I Am The Swarm

According to Elder Humes’ memory data, the Ji Race had already developed Star Gates during the original Ji Race era. However, since the original Ji Race restricted the development of other races and were not keen on expansion themselves, the Star Gate technology, though developed, remained in a very primitive stage.

By the time of the New Ji Race era, some members of other races had become part of the new Ji Race. However, their origins meant they could no longer restrict the development of other races as the original Ji Race had done.

After being restricted for hundreds of thousands of years, the other races began to expand wildly. Coupled with the addition of new races, the territory of the Interstellar Technological Confederation also rapidly expanded.

Under these circumstances, although warp drive technology continued to advance, it could no longer meet the needs of the Confederation’s members. As a result, Star Gate technology was revisited. After spending a considerable amount of time mastering the technology, a wave of Star Gate construction began.

The resources required to build a Star Gate were enormous, especially in the early stages when the technology was not yet mature. The resource consumption was even greater.

Historical records show that in the early days, Star Gates of the same level were twice as bulky and massive as they are today. For example, the mass of a large Star Gate was equivalent to the combined mass of several planets. Along with the accompanying starport and Dyson sphere, the star systems where Star Gates were located often became significantly emptier.

Fortunately, there were so many star systems in the universe that they could easily support the Confederation’s consumption. Moreover, at that time, to accelerate expansion, everyone was willing to contribute resources. Under this trend, while a large number of Star Gates were completed, related technologies also advanced rapidly.

The various facilities within Star Gates were continuously streamlined, causing their size to gradually shrink. However, even the smallest Star Gates had their limits. Today, building a Star Gate remains an extremely resource-intensive project, requiring the extraction of vast amounts of various metals.

Furthermore, as the expansion of other races has slowed, most civilizations have entered a phase of consolidation. As a result, the process of building a Star Gate has become more cumbersome. It typically requires multi-party deliberation, especially the approval of civilizations near the proposed construction site, as the metals needed are likely to be mined from their territories.

However, at that time, the situation was not as dire as it is now. The civilizations bordering the Swarm wanted the Ji Race to build Star Gates in their territories.

But these civilizations were the weakest and newest, with too little territory to spare. Providing the resources for a Star Gate would be too burdensome, potentially compressing their living space and lowering their quality of life.

Some organizations protested, obstructing the approval process and demanding assistance from other members. However, with the attitude of “out of sight, out of mind,” even members of the Koya Alliance and the Locke Mutual Aid Society, which were closest to the Swarm, showed little interest in the proposal, let alone more distant civilizations.

By the time the proposal was finally approved after much difficulty, the civilizations bordering the Swarm had already fallen, and the planned construction sites for the Star Gates had been captured by the Swarm.

As a result, the proposal had to be reconsidered. By this time, some members of the Locke Mutual Aid Society and the Koya Alliance were also beginning to panic. However, there were still members who believed the Swarm wouldn’t reach their territories and demanded reductions in their contributions.

Thus, when the proposal was finally approved again after overcoming numerous obstacles, the Swarm’s forces were already on the horizon. The Swarm’s performance surprised and shocked all the other races.

Although the Ji Race’s Star Gate construction technology was quite mature, it was still a massive project that would take decades to complete.

And in those decades, no one could guarantee that the construction site wouldn’t fall into Swarm hands. History seemed to repeat itself, as if several hidden forces were deliberately delaying progress.

Fortunately, the Confederation learned from its mistakes and chose a location nearly a hundred light-years away from the Swarm’s front lines, providing ample strategic buffer space for the Star Gate’s construction.

Although the distance was so great that even forces arriving via the Star Gate would need about twenty years to deploy to the front lines, the location was safe. Currently, the main structure of the Star Gate is complete, and the accompanying Dyson sphere is 50% finished, barely meeting the requirements for activating the Star Gate. The starport, however, has not yet been built due to its low priority, and its functions are temporarily handled by nearby planets.

According to the current progress, the Star Gate will soon be operational. At that point, it will continuously transport distant forces to the front lines, and even inner-ring civilizations far from the Swarm will join the war. But these are matters for the future.

This passage through the Star Gate’s wormhole was, strictly speaking, not Luo Wen’s first experience with wormholes. When he was developing the Fold Crossing skill, an accident occurred during a dimensional jump due to miscalculating energy consumption.

However, that experiment was also incredibly fortunate. At a critical moment, he accidentally fell into a small wormhole, which led him to Planet Botian.

This time, however, the wormhole opened by the Star Gate was vastly different from that small one due to the Star Gate’s size. This large wormhole gave Luo Wen a completely different experience.

The properties of space-time were more pronounced. The surrounding ships were stretched into endless ribbons, sucked into the deep, mirror-like surface. When the node units were pulled in, everything around them became blurry, as if enveloped in pure light.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed—perhaps just a fleeting moment—before everything became clear again. They had arrived at the other end of the wormhole.

If not for the overwhelming discomfort that filled their bodies, it would have been easy to think the entire experience was just a dream. However, Luo Wen, being a higher-dimensional being, managed to glean some insights from this experience.

The Ji Race’s Star Gates work by generating a massive gravitational point using enormous energy, then connecting it to a beacon on the other side to break through the constraints of space.

While it looks incredibly impressive and has effects similar to Luo Wen’s Fold Crossing, the two are fundamentally different. The Ji Race’s wormholes are still products of this universe, operating within its rules without transcending them or involving dimensions outside this universe.

In contrast, Luo Wen’s Fold Crossing is different. It’s like opening a hole in this universe and using his body to build a bridge between two points.

Since there is no concept of distance outside of dimensions, Luo Wen can perform precise Fold Crossings as long as he has a beacon within this universe. Of course, without a beacon, Luo Wen can also open a random hole in this universe for a random Fold Crossing.