Star Empire

"We are naturally familiar. We have definitely done similar things before...even if we have not done the same thing."

"Then what's their final result...?"

"...It ends without any problem, this should be the best way to say it, or...every time we try to do something like this, huge external problems will gradually absorb our attention. By the time we find out, there is already another place in the void. There are no new observable targets, or observers have accumulated a huge amount of speculative accumulation data, or it is so repetitive that it is of no use value.”

"We 'forgot' them, probably selectively."

"We may prefer temporary relief, and in these temporary reliefs, we forget that we still have problems, and we try to numb ourselves instead of solving them..."

"Looking at it now, that's it."

"…There is nothing to say."

"What about the three types of crystal energy shields and all the derived parallel strong laws controlling the operating status of the equipment?"

"The detailed random assignment system, the light circle upward shield and the fixed crystal energy free material have stable working properties, and can be installed and maintained on all basic crystal energy warships and imperial void equipment."

"Torres Area and Agnas Area confirm that the overall plan is...feasible."

"All void survey radars began to synchronize their actions..."

…

If it had been earlier, such a wanton squandering of resources might have aroused concern and doubts.

However, as the empire further modified the structure of the industrial primitives, and allowed it to directly integrate itself into the target whole, so that it no longer needs itself to retain the shaping and maintenance functions... the empire's underlying industrial primitives have skyrocketed at a rate An unimaginable value.

It is true that these industrial primitives, which are located between the controllable and the uncontrollable, have experienced countless large and small changes and countless coefficient reductions in terms of long time spans and ever-expanding order scales. The generation of countless structures itself is constantly extracting their basis, but...

It has far exceeded the total amount of ordinary micro-element in the world, so why worry about these impacts?

They can do everything. Under this premise, even if it takes several months to complete a batch of self-replication, they can still spread the total to a large enough scale.

They can even construct many concepts on their own—including metaphysically isolated concepts.

…

The void fell silent, temporarily.

But this does not mean that the influence and traces left behind have been lost.

Within the entire long and vast border area of ​​the empire, among the swaying veins of the huge branches of the world, there are some order fields, some deep, solid, and quiet order fields.

What is carried inside such an order field should be huge world management facilities like the World Vein Overview Seat and the World Branch Zenith Seat - if those facilities can be located in such an order field, the performance they can perform may be able to Huge improvements.

However, the empire can no longer continue to expand the internal space and overall stable structure of such an order field. The results given by the technical extreme deduction module are as if after exceeding a certain basic range, every time the order range within the order field is expanded. , the resources invested in maintaining it will be countless times that of the previous stage...

Just kidding.

Such order fields can only be expanded to a limited range, but as long as there are corresponding purposes and ideas, they are not impossible to use.

Within these cold and ethereal fields of order, there exists the empire's special radar.

Compared with those various types of airborne radars that either have no visible structure at all and only have a protective dome as an encapsulation shell, or are simply sealed inside the ship body and can only be said to be functionally visible, these floating in the order The creations in the field can be said to be absolutely different——

On the "pedestal" built by several giant cylindrical buildings, the receiving surface of the narrative radar is being adjusted according to the assigned sequence tasks - the narrative radar not only has a "surface", but also its dense and regular While the grid surface extends for tens of millions of kilometers, it also exhibits a certain arc. The two ends gradually narrow and move forward compared to the center position, bending toward an invisible origin. The center of the curved surface, which is relatively “bulging”, is fixed on the base by a series of link modules and hard lights that flash with light.

They looked so different that Victorville and others couldn't help but slightly think of some of the races they had seen that were still bound to the earth by gravity. Some of their creations, which are partially made from materials on the planet, seem to be very similar to this in structure.

What narrative radar captures is not the actual information status of the target at a certain moment or within a certain period of time. What they capture is the "relationship" between information bodies of different levels and structures - the results they output are more like logs and stories than groups of information models. .

The influence left behind in the past allows these narrative radars to collect various information about other worlds in the distant void even without using military power that may cause harm.

The entire set of mission procedures set up by the empire during the gradual truce guided these narrative radars, which were like metal nets. They continued to sweep through the void in wave after wave in the cold order field, following the trend of advancing like waves. The void sky sphere was once covered with countless danger signs and military markings.

Every time they scan, they will record many stories. They are like a web, they are a web - a web that encompasses stories and all memories.

Facing the empty dark order field and the endless and distant dark void, these huge arc-shaped grid surfaces that slowly rotate in almost all deviation directions are like pen writers, their eyes crossing the void, they Use a pen to record the stories in the void, whether they are real or illusory.

Between countless worlds, the giant pen of nothingness leaves strokes one after another, and the silver threads existing in concepts and imaginations connect them together. They are far clearer and more brilliant than the constellations.

…

"...Could it be that our ideas, our thinking patterns, and our actions...are indeed biased toward extremes and impatience?"

"In any case, I personally will not give any more orders about rebuilding civilization - or, at least, when we encounter any problems, we will have at least one hundred trillion times the power to face and deal with them. At the same time, Now, I don’t want you to deny your previous actions and thoughts. In short, I don’t want to evaluate this part, no matter what results it reveals now.”

"Your Majesty Victorville, you..."

"...It doesn't matter what you do."

"This is... Your Majesty, if you have any mission arrangements or orders..."

"No, in essence, it doesn't matter how you implement it. In general, I won't interfere with you. I just want to express it to myself."

"...Your Majesty, this is very strange."

"Maybe, maybe, IV's attitude does deserve our attention."

…

In fact, the area that the empire's current "Sky Survey Operation" can cover may not even be as large as the maximum area reached during the expedition period to a certain extent.

This is not so much a large-scale exploration as it is a sorting operation - while surveying the sky, with a little stability and when the end of the world will not explode as violently as the twinkling stars, the empire is sorting out its external situation. At the same time, we also further clarify the various attributes and problems of the territory we actually control.

If most of these worlds were not equipped with various world management facilities, trying to clearly count them within a certain period would be like trying to accurately determine the exact location of each of the interiors of a universe with countless giant "galaxies." There will be the same number of stars at every moment - it will be a huge dynamic number that is constantly refreshing, and if it corresponds to now...

In the world outside the empire's network, in fact, their reference systems for the empire are not unified at all. Except for those Σ worlds with self-anchoring capabilities and the worlds where some of the discovered civilizations with powerful information manipulation capabilities are located, other natural worlds...

As long as the Empire is willing, the Empire can start recording from their Sidereal Age within one year until the "Dark Age" is completely over.

…

The world branch is a giant information structure formed by the interconnected worlds. It is currently the second largest descriptive unit identified by the empire, second only to the Void Quadrant. However, so far, the number of world branches caught in the Empire's line of fire is greater than the total number of worlds controlled by the Empire while it was still alive.

When fighting the rotting corpses, the two sides have no reason to argue with each other - billions of veins have been cut off from the branches of the world, and they may even be directly destroyed and directly exiled.

This is not impossible.

In the increasingly crazy battlefield, countless reduction factors have replaced accurate statistics. At that time, the Empire didn't have the energy to remember everything, let alone see it through.

Only now does the empire have the energy to re-determine its own situation - before that, the impact of the end of the world in billions of billions of almost standard worlds is just that one or several reduction coefficients need to be added or deleted, and the empire simply needs to add or delete one or several. It cannot be counted, or in other words, the "statistics" themselves are almost meaningless, and the numbers will be refreshed all the time.

…

"The boundaries of the sky area are being redrawn, the capital's action range and the corresponding overall sequence are being reset, and the empire's void map is being completed, with an accuracy equal to the information offset difference of a single world."

"Speaking of it, the earliest origin of the concept of sky zones seems to be older than any current knowledge. It is so old that its original origin has been forgotten."

"Yeah, Isendel, think about what the narrative radar captures - generally speaking, these things are used by civilizations that haven't gotten rid of the constellation structure. They will regard their home as the core of the universe, and then Divide the entire celestial sphere based on the starry sky you see on your home star and the identifiable structures in the starry sky... This is indeed feasible. If my memory is reliable... the same is true for the sky area we initially demarcated. the concept of."

"It is difficult to establish a total coordinate system for the information offset difference in the void. To be precise, every time a reference world is changed, the differences in the reference values ​​of the information offset difference will be completely refreshed... The concept of sky zone came about at that time Yes, each sky area is actually a group of worlds measured by different reference cores... Now the technology and measurement methods have become so advanced in comparison that we can even integrate countless worlds in the Void Quadrant. The concept of Gutian District is actually..."

As Cavenriel spoke, he looked at the entangled image he held in his hand - in his hand, a pom-pom that seemed to be blown by a strong wind was expanding. He looked at the silent Isendel beside him, and then looked behind him——

It was a pure ocean composed of golden light. Outside the huge pyramid, countless crystal arrowheads bound to the World System Viewer were floating in the order field, and their tips continued to flash with strands of light. These streams of light It will interact with the dense crystal matrix in the vast steps of the second-order pyramid and transmit bulk information without delay, and they have spread into a vast land tens of millions of light years away.

The light beams released from the seemingly sharp spire formed a great wall that looked like it could split through the darkness. The mask released by this huge fortress on the source of the uniform information pulses of the branches of the world is enough to attract most of the attacks directed at the branches of the world and the world vein cluster itself.

"...It's so spectacular. Such a creation not only requires technology to get rid of ordinary physical concepts, but also requires action and thinking to be able to create it..."

"...it is difficult to concentrate. We are constantly switching and adjusting between many threads, and it is difficult for us to concentrate on one thing for a long time. The main thread..."

"Isendel, your legs."

"Hey...hey?! This-"

"The corrosive intensity of blood reality is too high, so high that it can cause us to dilute ourselves inadvertently. The so-called "sky zone" of each of us has actually far exceeded the limit that we can understand and control." See Inadvertently, only half of his body was left, the small "humanoid existence" in front of him, and a silent sigh emerged from the bottom of his heart.

Things that once deserved attention and were taken seriously are now nothing.

"While dilution has reached this point, this should be a holding pattern."

"But it is estimated that this is it. It will not take tens of billions of years for the evolutionary matrix to completely engulf us. The flagship may be able to last longer, but that is meaningless. The empire will probably be replaced sooner or later."

"From the moment we step into the crystal energy field, we should not be afraid of time."

"That shouldn't be a bad idea...?"

"Life is a too broad and broad concept... The end of life like ours does not mean... Really, look at the evolutionary matrix. If they don't look at the individual and look at the whole, they are also life, and field life, almost You could say they’re everywhere.”

"But don't forget, the "empire is dead" is not because of us, but because... our actions cannot bring life and success..."

"Has it been forgotten again..."

The souls of the two fell silent, and finally turned into a ball of light and disappeared.

Behind the disappearing light is an eternal wall of light.

In silence, the eternal light that illuminates the void and shelters the entire world branch from the spire of the World Branch Zenith did not change at all.

…

His eyes kept scanning the void, and what he brought back was one story after another.

The complexity of a "Galaxy River" is actually exaggerated enough - if you only look at it vaguely, then a Galaxy may be a plate composed of various "bright spots" and some dim clouds and mists. But in fact, galaxies are made up of as few as tens of billions, as many as trillions, quadrillions or even more bright "stars", as well as countless other structures of different shapes and vastly different natures. . And every moment, they have new members joining and old members leaving.

The universe floats within the world, and there are many galaxies in the universe, or existences "equivalent" to galaxies.

There are also many world structures in the void.

To truly understand them and describe them, for the empire, for anyone, and for yourself...

It's not easy.

But it has to be done.

At least Σ has not ignored the structure of the world because of its own size. Over the past hundreds of millions of years, the one who has become crazier... seems to be himself.

"It has been confirmed... that there are far more civilizations that may survive in the branches of the world than we imagined. Our previous definition of Σ was actually too limited to our surroundings, and our vision was simply not enough."

"What's the total?"

"The specific number cannot be calculated, but within the foreseeable range, the civilizations we inadvertently destroyed during our actions may add up to enough to occupy tens of thousands of world connections - that is millions of times that of the previous empire. .”

"...What about strength?"

"The parts that we can still recall, the evolutionary matrix and the parts that can be retrieved by the expedition fleet and narrative radar have not found any existence similar to us - after all, we have super creations like Lieyang in our hands, and Technical extreme deduction module and...you."

“What are the parts worth recording and worth scrutinizing?”

"Originally we thought that the fusion of civilizations in the dark zone we built was the relatively strongest intelligent civilization we have observed. But now, the intensity record we discovered has been refreshed at least three times. . However, considering that the fusion of civilizations in the dark area may be in the recovery period, this part remains to be observed. In addition, many rapidly developing civilizations have been discovered within the branches of other worlds - so fast that it is almost incomprehensible."

"...?"

"The response given by the Void Sky Survey Radar, or Narrative Radar, is very vague. Their stories may not be in line with their corresponding development paths in this world - not only the degree of development, but also the speed of their technological development. As time continues to climb, it will only take a few years from ignition to tearing apart the star."

"How is this possible? Even if the technology can do it, can they adapt to the changes at such a rapid pace of development?"

"The responses given by the survey radar are so vague. Maybe they really are... they don't even know how they developed and grew. Many corresponding phenomena also exist in the branches of the world in other quadrants. The most powerful entity is found in the sixth quadrant - it only took them ten years to develop from planetary level to pry open the world barrier. If they conflict with us now, we may also suffer considerable losses .”

"...It can only be said that it is too easy to find a model that can explain this, but there are too many possible explanations."

"In that temporarily sealed area, they have further completed the fusion process - after three bloody battles, a further fused race replaced the former civilization fusion. After that, they have made their technology as a whole It’s been replaced three times.”

"Wall recognition?"

"They can't identify it - even with the Infinity Engine test, they can't detect that mask layer. Calculated based on the current level, the final threshold they can detect with the Infinity Engine test is far from the wall. What's more, That layer of protection has actually been mostly removed.”

"...Your Majesty, have you really not learned about the relevant situation?"

"It's not necessary. There are too many events and possibilities in the void, and no one can take them all into account."

"Calculate the time...the next wave may occur about 50 million years from the current linear time."

"I wonder if we can use this... to "complement" ourselves?"

"Hopefully that's not a wishful thinking."