"We’ve struck massive, high-quality mineral veins on GB131!"
"Time to start mining!"
The discovery of the metallic planet was quickly packaged into breaking news by the Department of Public Relations and broadcasted across the Noah.
For many, this was the first time they had ever heard of such a bizarre celestial body. Humanity’s first pit stop in deep space was packed with surprises. Then again, interstellar travel was always full of the unexpected.
Originally, the plan was just to harvest some Helium-3 to top off their energy reserves. No one expected the universe to hand them a literal treasure trove. This meant overhauling the entire project timeline. The fleet would be stationed here for much longer than anticipated. The new schedule would accommodate extensive mining, ship construction, and live-fire weapon testing.
"Is this some kind of beginner’s bonus from the universe? Our species must have maxed out its luck stat..."
Even the shadow entity, Blake, was practically shouting with joy. He truly felt that joining the Federation had been the smartest decision of his life. He even approached Jason in private, pitching a massive-scale, long-term project.
"A planetary-class spaceship!"
Blake, his form shivering with excitement, explained, "Naturally formed metallic planets like this are incredibly rare. Its core must be unimaginably dense, perhaps even a single, solid block of pure metal! If our technology is up to the task, we can hollow it out and turn the entire planet into a mobile fortress! I believe that, with a few minor upgrades, our current tech is just barely adequate to pull it off! Yes, it’s absolutely doable!"
"Most civilizations aren’t this lucky," he continued. "If they wanted to build a planetary spaceship, they’d have to waste immense resources stripping away hundreds of trillions of metric tons of rocky crust! Even for an ancient interstellar empire, that process takes an eternity. We could even sell it to other empires for a massive profit!"
Blake rambled dramatically, practically vibrating with excitement as he paced around the captain’s office.
Standard terrestrial planets possess metallic cores because they form from interstellar dust condensing under gravity. During formation, lighter, non-metallic silicon-based materials rise to the surface to form the planetary crust. Meanwhile, heavier elements sink toward the center, forming a dense metallic core. Metals with massive atomic weights, like gold and silver, are concentrated deep within the planet’s heart.
But if a planet’s outer rocky shell is violently stripped away by a cosmic event, it leaves behind a metallic planet... a true cosmic rarity!
According to Blake’s calculations, if they just stripped away another 800 to 1,000 kilometers of the remaining surface rock, they would expose a perfectly natural, pure metal core! It would be a solid sphere of iron and heavy metals roughly 1,500 kilometers in diameter.
"A naked planetary core! A natural spacecraft hull!" Blake pressed. "I don’t need to explain the tactical advantages. It would be massive and virtually indestructible. Plus, we already have the warp drive technology. With a few structural modifications, we could easily power and move it."
He was genuinely looking out for the Federation’s best interests. For a vessel of that sheer mass, a warp drive was the only viable propulsion system. Relying on standard kinetic thrusters would consume an absurd amount of fuel, and the ship’s physical inertia would make turning practically impossible.
"A planetary fortress is the ultimate symbol of galactic power and status!" Blake continued to urge Jason, who remained entirely unimpressed.
"What planetary spaceship? Are you out of your mind?" Jason barely entertained the thought before shutting it down completely.
It was a ridiculous idea. Humanity simply didn’t have the industrial capacity to pull it off. Even if they did, the timeline was unworkable. Were they supposed to sit in this star system and dig for tens of thousands of years? Excavating 800 to 1,000 kilometers of solid rock wasn’t strictly impossible, but it was far more trouble than it was worth.
Blake slumped his shoulders and left the office, frustrated but realizing his grand idea was a logistical nightmare. Any ancient empire would have eagerly jumped at the chance.
The Federation just isn’t powerful enough yet, Jason thought. But that’s fine. We have time. This planet isn’t going anywhere.
Regardless, stumbling upon an exposed planetary core on their first interstellar pit stop was an incredible stroke of luck. The mineral wealth alone was staggering.
The moment the orbital safety checks cleared, a fleet of heavy transport ships deployed from the Deep Space. These massive industrial vessels boasted tens of thousands of metric tons of thrust. Their cargo holds contained fully modular factory setups, complete with smelting foundries and portable nuclear power plants.
They descended toward the richest survey sites on the planet to rapidly establish automated mining outposts.
"Mining fleet, you are clear for deployment!"
Jason reviewed the deployment reports with a deep sense of pride. The Federation might still be an infant compared to the galaxy’s ancient empires, but compared to their own past, humanity was now thousands of times stronger. This industrial might was a far cry from their desperate, aimless drifting near Mars all those years ago.
Automated drones designed to lay down rail networks were continuously dropping from the transport ships. When humanity evacuated the Nyx system, they had packed the Noah to the brim with heavy machinery and industrial equipment. While they had left some obsolete gear behind for the indigenous Lizardmen, the vast majority of their infrastructure had come with them. Now, it was proving its worth.
GB131 had a mass roughly equivalent to Earth’s Moon, though its density was slightly higher. The low surface gravity made ferrying heavy cargo into orbit a breeze.
"There are just so many high-yield veins down there, and the ore purity is off the charts..." a senior geologist muttered, looking over the Noah’s cargo manifests with a hint of anxiety. "Let’s ignore common metals like iron. We still have massive stockpiles in the Noah’s storage bays. We simply don’t have the cargo space to hold any more."
"Our primary targets must be Helium-3, uranium, and the rare earth metals we couldn’t find in the Nyx system. We need to reserve our remaining cargo bays for those."
Reading the geological survey, Jason felt a surge of excitement. Naturally, the deeper they dug into the planetary crust, the higher the ore purity became. The numbers were staggering. The uranium veins had a purity exceeding 6%, and the iron deposits contained raw, elemental iron. They barely even needed smelting before they could be used in manufacturing!
"Man, why did we even bother struggling to mine back in Nyx?" an engineer joked, a massive grin on his face. "We can just scoop this stuff right off the ground!"
Human beings were inherently greedy creatures, always wanting more than they had. But when faced with the sheer scale of an entire planet, human greed meant absolutely nothing.
Jason couldn’t stop smiling, though he sighed internally. It felt like standing in front of a mountain of gold, only to realize your pockets were too small. Just as Blake had said, humanity wished it could devour the entire planet whole.
But that was physically impossible. The planet’s total mass was over 70 quintillion metric tons, roughly the mass of the Moon.
That scale was simply incomprehensible to them. At best, the Federation could only scrape away a microscopic fraction of it. The Deep Space, despite being 40 kilometers long, only weighed in the tens of billions of metric tons. Even if the Noah could hold hundreds of billions or even a trillion metric tons of cargo, it was still a drop in the bucket.
Seventy quintillion metric tons! Even if they managed to mine a billion metric tons a day, it would take an eternity to strip the planet bare.
"Alright, here is how we’re going to handle this," Jason finally decided. "We are adjusting the master plan. We will abandon any veins that require complex deep-core drilling and exclusively target the highest-yield open-pit deposits! We’re ignoring all conventional metals like iron and strictly extracting rare elements like nickel, molybdenum, tungsten, and chromium."