Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chen Ming definitely wants to take the damaged nanoforge inside the scavenger for research, analysis of its principles, and actual operations for use.

It’s just that Chen Ming doesn’t have time right now to do such long-term tasks.

The research progress of the main ship on the Empire’s side has never stopped; it’s just that he has taken time to use for this fourteenth warp jump with the pioneer fleet.

Regardless of the situation, there are priorities, and researching the nanoforge is certainly not as important as swiftly establishing a real base.

So Chen Ming’s idea is to let the scavenger continue its previous work, go mining, and collect all the spaceship wreckage within the star system for recycling and reuse.

Since the crucial parts of the wreckage orbiting this habitable planet have already been picked up by the scavenger, the materials for repairing them are no different from building a new one.

Just not needing to spend a large amount of basic resources on constructing the basic framework.

But there’s no need for that.

Even if Chen Ming has a main ship now, he doesn’t have a suitable target to control it, at least not now.

Might as well just recover resources, and continue doing what needs to be done in the nearby star system.

Not only can the scavenger continue working, but it can temporarily act as the Guardian of the Primordial Star System,

until the colony and military strength in the Primordial Star System are sufficiently established.

Until Chen Ming completely confirms the status of the star system, allowing the waiting pioneer fleet to come over to start the true colonization phase.

Chen Ming issued new orders to the scavenger.

However, the scavenger did not directly execute, but responded to Chen Ming: ”Permission for non-natural resource extraction in the current star system has not been obtained.”

In the Guardian’s response, the ”current star system” used the Shimmering Civilization’s name for this star system.

Chen Ming casually modified it to his named ”Primordial.”

Of course, this isn’t the key point; the key point is that the scavenger’s response made him think of a problem.

If the scavenger doesn’t have resource extraction permissions, then how did it install the stuff dismantled from the main ships onto itself?

”Certain restrictions can be ignored during wartime.”

War...

Indeed, the downfall of the Shimmering Civilization had clues to follow.

However, the core storage unit of the scavenger didn’t store any war-related information.

It only stores information related to its essential work.

This truly is...

Chen Ming sighed, preparing to use that identification code to grant the scavenger permissions.

But suddenly he noticed that the scavenger mentioned non-natural resources, which means natural resources are permissible for the scavenger to extract.

Yet, for some reason, the scavenger hasn’t directly extracted all the resources in the star system, and even the resources of neighboring star systems still exist in abundance, unlike they’ve been exploited for tens of thousands of years.

He inquired the scavenger again.

This time, the scavenger’s answer was considerably longer.

The general idea is that the Shimmering Civilization desired a balanced resource development.

It’s about letting the scavenger conduct a round of investigation in the nearby star systems, then planning based on the resource proportions of these systems, creating a route for balanced resource development.

And this route is to gradually expand as the scavenger explores the surrounding star systems.

Therefore, as the resource extraction area grows, the average resource amount extracted from each location naturally decreases.

It only means the scavenger initially engages in some basic space and exposed planetary surface resource development.

The Shimmering Civilization intends that even after this initial time period, these places can continue to produce economic benefits.

This also counts as normal logic.

After all, for a civilization, directly extracting all resources at once compared to relying on resources to create industries and turning them into economic benefits, definitely choosing the latter.

They’re not like Chen Ming, who doesn’t need to consider the consequences of one-time complete resource extraction.

After the Insect Race has ”developed” a planet’s resources, the planet itself loses its value.

Not to mention mineral value, the surface of the planet will be full of pits and valleys, and its geological structure will have issues, leaving no value for colonization and development.

So after the Insect Race developed, Chen Ming’s approach to some exploited planets was usually to let the Insect Race consume everything, not leaving any trace.

Leaving them is also a waste, better to completely convert them into energy for the Insect Race.

Therefore, the Shimmering Civilization must have been planning to develop this region long-term, but possibly due to war for certain reasons, leading the development process to be obstructed, unable to officially launch until today.

Only leaving the scavenger here to repeatedly execute the orders left by the Shimmering Civilization.

As for the reason why the Shimmering Civilization wants to develop here, Chen Ming is all too clear.

So that’s that.

Chen Ming used the identification code to grant the scavenger permissions.

Watching as the scavenger loaded the mining drones with all the resources, following the scavenger to the wreckage-dense area in orbit, starting to recover resources from the ships.

Chen Ming stopped paying too much attention over there and instead turned the ship of the Supreme Point to visit each planet and satellite inside the star system, scanning each one.

Although he is aware that the Primordial Star System is the scavenger’s old base, unlikely to have any dangerous things, he still has to follow the required procedures.