Earth Era

General Emerk's words caused Xiao Yun to fall into silence again. General Emerk seemed to have great confidence in Xiao Yun, but as the person involved, Xiao Yun was really at a loss.

Seeing Xiao Yun's silence, General Emerk asked Xiao Yun a question as if chatting casually: "Xiao Yun, are you really sure... that the robot empire that has been developed and can copy itself infinitely is in this universe. Invincible?"

"Of course I can't be sure." Xiao Yun replied, "I can only say that... within a certain level, they are invincible. As long as they are not overwhelmed by unmatched technological strength, then the robot empire can rely on its own huge The number of robots will even out the gap. After all...the robot empire does not have internal consumption and other miscellaneous things. The mission of their birth is to continuously copy themselves, the more the better."

"You mean that the robot empire has great advantages over swarm intelligent civilizations like human civilization, right?" General Emerk asked.

"Of course." Xiao Yun nodded.

"Then why hasn't our galaxy been occupied by a robot empire?" General Emerk spread his hands and shrugged, "After all, according to your calculations, a mature robot empire only needs tens of thousands to occupy an entire galaxy. It’s just a matter of years.”

"General, why do you think our galaxy should be occupied?" Xiao Yun asked.

"This is an obvious thing." General Emerk tapped the table lightly with one finger and said, "You don't think that we are the only human civilization in this galaxy, do you?"

"Of course not." Xiao Yun denied, "Although there is no direct observational evidence, based on what we have seen and heard by human civilization... Since two civilizations can be born in one solar system, there is no reason why one in the Milky Way The remaining hundreds of billions of stars cannot give birth to intelligent civilization."

"So do you think our human civilization is the earliest civilization in the galaxy?" General Emerk continued to ask.

"Obviously it's impossible." Xiao Yun said, "The Milky Way is tens of billions of years old, and even counting from primitive humans, the entire history of our human civilization is only a few million years old. I think this There must be many intelligent civilizations in the galaxy that were born before our human civilization."

"I also think so." General Emerk said, "And if a civilization eventually gives birth to a robot empire, it is inevitable, and the robot empire has natural advantages compared to civilizations of the same level or where the technological gap is not too big. If there is a huge advantage... this galaxy should have been occupied by the robot empire long ago."

Xiao Yun nodded silently. The terrifying proliferation rate of the robot empire is almost unimaginable. For a normal robot empire, even if they can only sail at twice the speed of light, it will not take too long to occupy an entire river system.

"But obviously, our galaxy is not occupied by the robot empire." General Emerk shrugged again, "What does this mean? It means that the robot empire may not be as scary as we imagined. As long as Once you have found the key points and the key know-how, it may not be difficult to destroy a robot empire - it is even so simple that even an aging civilization like the Martian civilization can do it. In this case, why can't our human civilization do it? Arrive?"

"But I can't think of a way to destroy a robot army that can copy itself infinitely and may have spread out." Xiao Yun said sadly, "General, can you think of such a way? Imagine a robot army that occupies several stars. There are trillions of robots in the system, and they are still spreading. How do you destroy them all? Don’t forget, you must destroy them all, because even if you only miss one, it will be destroyed in a short time. Within a few decades it was growing and prospering again.”

General Emerk smiled and said: "Of course I can't think of this solution. But... if even a soldier can find a solution, what do I need you, an artificial intelligence expert, to do? Don't forget, this It's your job, not mine. If all our speculations come true... I am only responsible for providing you with support, but you still need to find the solution."

"Why do you trust me so much?" Xiao Yun raised his head and looked straight into General Emerk's eyes, "You and the Head of State are important figures in our civilization. Why do your judgments differ from those of the Head of State? They all agree that the key to solving the robot empire lies with me? Is it just because those robots didn't kill me, and that message that I don't know where it came from, similar to a challenge? I don't think this reason is sufficient. "

"Sorry, Xiao Yun, you just need to know that the head of state and I, as well as some other high-level officials in our civilization, trust you very much. As for why we trust you..." General Emerk said, He narrowed his eyes and looked Xiao Yun up and down with an incomprehensible gaze: "You don't need to know this. Maybe it can be said that your current level is not enough, and this level of confidential information cannot be released to you."

"But I want to know." Xiao Yun said.

"Not now." General Emerk shook his head, "If you insist on knowing, I will choose a suitable time to tell you."

Xiao Yun became silent again, but his brain was still running crazily.

"General Emerk, the head of state, and others have concealed some information from me. It is this information that makes them think that I have the ability to solve the robot empire. So...does this mean that those things in the Raqqa galaxy are infinite? Has the replicating robot been confirmed? If so, why did General Emmerk tell me before that the data given to him by the head of state’s think tank team was a 40% possibility?”

As if he had seen through Xiao Yun's inner thoughts, General Emerk smiled again, and came over and patted Xiao Yun on the shoulder: "Young man, don't think too much, except for this one thing I have hidden from you. Apart from that, everything else I said is true, and there is nothing else I can hide from you."

"Okay, you go out first. The expedition will officially start after a month of preparations. We will spend fifteen years sailing to the Raqqa galaxy. You can start hibernating in a month and wait until you reach Raqqa. I will wake you up when we reach the galaxy." General Emerk continued.

Xiao Yun stood up and planned to say goodbye to General Emerk, but at this moment, a communications soldier rushed into General Emerk's office and said loudly without waiting for General Emerk to speak. : "Report to the general, there is an urgent military intelligence report from the Raqqa system!"

General Emerk frowned, then glanced at Xiao Yun, and Xiao Yun immediately said: "General, I'll take my leave now."

General Emerk said: "No, you stay here. Since they are from the Raqqa galaxy, you should also listen."

Xiao Yun nodded and stood aside. General Emerk gestured to the communications soldier, who then raised his arm and operated on the portable computer. A three-dimensional projection appeared in front of the three of them.

In the projection is a bald, middle-aged man wearing a white coat. He seems to be a scientific researcher. After the projection was turned on, the middle-aged man hurriedly said: "Report to the general, according to the latest observation information, we found that the Laka star had a very abnormal flicker some time ago. We don't know what caused this flicker. What is the reason, but this incident is highly unusual and we thought we should report it to you.”

The Raqqa system is the destination of this expedition, and it is also a place where infinite replicating robots may exist. Every move from there will be taken seriously.

But Xiao Yun felt something was wrong. Laka Star is a sub-brown dwarf star with extremely low mass and extremely low temperature. It is basically invisible from the visible light band, but at this moment the middle-aged man said that it was flickering?

But the middle-aged man answered Xiao Yun's question in the next moment. The middle-aged man continued: "We have observed that from a month ago, the star Laka has experienced abnormal dimming in the infrared band, and the dimming amplitude has been fluctuating, as if it was twinkling. This flashing continued for a month and stopped recently. After the flashing, the brightness of Laka returned to normal levels."

Xiao Yun groaned in his heart and thought to himself: "It turns out to be the flicker of infrared waves."

General Emmerk asked: "What does this flicker mean? What causes it?"

"It's not clear yet," the bald middle-aged man said, "But according to our speculation... this may be due to the obstruction of a large amount of interstellar material. Maybe during this month, a large amount of interstellar material appeared on Laka. Between us, the radiation of Laka Star is blocked, so we can observe this phenomenon. However, Laka Star has not seen this kind of flickering in the past hundreds of years, but only recently. Once, we concluded that these flickers were probably not a natural phenomenon."

"At the same time... because our observatory is more than twenty light-years away from the Laca galaxy, these flashes actually occurred more than twenty years ago, and we were not aware of it until now."

General Emerk said calmly: "Continue to closely observe the Raqqa galaxy, and report to me every move there." (To be continued ~^~)