Starting from the Planetary Governor

Chapter 1390: Chapter 790: The Queen of Glory’s Dilemma

In the Black Abyss Sea Battle against the Spirit Race pirates, the Alliance’s “Eastern” was exposed.

Of course, it was intentional.

Against the trapped Dark Spirit Race pirates, there was no need for the Queen of Glory to make an appearance.

The Alliance’s main fleet was sufficient, with plenty of battleships and aircraft carriers.

Deploying the Queen of Glory not only guaranteed the outcome of the battle, and fired into the Dark Spirit Race’s Star Gate, but more importantly, the Alliance intended to showcase this warship.

The Queen of Glory is a national treasure capable of changing the outcome of a massive battle.

The Alliance possessing it means a lot.

The most direct implication is that the Alliance, already difficult to confront militarily for the Empire, has become even harder to deal with.

If seeking trouble with the Alliance, the exaggerated war plan by the Military Affairs Department ten years ago seems conservative. A real fight with the Alliance would need to be even more extreme.

So, the plan that Prime Minister Qi Bodu shook his head at ten years ago, if taken to a more extreme level, would the Empire accept it after ten years?

Over these ten years, the Empire has earned a lot more money from the Alliance, becoming financially more comfortable, so it can weigh things out.

Consider whether the Empire has earned more, or if the Alliance’s economic growth is more alarming.

As the voices to renegotiate tax amounts are incredibly noisy on Holy Terra, the Alliance’s choice to showcase military force is quite obvious.

At the same time, the Alliance having a Queen of Glory-class battleship also has another implication: Can I make one, or possibly a second?

This is essentially a fact.

As the “Eastern” reveals its menacing presence to the world, the Alliance’s secretly constructed second Queen of Glory-class battleship is nearly complete.

This battleship has been named “Spider web”.

Once it’s completed, the third Queen of Glory-class battleship will immediately begin construction.

Followed by the fourth.

However, according to the Alliance’s current plan, when the fourth Queen of Glory is reached, if the current situation hasn’t significantly changed, the Alliance will slow down the construction pace.

Building a Queen of Glory every 10-15 years exhausts full production capacity. Doing it this fast is because Gu Hang always has a feeling of unease in his heart. He fears the Empire and also the end prophecy he sees, which might erupt soon.

If slowing down the pace, the time can extend to 30 years, even 50 years per ship, building gradually; annual costs significantly decrease, while overall expenses remain roughly balanced.

It’s a pity; if possible, Gu Hang certainly hopes to build as many Queen of Glory ships as possible. Even if it takes ten to fifteen years to build one, after a hundred years, 8-10 Queen of Glory ships would be invincible.

But unfortunately, various real-world factors impose too many limitations.

On the one hand, economic factors.

The price of building a Queen of Glory, the long time required, these points are endured. When the Alliance was financially struggling before, they could withstand investing 150 billion a year for 15 years, let alone now.

This economic burden is certainly significant, with the total cost of a warship moving towards two trillion.

But after all, it’s paid in installments over 15 years, and it’s not a figure the Alliance cannot handle.

However, a completed Queen of Glory doesn’t stop costing money.

Getting this behemoth operational is not easy. Its complex machinery, weapon systems, massive hull, and over a million crew members, engineers, and Marine Corps onboard all require a substantial amount of money for maintenance.

A Queen of Glory’s normal cruising annual maintenance cost is about 5% of the total ship cost, approximately one hundred billion;

Once engaged in battle, this price will soar, with no upper limit. The fuel used, the high-grade materials required for ship maintenance, are all exceptionally costly.

Yes, the Alliance can build it.

But if built too many, they might not afford to use them.

You can’t stop building other lower-level warships either.

The Alliance’s scope is expanding, places requiring money are increasing.

The solution actually exists — build three, sell one.

But Gu Hang never considered this.

If the news that Queen of Glory ships could be rebuilt spreads, it would surely cause external frenzy. If the Alliance opens to accepting orders, there would naturally be no problem selling.

But Gu Hang won’t sell.

The issue with such level warships is beyond money.

This is core competitiveness; the Alliance certainly won’t sell.

If relations with Central Empire were good, it could be negotiated. If some Era of the End arrives, then strengthening the Empire’s official power wouldn’t be bad either. But now, with relations sour, the Alliance must consider that a Queen of Glory sold to the Empire would aim its guns at them.

Apart from purely economic factors, there’s another serious problem.

The biggest two resource challenges in building a Queen of Glory are fine gold and Void Forged Steel.

Generally speaking, fine gold is rare; fine gold mines are rarely seen. But this problem, the Alliance has resolved. The Alliance has synthetic fine gold technology, and what they synthesize has no difference from what is mined.

But Void Forged Steel, there’s no solution.

This requires melting entire gaseous giant planets for extraction; building the first three battleships has caused gravitational imbalances in 15 Star Systems. Going further would cause big troubles.

Of course, if reaching non-Alliance controlled regions, or even those desolate Star Systems, it might be doable. But using normal navigation methods to reach other Star Systems would take too much time.

This is the direction of economic limitations.

Besides economic limitations, there’s another point.

Building the Queen of Glory-class battleship, Gu Hang often felt a void echo resonating with his own Spiritual Energy frequency, inexplicably arising within the ship’s interior.

By thoroughly researching technical specifications, Gu Hang and Wu Jiarong jointly determined that the creation of such warships involves not only “technology” but also some Subspace entities’ power borrowed by The Emperor and Mars during its design, allowing such a remarkable work to be born.

But this Subspace entity’s power shows signs of reverse pollution of the Real Universe during construction.

If construction continues, it could cause localized Real Universe collapse.

The solution lies in Gu Hang tearing a portion of essence from his own Subspace nature, which is his Storm God Kingdom, to suppress this reverse pollution.

Similar situations arise in “Holy Artifact manufacturing technology”.

Perhaps, certain single technological products at a certain level, as long as powerful enough, may have similar issues.