began to face the challenges the Dark Spirit Race pirates posed to its development.
The most direct manifestation was evident in their adversaries.
Zelnos Blood Curse encountered significant trouble.
When he took his raiding fleet through another Veil Spirit Gate and found an Alliance merchant fleet, he did not dare to make a move.
The escort force was strong, and if he attacked, it might lead to significant losses and possibly cause delays, allowing humans to block them.
His hesitation, however, resulting in ten days later, a larger human navy fleet arriving in this star system.
They seemed to have detected something, and although they didn’t catch Zelnos’ fleet, they found and destroyed the Veil Spirit Gate.
This fleet from the Blood Curse Family was trapped in the real universe of this star system.