Star Empire

"And the specific manifestation of that "bright color" in the real environment...may be first a good thing, then a bad thing, then a bad thing, a bad thing, a bad thing, and before the next good thing appears, there may be some bad things mixed in between. More than one big bad thing.”

"For example - in that era, after using narrative radar, which is now the "Void Survey Radar" to detect the surrounding environment, you may have just received a report that "the background fluctuation intensity of the surrounding information environment is normal", and the alarm will appear in the next second ——For example, there is a new large-scale activity of the death wave or a large-scale invasion by the Σ armed forces. Otherwise, it is possible that the void precipitates and decays, producing polluting information or highly offensive giants that may threaten multiple worlds. entity."

"...These problems may appear more than one at a time, and they may happen to be refreshed near an important hub of the empire, and these hubs are connected to the empire's important testing sites or important industrial bases or transportation arteries. At the same time, some extremely important things may be being researched, transported, or manufactured in these important test sites, and these things are urgently needed by the empire - such a problem loop may have dozens of layers."

"You have not yet fully integrated into this society, and there are many things you may not understand yet. This does not matter. As you continue to grow, you will learn more and more knowledge, and that knowledge will be enough to supplement It’s all the missing pieces here.”

"When you gradually fill in the missing pieces of this whole puzzle, you will be able to understand from the bottom of your heart what kind of era it was - until 500 billion years ago, those contents were still not what the empire was unwilling to do. Randomly mentioned nightmare.”

"It can be said that it took the empire trillions of years to untie its knot, face the past, and face everything it experienced in the craziest era."

In the vast sea of ​​clouds, countless "big cannons" shaped like heavy cones were aimed at the dark waves surging in the void. The hot white hammers fell from the order to the void, and the glory of creation was torn apart like lightning across the entire night sky. Black sky. Countless worlds were created, and the foundation provided by this world allowed the empire to use it as a springboard to create more worlds and go further into the void...

Madness is pervasive—stretching from the tiny elements within the world to the majestic pyramid that sits at the heart of the Probabilistic Flashpoint Chain. They have no background, they don’t have much story and foundation to prove why they appear and why they grow into what they are now. They seem to appear out of thin air. No matter how huge and heavy they are, they still give people a light and airy feeling - they seem to be unable to hold something down.

"It's hard to believe... at a time like this, when... the empire has countless worlds, but can't find a place to accommodate these dozens of souls... people at that time were actually willing to believe that the environment would get better. …”

"Kriz, you should never give up hope completely at any time. If you only draw conclusions based on what it "seems" to be, the current empire should not exist. However, people at that time could maintain this glimmer of hope for beauty. It was already too rare, but this rare hope... turned into poison, a poison refined by those souls that almost destroyed the entire empire."

"Why...you say that?"

"The Void Sky Survey Project - this was originally launched to comprehensively evaluate the environment contained in the entire void sky around the empire. After the implementation of this plan, the array of void survey radars will scan the entire surrounding area as comprehensively as possible. film environment. During the scanning process, the empire discovered traces of the existence and activities of other civilizations—other powerful civilizations."

"The "powerful" here means that those civilizations or groups of civilizations at least have the ability to control and step out of the world's context, and may even be able to discover and begin to explore the world's branches. After discovering these "potential allies" who are also fighting against the pollution and enemies in the void After that, the empire briefly controlled its own expansion activities, leaving "enough" space for those civilizations to move and develop - at least the empire thought it was enough at that time."

"But teacher, what does this have to do with self-destruction and poison...?" Kriz turned his head and asked towards the darkness around him.

"The long battle was very painful. For the beings of the empire at that time, the juxtaposition of endless wars, the tired acceptance of countless new things, and the fight against the ubiquitous red reality were enough to make the strongest The psychological defenses of large individuals quietly collapse unknowingly. Those potential allies... they have unknowingly become some kind of "sustenance" for the empire..."

"I don't know if you have noticed one thing - although there are many intelligent groups in the void, the Empire has never had good communication with any other intelligent group. Don't even talk about the Empire, even during the previous Federation period Even earlier periods of origin...never existed.”

"The empire once set up an organization called the Observer Council, but the observer program only watched the civilizations from a distance and could not contact them. Because once contact occurs, other intelligent groups will often be disturbed by external sources in a short period of time. And the collapse—the empire itself doesn’t understand why.”

"As time goes by, such negative emotions continue to pile up, and so does the desire to break through the difficulties. Over the long years, hope, negative emotions and desires have formed a metamorphic fusion. And this metamorphic fusion The meaning is probably..."

"If it can be recognized and recognized and accepted by some of these beings, the empire can come together with more civilizations and wisdom, get out of the predicament of red reality, and maintain its hope for beauty...etc. .”

"...?"

"It may be strange, but at that time, there was no wisdom to realize that this mutated fusion belief had spread to the entire empire. At that time, the empire's force and scale were expanding rapidly, and the resulting dilution effect of the red reality was getting stronger and stronger. Even individuals as powerful as emperors will have their bodies melt without paying attention. At that time, everyone's heart is more or less distorted, and the endless pressure from the outside world can make people unable to breathe. Come. People don’t even care about themselves, let alone... other existences?"

"Other existence...?"

"That is...the empire itself."

"What?!"

"Since the Federation period, intelligent individuals in civilization have been highly connected by powerful communication networks. Countless intelligent individuals are closely connected with each other and can exchange ideas, concepts, and needs... Think about it, does this feel familiar? Feeling? We have learned such content before."

"Emergence?! And... superorganisms?"

"Indeed. In fact, one of the products that emergence can produce, that is, "superorganism", was discovered before the "emergence ritual" that can effectively utilize the phenomenon of emergence. The empire connects countless lives through the network And creation, the empire can of course be regarded as an actual super-individual. This super-individual will also undergo changes, but the individuals who make up it often cannot detect or understand the super-individual's thoughts and will, because they have completely different mechanism."

"At that time, whether they were independent individuals or super-individuals, they were already struggling on the edge of collapse, but..."

"Crazy! They are all crazy! A bunch of crazy!"

"Devil! Retreat! Retreat quickly——"

"This is what the most powerful civilized entity outside of the Empire on record said at the time about the Empire's actions."

"Originally, it doesn't matter - civilized entities, after all, are self-interested and self-centered. This is a basic nature that is almost impossible to completely eradicate no matter how "selfless" it is. Such a basic nature is natural It will lead to differences and confrontations between civilizations and wisdom, which will inevitably lead to mutual attacks."

"At present, this is a quite common phenomenon, and it is just a difference in degree - not to mention, this is not an "attack" at all. At that time, we were facing such a higher level than us. As a crazy entity, "we" poured out more obscenities than this, and released more sharpness and vitriol than this. But..."

"It was these words that touched the most vulnerable point of the empire at a very special time... and defeated the last line of defense of the empire's wisdom and reason."

"Ouch——!!"

Some extremely shrill, heart-rending roar exploded from the void and swept across the entire empire. Wherever the howl touched, all the entities were not destroyed at all, but their insides collapsed. Souls, algorithms, matrices, machinery... they were all stripped out and mashed in a huge and rough whirlpool, forming a huge pot of "chaos soup".

"Hiss...ah..." Kriz frowned. The pain caused by the shattering of his soul and the complete breakdown of the independence of individual entities seemed to affect him across time and space. He subconsciously tightened his body. At the same time, a layer of imperceptible silver-white light quietly flowed through his body.

"In the past, we were not sure whether Σ had controlled these changes, and whether those corrupted corpses had used any strategy against the empire. But after that... various manifestations made subsequent researchers have opposite views on this series of events. Of course - Σ's fleet itself has lost its wisdom and logic. Over such a long period of time, no matter how powerful they are, they will be destroyed by the death bubble, there is no doubt about it."

"But their own actions can still follow the underlying mechanism. And Σ civilization...it can be determined that they have left countless "semi-commands" in the underlying mechanism. These semi-commands with a high degree of freedom of choice are enough Forming logic gates - these logic gates can form a logical system that uses the body as a thinking circuit and external disturbances as the source of commands."

"The content of the powerful broadcasts carried out by Σ civilization is not complicated, but it has profound meaning. After they are input into the "entity logic gate system" as initial values, it is enough for these corpses to continue to execute the "orders" - until everything is completely dead. "

"When the Empire goes mad, everything around it goes mad too."

Everything in the void seemed to be momentarily still. Then, everything that had ever existed began to move at countless times greater efficiency than before.

Industrial modules and industrial primitives - they can self-replicate themselves, and these primitives can make up almost all of the Empire's creations. At this moment, they are like out-of-control cancer memes, replicating themselves crazily. They quickly fill up world after world, and everything they separate is scattered like waste.

"Endless negative emotions burst out in a directed manner and formed endless hatred - this is not a big problem logically. From that point of view, it is not an exaggeration to take this for granted, after all, no matter how powerful the entity is, It is also possible to cross the critical point and collapse out of control. There are countless possibilities for such an out-of-control collapse. The collapse and outbreak of the empire is presented in this way."

"But there are also studies that believe that this is influenced by an unknown entity. This entity will affect the empire in the future, or it may affect the entire void. In short, after that, all negative emotions turned into hatred, and towards everything around them The hatred... the purest, longest-lasting, and deepest hatred ever recorded by the Empire."

"Hate...why is there...such hatred...?"

"I don't know, Kriz. The teacher doesn't know either. Even the Imperial academic community has no conclusion on this. Why did the Empire have such clear and deep hatred at that time."

"In extreme cases, the measurement rules based on rational conditions may no longer apply. However, the imperial academic community has been unable to restore all the conditions and parameters at the time, so no one can be 100% sure where the "over-limit" parts are. "

"If we use a hypothetical simulation... even if we input the most exaggerated parameters and use the most exaggerated algorithm, all the negative emotions at that time cannot be converted into such a clear and large-scale hatred - even individual and super-individual Emotions have the most direct transformation path and do not undergo any reduction. The amount of information the empire had at that time was probably not enough to generate such a strong wave of hatred."

"It is precisely for this reason that some studies believe that...if algorithmic problems or calculation errors can be ruled out, then this hatred does not only come from the empire, but a large part of it may come from Σ, or even from other, certain Something we don’t know yet.”

"well……"

A slight sigh quietly passed through the darkness, and the jumping picture on the screen seemed to become a little blurry.

An irrational act brought down the curtain, and all coverings were removed. The brilliant sunlight released by the starry skeleton of the Void Sun began to burn everything from the inside out.

"Hate drives the imperial fleet to expand crazily outwards, and all obstacles in the void will be completely swept away - whether they are natural entities, civilization, or anything else. The empire, which has completely turned into a chaotic whole, has ignited the chaos that has so far The largest emergence ceremony that the empire has ever triggered - a "shift of stars" with the branches of the world as pointers and the blazing sun of the void as the focus. This means that the empire will no longer conceal anything, and will no longer care about anything. If ever If the empire still cares about "themselves" because of "themselves", after this... it won't happen anymore."

"Teacher, wait, these pictures..." Kriz wanted to see more clearly what was going on, but everything in the picture began to change rapidly - the strange light in the void began to expand rapidly, countless Battleships are constantly sweeping across the screen. They are like phantoms, like ghosts, and like a tide of corpses. They will only continue to spread, dyeing everything around them into colors that only they can wear and use.

"This situation has lasted for at least 27 billion years. The crazy expansion of 27 billion years has finally given the empire the power to fight against some of the previous civilizations that have suffered heavy losses in the void."

"It's just that at that time... other civilizations that may exist in the void... they may be more desperate than our predecessors when they escaped from their home world in embarrassment. After all, what we are facing is that we once maintained the highest level of wisdom and wisdom in the void. The corpses left behind by a rational civilization have become increasingly sparse. Moreover, these corpses did not wipe out the empire. Their actions contained other purposes, but when the empire went crazy at that time, it was really crazy."

"Here, the plot of "the dragon slayer transforms into an evil dragon" not only reappears, but in terms of means and other aspects, the new evil dragon is also better than the original one. If it didn't encounter such a level of disaster, it wouldn't even be called a "dragon." "The behemoth is too violent and cruel. However, if the disaster had not happened, the star civilization might have been one of the fleeting ordinary civilizations in the void, without anything special, and these might be able to change the pattern of the void, Events that shake the world will never happen with such a starry civilization."

"Future generations may be able to talk about assumptions based on the creations of predecessors, but for those who have experienced it, history has no ifs."

"No...what if..."

In the void, part of the radial empire territory was cut off by some invisible sharp knife - it was a standard circle, a piece of missing darkness.

“That’s where we nearly met the real end.”