The Secret History of Mars

Bao Xi and Elder Yan watched as Ye Qinghe led Cui Xingmeng and Yuan Yizhou to the second floor of the Xuanhu Tower. The two began to discuss their opinions on Yuan Yizhou.

"He is indeed different from Ying Zheng," Elder Bao Xiang said first. "Ying Zheng had a firm answer to every question back then, and would even debate in order to convince others."

"Yes, there is no such sharpness in Yuan Yizhou's eyes," Elder Yan nodded. "His confidence is accompanied by modesty and prudence, as well as exploration and awe of the unknown."

"Cui Xingmeng is not just his lover," Bao Xi continued to analyze, "I think he has regarded her as his belief."

"I feel the same way. His appreciation for Cui Xingmeng may exceed his love for her." Elder Yan agreed, "This actually brings a risk."

"What's the risk?"

"Since he thinks Cui Xingmeng is his common people, if Cui Xingmeng is gone one day, will he still have common people in his heart?" Elder Yan seemed to ask a question, but also stated it.

"This is indeed an unknown quantity." Bao Xi nodded in agreement.

"However, since you agreed to Qinghe taking them upstairs, it means that you have acquiesced to Elder Cangxi's words. Regardless of whether the compassion in his heart is for her or for the common people, we have to try again."

"To be more precise, we have no choice, he is our last hope." Elder Bao Xi said sadly, "There are still 135 years left in the countdown, and we can no longer wait for the earth seeds in the next life to come here. "

Cui Xingmeng and Yuan Yizhou followed Ye Qinghe, along the spiral staircase on the side of Jishi Hall, to the second floor of the Hanging Hu Tower. What they encountered were rows of bookshelves towering above the sky, but the bookshelves were not filled with books, but books. A densely packed, glowing box the size of a hard drive.

"This is the intelligence library of Mars," Ye Qinghe explained. "This is where all the information about Martian civilization from the beginning of recorded history is stored."

"What do the different colors mean?" Cui Xingmeng carefully discovered that the light emitted by the box here was similar to the color of the progress bar on the circular floating screen downstairs. It was also mainly white, yellow and purple.

"Different colors represent different levels of intelligence," Ye Qinghe explained, "used to match different biological carriers."

Seeing that Cui Xingmeng was still thinking, Ye Qinghe picked up a white smart memory from the bookshelf next to him and gave her an example, "White is the most basic information, corresponding to the final level of wisdom, suitable for brain neurons." Connection, less than 10% of biological carriers, such as human clones, have self-learning capabilities similar to artificial intelligence."

"This is the situation of receptionist No. 285 at the Seed Hotel. The biological cloning AI you are talking about?" Yuan Yizhou asked.

"Yes, he is the product of white ultimate intelligence loaded into the body of a clone. He can complete standard operating tasks reliably and perfectly, but he is not capable of handling slightly complex character interactions." Ye Qinghe affirmed, "In In the early matriarchal society of the Shiyi Period, most humans were at this level of intelligence.”

"But group interaction in a matrilineal society is not simple." Yuan Yizhou recalled that the receptionist ignored Cui Xingmeng's complaint at breakfast and felt that something was missing. "Humans at that time did not have task standards to perform. .”

"I'm just saying that the level of human intelligence at that time was about the same as that of the receptionist at the Seed Hotel. It doesn't mean that the carriers were the same." Ye Qinghe clarified, "The people on earth at that time were natural bodies. Except for the initial genetic compilation, In addition to adding the seed information of Martians, it is completely in a state of spontaneous evolution, and this kind of evolution is the self-learning ability that the pioneer elders value most. This is something that cloning AI does not have, not only cloning AI does not have it, but also the entire Martian civilization. They have all lost this ability." Ye Qinghe said sadly.

"The entire Martian civilization has lost the ability to evolve?!" Cui Xingmeng lamented.

"Because you have chosen for yourself asexual reproduction, which is easier to control and more reliable, and abandoned sexual reproduction, which is highly uncertain and costly." Yuan Yizhou explained, "You want to choose your own destiny instead of nature. It also loses the evolutionary ability that nature gives to life.”

Ye Qinghe was noncommittal to Yuan Yizhou's statement, "Letting the civilization of Mars regain the ability of natural evolution is the ultimate purpose of the Earth experiment, and it is also the main reason why you two will be reviewed by the Council of Elders." She said as she put the white intelligence Storage, put back on the shelf.

"Then what level of wisdom do yellow and purple represent?" Cui Xingmeng continued to ask.

"Yellow represents intermediate intelligence, which can match brain neuron connections. It is the most commonly used type of carrier at 10% to 90%," Ye Qinghe said. "There are many types of carriers in this range. The current natural body of people on earth , has also reached the introductory level of connecting to this level of wisdom.”

"There are many types of carriers? How to say?" Yuan Yizhou asked.

"You can see the specifics when you go upstairs. To put it simply, they are different combinations of various biotechnologies. For example, my seed recruiter Jia Liang is a combination of intermediate intelligence with a certain confidentiality level loaded into the natural body." Ye Qinghe For example, "Xingmeng's seed custodian, Shui Zaitian, is the intermediate intelligence carried by clones after being genetically encoded and siliconized; while my own carrier is a genetically encoded natural body."

"What a chaotic race...oh, no, carrier." Cui Xingmeng said, "Why have you transformed yourself so complicatedly?"

"You think we want this," Ye Qinghe smiled bitterly, "In those centuries, as the Martian atmosphere was gradually stripped away and the surface radiation became stronger and stronger, our genetic engineering could no longer be satisfied with simple tinkering. Instead, we started to recompile. In Yizhou’s words, the Martians themselves played the role of God in their own lives. And the first piece of magic we got was the greatly improved genetic coding technology.”

"But no matter how you recompile your own genes, carbon-based life is vulnerable to radiation. As Martians gradually mastered nuclear energy, siliconization occupied the history of Martian technology development for the next few centuries. This is what we The second piece of magic, silicon-based transformation inspired by nuclear energy, completely frees us from radiation."

"Before we had time to celebrate the rebirth of our own species, we discovered that frequent genetic modification and silicon-based transformation to resist radiation had completely destroyed the fertility of Martians. From the very beginning, newborns The deformity rate increased, and eventually the birth rate plummeted, forcing us to accept the third magic in Pandora's box, cloning to maintain the continuation of the species."

"But clones only have one body and no intelligence. It is impossible for us to deliver our civilization into the hands of such artificial humans. So there is the fourth magic, the popularity of human-machine interconnection. This technology is completely subversive The social structure of Martians and the birth rate that has returned to zero force us to artificially return the death rate to zero."

"The death rate has been artificially reduced to zero. Are you saying that Martians have achieved immortality?" Cui Xingmeng asked.