"Whoosh—"
In the night sky, under the clear sky, the aircraft followed an invisible track. When they passed through some areas, the granary-like buildings on the ground cast light, illuminating the windows of many aircraft.
In the phantom space, the expressions of Lin Tuo, Huaxi, Mount Sinai and even Hathaway all changed significantly.
Lu Liang's answer was completely beyond everyone's expectations.
The "Court Officer" who dominates the entire Ueno star area, the "Governor" who is the source of all government orders, is not a human being, but a supercomputer
Or, in the empire, the meaning of "governor" is different from what they understand, and it does not represent an official position with real power, but an institution
Just like on earth, the legal person of the company is not a person.
It is understandable if the "governor" is the network computing center of this planet, and the government orders are issued by the officials who control it, but Lin Tuo always feels that this may not be the case.
"You said that Governor Ueno is a computer," Lin Tuo stared at Lu Liang, and said, "Then who is the real administrator?"
"It's the Governor." Lu Liang became more and more confused, "The Governor is the highest administrative official in Ueno. Except for the leadership of His Majesty the Emperor, no one here has a higher administrative level than him."
"... So, you mean, it has its own consciousness?" Lin Tuo finally understood.
"Of course, the governor has self-awareness. Although it is not a human being in law, given its special nature, its owner has the same power as a human being." Lu Liang took it for granted.
Lin Tuo understood.
To put it simply, the essence of Governor Ueno may be similar to that of a lord of the spirit world, or Hathaway.
His own spirituality is strong, and an independent consciousness was born, thus becoming a part of the imperial people, and was awarded the position of governor by the emperor.
To use a metaphor, it's like Lin Tuo sent Hathaway to the second world, and then gave her an official position, allowing her to have power.
"Are there many governors like it?" Lin Tuo continued to ask, he wanted to know whether the Ueno governor was an exception or a majority in the empire.
Lu Liang glanced at him and the others, and said dryly:
"All governors are like this. I don't know if they are in Ueno, but officials at all levels in several star regions in the empire's home star field are also computers."
"The emperor..."
"Your Majesty is also a supercomputer." Lu Liang said subconsciously. After speaking, his face suddenly turned pale, and cold sweat rolled down his face.
He finally realized that something was wrong. If the people who kidnapped him were masters from the empire, how could they not know this kind of "common sense"
Unless... these people are not Imperials at all! It is a life from the spirit world who does not know where it came from, or... from other unknown civilizations! ! !
However, at this moment, Lin Tuo and the others didn't give up on Lu Liang's mentality, because they had already made sufficient preparations for this unknown world.
But at this moment, after learning that the entire empire, from the emperor to all the officials are all computers, not human beings, they still couldn't hide their shocking expressions!
emperor
computer
what is this
To make a metaphor, it’s like the head of a certain big country on the earth, as well as the leaders of the states and provinces in the country are all computers... Even though these "computers" have intelligence that is not inferior to, or even surpasses, human beings, but...
"Unbelievable," muttered Mount Sinai.
Huaxi glanced at Hathaway, and inexplicably popped into his mind the appearance of this guy as the leader of the country... Hey, what kind of crap scene will that be?
Lin Tuo was silent, looked at Lu Liang who was sweating profusely, and showed a gentle smile: "You..."
"You are not from the empire!" Lu Liang stammered.
Lin Tuo looked at him for a few seconds and said, "Is this important?"
"I..." Lu Liang opened his mouth, met Lin Tuo's steady eyes like a lake, and after a while, he said bitterly like a deflated ball:
"go ahead."
"Very well, the second question..."
…
In the night sky, few people noticed an aircraft circling the urban area, and if there were, they would not know what was going on inside.
Lu Liang seemed to be really afraid of death. Even though he realized that there was something wrong with Lin Tuo and others' backgrounds, he didn't try to resist. He almost answered every question, which made Lin Tuo's interrogation work particularly smooth.
If it was said that from the bulletin board before, it was only a basic frame impression of the empire, but now it is more vivid.
In Lu Liang's narration, the administrative system of the entire empire is almost entirely dependent on the supercomputing network composed of the "emperor" and the "governors" of various places.
If the "emperor" is likened to the computing core of the entire empire, then the "governors" in various places are weakened versions of the "emperor". They have the ability to think and have a huge spirituality. Through the entire network, they control all aspects of society. .
It can be said that the operating framework of the entire society is built on these supercomputers.
Unlike human society, which is an administrative system composed of various departments composed of people, almost all government affairs in the star regions of the empire are handled, instructed, and analyzed by the "governor".
Then it is distributed to various specific departments composed of people, and these people will complete some work that cannot be done directly by the governor.
A great advantage of this structure is that it almost solves the internal loss problem.
On Earth, when a decree is issued, it needs to be discussed by departments one by one, and then issued little by little. The efficiency is low, and different departments have different demands and hinder each other.
Internal friction often occurs.
Not to mention the damage that some private actions of department heads may cause to the entire system.
In the empire, these are all done by the governor, and the super-high spirituality and digital characteristics make it easy to do this.
This eliminates a host of problems and is extremely efficient.
In particular, because the governor is in charge of the affairs of the entire star region, he can use calculations to summarize the demands of all parties and calculate a relatively optimal solution.
Within the framework of this system, the entire society has really become a "machine", and the imperial people only need to accept the ubiquitous services of the "governor".
And the governors of various places only need to be responsible for the emperor, with clear instructions, so as to complete the rule of the entire "empire" spanning many light years.
"But, in this case, wouldn't everyone have to obey the only emperor? Your entire civilization changes according to the emperor's joy, anger, and wishes?" Hearing this, Lin Tuo couldn't help asking.
In his opinion, this unbelievable "centralization" is simply too terrifying, tying the entire civilization to the hands of one will... This behavior is too incomprehensible.
Lu Liang thought for a while and said:
"Of course this problem exists. Some scholars in the empire have always had this kind of worry. Many works of art in our world also have this kind of reflection. However, after so many years of operation, the effect is obvious to all."
"oh?"
"Although I haven't experienced it, I also learned it in school history class. Long, long ago, the mainland of the empire was also governed by people.
However, with the maturity of the ability to leap to the spiritual world, the territory of the empire gradually expanded, and it gradually became difficult to control. Coupled with some technological breakthroughs, the ancients tried to delegate power to supercomputers.
Then after a long period of testing, the result was indeed much better than the original governance method, and it was gradually promoted until it finally evolved into what it is now. "
Lin Tuo said: "Those computers... were you made?"
"Well," Lu Liangdao said, "According to the history books, the early empires used ether energy to develop a series of new things. The supercomputer was originally a thing made in imitation of spiritual supernatural objects.
Later, when they had enough spirituality, consciousness was born, which is equivalent to human beings in terms of law. "
"Of course, the early ancients must have been worried, so at the beginning of manufacturing, some rules were written at the bottom of the emperor's system.
These rules ensure that no matter how powerful the emperor is, he must put human rights first, and cannot do anything that endangers human civilization.
Over the countless years, although there have been some things that seem unreasonable in the short term, in the long run, the emperor has indeed been firmly implementing this set of rules. "
"And, limited by these rules, the humans of the empire are actually bound by it."
Lin Tuo raised his eyebrows: "For example?"
Lu Liang swallowed and spit:
"Proposals. Humans can control the emperor or the governors of various places by initiating proposals. It must accept any proposals initiated, and different people have different voting rights on proposals.
In this way, different groups can also fight for their rights through proposals... Of course, as far as I know, most proposals will not involve too many issues. "
This statement reminded several people of Proposition 15.
"When it comes to important matters, some groups in the empire composed of people with higher votes can also play games, such as the ethics committee, which is said to have a lot of votes..."
Lu Liang said with some yearning.
"This model... really won't cause problems?" Mount Sinai was a little disbelieving. This kind of structure always sounded weird to her.
"I don't know, it's been good all these years anyway." Lu Liang shrank his neck and said.
After a brief silence, Lin Tuo asked, "What about the resurrection and uploading of memories?"
Lu Liang was silent for a while, and explained:
"This involves the energy cycle with the spirit world. You know, human existence can anchor the ether?"
"Yes, let's continue."
"According to our research, the human soul is actually composed of spirituality and memory data. Under normal circumstances, after a person dies, the soul will return to the spiritual world, returning to pure spirituality, and the memory will dissipate...
And when a person conceives a new life, he will absorb spirituality, and the initial soul without any memory data will be born to form a new person... "
"This reincarnation is death and rebirth. However, no one wants to die... So, a long time ago, the empire was researching the method of immortality, and finally explored two ways."
"One is evolution, absorbing ether, tempering the body, prolonging lifespan, gaining more practice time, absorbing spirituality, increasing soul... When the body is aging, it can also be reborn through the spirit world."
Lin Tuo nodded: "I know that."
Lu Liang swallowed again and said:
"But there is a problem with this approach.
For one thing, very few people can evolve to this level through normal practice, and if you try to take a shortcut, your spirituality is not enough... not only the evolutionary, but also computers and other equipment...
This stuff is not as much as ether. "
"Secondly, even if you are reborn, there will be sequelae, such as the possibility of fading and disappearing past memories."
"So, this way didn't work, and then I found a second way."
"The second one?" Lin Tuo asked back.
"Yes, like I said, the emperors and governors are very powerful spiritually, so powerful that they can compete with the spirit world for the absorption of human souls... they can even replace the functions of the spirit world to a certain extent.
After experiments, we found that there is another way to achieve immortality.
That is, after a person dies, the soul flies to the sky and is intercepted by the governor to prevent it from entering the spirit world, but is stored in the data pool developed by itself, also called the cloud.
The spiritual part is fused into the governor's body, while the memory data is stripped out and stored separately... "
"In this way, as long as you accumulate enough contribution points, you can use genes to customize a cloned body for a deceased person, buy memories from the governor, inject them, and achieve resurrection... Of course, this is very expensive."
Lin Tuo, Huaxi and the others looked at each other without speaking. After a while, Mount Sinai couldn't help but said:
"According to what you said, this kind of resurrection is expensive, not everyone can afford it, and this kind of... thing will be implemented? No one will think it's unfair?"
Lu Liang glanced at her carefully and said:
"There will definitely be issues of fairness, but after all, there is still a chance to be reborn... Especially some upper-level figures are fully capable of paying the price. Even if they are not good enough, they can count on future generations.
If a powerful person emerges from the descendants, theoretically, the entire ancestors of the family can be resurrected, no matter how bad it is... it is better to save than to lose.
So... this proposal passed. "
"Then your resurrection..." Lin Tuo looked at him.
Lu Liang explained:
"We are quite special. I serve in the special operations team of the military. Our team often has to go deep into the spirit world and the depths of the universe. The death rate is high, so there are special quotas.
As long as it is an action that meets the standards, the governor will help us make a memory backup before departure.
If a person dies outside, he can be resurrected... Of course, if he dies accidentally inside the empire, he can only wait in line, and he can only be resurrected when it is my turn. "
"... I understand." Lin Tuo was silent for a while.
Only now did he finally understand why Lin Jing and Qin Feng did it directly on the highway outside Wucheng.
Why was Xiao Wuyang not afraid when he died, because they had a backup, so they naturally had no fear.
"I see that there is no spiritual light group or spiritual creatures in the spiritual world near the Ueno planet." Suddenly, Hathaway asked.
Lu Liang blinked:
"...Yes. Part of it has been sent to the headquarters of the empire, and part of it will be brought back to the governor for use as energy.
In fact... the daily task of our special operations team is to find a way to collect spirituality from afar and bring it back. As for those creatures... they must be cleared when they are collected. "
"There are so few evolutionary experts here, is it also because of spirituality?" Huaxi interrupted and asked.
"It should be," Lu Liang said, "The higher the level of evolution, the more spiritual resources are needed, and most of them are supplied to the local area, plus the normal consumption...
Our kind of frontier star field must have far fewer places to evolve than the mainland, otherwise why so many people want to immigrate there... "
"What about your fighting power? What do you rely on?" Lin Tuo asked.
Lu Liang hesitated for a while before saying:
"Weapons, battleships and the like, the military base is also the largest arsenal in the star area, using those weapons, we can consume ether and launch attacks.
But to deal with life in the spirit world, we still have to rely on the spiritual energy allocated by the governor... That's all I know. "
"Last question, have you heard of the evolution sand table?" Lin Tuo asked.
"No."
"What about the matter converter?" he asked again.
Didn't we agree on the last one... Lu Liang cursed and said:
"It's infrastructure. It can consume energy and magnify materials. One gram of metal can be converted into many kilograms. It's available in every city. It's easy to find in the material supply center."
"Very well, I'm fine." Lin Tuo sighed and said, "As for the next step, I would like to ask you to help me with an experiment."
"Experiment? What are you going to do? I told you everything!" Lu Liang said in horror as if realizing something.
Lin Tuo was silent for a while, then sighed: "Sorry."
"No… "
In the next second, Lin Tuo gave Huaxi a look, and the latter's body quickly disappeared into the room.
In the sky, inside the capsule-shaped aircraft that kept flying at a constant speed, Huaxi, who was leaning on the seat, opened her eyes as if she was sleeping.
Looking at the driver who was sitting across from him, held by Lin Tuo on his shoulders, motionless, with his eyes closed, he raised his hand, and condensed a thin stream of etheric sword energy, piercing the opponent's heart.
A few seconds later, Lu Liang's body died.
In the illusion space, Lu Liang's soul was dizzy for a while, and immediately flew towards the sky, as if trying to break free from this world and leave.
Lin Tuo raised his hand and waved lightly, and the illusory chains were tightened suddenly.
Lu Liang's mental body instantly disintegrated, dissipated, and disappeared without a trace.
"We are enemies, so I am sorry to kill you."
(end of this chapter)