"The above is the birth of the Apostle Xiling." The ancestor Ansers breathed out, saying so many things at once seemed to make him a little dry. After all, he is a mortal body, and he is always subject to certain details. own physical condition.
The original body was originally only a weapon designed to fight against the abyss. This did not exceed the expectations of Sandora and me. In fact, there are also vague impressions related to it in the core memory of the Xiling apostle. The first mission of the apostles: to fight the abyss, this is almost as deeply engraved in the core of their thinking as a racial instinct. The life form of the Apostles of Xiling itself also proves this: their various talents and ways of thinking are at the service of war. It can be said that this is a precisely customized species specially used for war, so I am not surprised at all. The purpose for which the body was ultimately designed.
It's just that this was originally a mechanical soldier used to fight against the abyss, but in the end it became a civilized successor to replace the old Xiling people-a lot of things must have happened back then. Ansers lightly mentioned the decision to hand over civilization back then, but a discerning person can see how amazing this decision is. It requires not only foresight, but also the awareness of the entire race against the end of darkness.
Can you imagine the circumstances under which people on earth will create a kind of artificial man that is more powerful than the existing human beings, and then hold the consciousness of leaving the stage of civilization with all human beings, and hand over human civilization to their own creations? The Xiling people did such a thing back then.
"This decision is really difficult." Of course, Ansers knew what was going on on the faces of me and Sandora, and he nodded frankly, "The new government is under a lot of pressure, and so are the people. Everyone knows that this is necessary, But no one is willing to accept this fact, which is easy to understand: we are also human beings, we are afraid of death, we are afraid of being forgotten, we are afraid of losing everything that we have created so far with great difficulty, no one can calmly give up the achievements of civilization of their entire race, saying A few high-sounding words and a smart exit - no one, not even a sage. We created Primarchs, and they performed better than expected: efficient, brave, powerful, tenacious, born with a spiritual connection It has the ability to improve itself at an astonishing speed, but the thought of these new species will take over Xiling civilization, and we creators have to exit... To be honest, many people have ambivalence."
"Is there no other option at that time?" I couldn't imagine how difficult it was to go into exile back then, so I had this question.
"What you said, many people also said back then." Anses laughed silently, "'There is no better choice?' 'Can't we live together with the Primarch?' 'The old humans must perish, is there no alternative? '—This question has been raised repeatedly for a long time, and the factions that are not firm in the new government are almost shaken, but it is this wavering that makes the firmists more convinced of one thing: mortals have many shortcomings, and it is difficult to abandon emotions. The debate just proves that the weak-willed old humans must withdraw, otherwise Xiling civilization will never be able to defeat the abyss."
"Let me give you an example." Seeing that I was thinking, Ansers suddenly laughed, "This is a real thing that happened when the Primarch was about to be successfully developed. collapse-"
In fact, after escaping from our home world, we have been under the threat of the abyss, no one knows what is going on, but the power of the abyss is raging in a wide range, the fleet cannot stop, and we continue to encounter enemies destroyed by the abyss The wreckage of the world, in hundreds of years, we have never rushed out of the abyss to pollute the area. "
"It may be a large-scale abyss gate that resonated in the surrounding world, or pollution broke out in several universes at the same time." Sandora explained to me in the spiritual connection, "With the ancestor technology back then, navigating in the void should be a Very slowly."
"Under such dangerous circumstances, the fleet has almost been destroyed several times." Ansers continued, "It's very mocking, we declared revenge, but back then, we had to do our best to escape. The most dangerous time , the fourteenth ship of the Ark Fleet was involved in a collapsing space wreck... "
"Is it polluted by the abyss?" Sandora asked in a low voice.
The little puppet finally stopped running around. She came over and grabbed my arm. The little girl felt bored while listening to the history of her mother planet, but now, she seemed to be attracted by the new story.
"Yes, heavy pollution, the most active abyss pollution incident, the fourteenth ship became a highly poisonous lair almost instantly, half of the population turned into monsters in the blink of an eye, and the remaining half faced a difficult decision: "Ann Seth showed a bitter expression, "You are so advanced, you must know that one of the ways of abyss pollution is to spread through information exchange: if it is an active enough abyss, it can spread through any form of information exchange, whether it is sound, text, Pictures, eye contact and gestures, as long as they communicate with another individual, there is a possibility of transmission, and these communications naturally include distress signals."
Of course I know this kind of pollution method. In fact, Sandora's high-level spiritual plague is a skill that only appeared after she was transformed by the abyss. It is the super-diffusion of the abyss.
"As long as the 14th ship asks for help from other spaceships, the pollution may spread out instantly." Sandora said in a deep voice, this is the most deadly situation for ordinary civilization. Their own psionic environment is highly resistant to this kind of pollution, but for mortal races who use conventional communication systems, they hardly know how to set up filter bands in their communicators and radios (here is just an example) The barrier of the abyss: This barrier involves information operation technology and high-level psionic energy control technology, which is far beyond the technological level of the ancestors back then.
And even if the Xiling Apostle has measures for network barriers, the old empire was destroyed by pollution far exceeding the strength of the firewall: the danger of this pollution is evident.
Ansers continued in a low voice: "The situation at the time was extremely dangerous. During the subsequent investigation, we realized that our race was almost on the verge of extinction again. The abyssal power on the 14th ship will spread to the entire fleet at any time. You need to know that it is not only the captain who issues a distress signal that will lead to the spread of pollution—there is no need for the captain, no need for a signal station, as long as there is a citizen on the No. Relatives and friends on the spaceship send a farewell message, and the entire fleet has a chance to be infected!"
I broke out in a cold sweat instantly: Yes, there is no need for a distress signal issued by the captain. The abyss will not pick any "high-end channels" when it is infected. It is pervasive, and even the lowest communication channel is enough to form an infection medium. I believe that the Xiling people at that time still retained a civilian communication network, and it was definitely not difficult for ordinary civilians to make a phone call to their relatives and friends on other spaceships.
Even if Captain No. 14 has the authority to lock all communication channels of the entire spacecraft, what if he doesn't have time to do so? What if he was a second late and a civilian had already called his family
What if—the captain himself was in a panic
"Whether it's out of fear, out of panic, out of desire to survive, or other human nature, how easy it is for one of the millions of civilians to say goodbye to relatives and friends." Anses clenched his fists, knuckles twitching Bai "Ship 14 is a huge ship with a population of nearly 10 million. At that time, there were 4.23 million people capable of communicating with other Arks. Before the captain ordered to blow up the communication tower of the spaceship, there were 4.23 million people. Thirteen time bombs will destroy the entire civilization—fortunately, the captain of No. 14 is a decisive and ruthless person. He hardly thinks. The ultimate authority instantly blew up the entire spaceship."
After the story of Ansers was finished, I found that my palms were covered with cold sweat, and even Sandora next to me looked relieved: Back in the day, if the captain at that time was slow to respond for a second, or he was soft-hearted Then, with such a little bit of luck, nothing happened to the Xiling Empire later!
"If we go back to that scene again," Anses looked into my eyes, "the fate of the entire race is handed over to 4.23 million mortals who are afraid of death, afraid of pain, losing their minds, and crying bitterly. , or give it to a group of rational creatures who can turn off all emotions at critical moments and blew themselves up without hesitation, what would you choose?"
"If we want to linger on, find a stable world for the rest of our lives, and flee again when the abyss comes, then we can naturally choose the former—as long as we run fast enough, it's fine, but if we want revenge, we want to be as dignified as a warrior If you want to fight against those things to death, you must choose the latter: let the mortals retreat, and you can't hold back the Primarch. Even if we are no longer the outdated old Xiling who are fighting the abyss, we will at least Made room for the kids in my own way, and as a parent, at least not trash."
Ansers mentioned the three words "holding back", three heavy and piercing words, but after fully understanding the thrilling years of exile, I can only admit: these three words are the only ones that apply.
Fighting against the abyss requires more than mortal courage. The ancestors of Xiling, who lived on the premise of revenge, fully understood that in order to defeat a ruthless enemy, they must be more ruthless than it—at least before they have mastered the overwhelming power. Prior to their technical prowess, starting with willpower was the only way they could think of.
"So we took the Primarch as the successor of civilization and taught them all the knowledge we could teach them, and then the exile fleet was divided into two parts." When Anses said here, his tone became more relaxed, "We are on the run There is also some development: by collecting materials from the wreckage of the world we encountered by chance, we have created a batch of new spaceships, which are more advanced, faster, and have experimental precision navigation equipment, and we give these spaceships to the Primarch , let them find a road that is completely opposite to the current course of the exile fleet, go all the way, never look back, from that day on, the apostles of Xiling replaced the old humans. None of the old humans remained on the spaceships of the Primarchs, because Any mortal may become a weakness broken by the abyss. The exile fleet continues on the original route, hoping to find a stable world that will not be found by the abyss to try to rebuild civilization. As you can guess, you found the wreckage of the ark, the fleet failed to escape the pursuit of the abyss in the end, and the reason for the fleet's destruction was indeed the weakness of mortals: the panic of the people and the wrong decision of the leader led to the complete destruction of the fleet, at least after my spaceship disintegrated At that time, there was no echo in the comm channel, so there are probably no other survivors."
Ansers finally finished telling the long history, and the lounge fell into a long silence. Even the doll girl who was always moving around calmed down sensibly, nestled on my lap and hugged my arm, and turned around. Turning my face away and looking at Ansers without blinking, I gently rubbed her hair: "You have erased a lot of information about the creator in the Primarch's memory, right?"
"Yes." Ansers nodded with a smile, "I participated in proposing this resolution, and it won the support of most people, because everyone knows that although the Primarch's feelings are indifferent, they will always develop a complete emotional module. If they have too much information about the creator in their memory, I worry that they will go back to their 'parents' prematurely. Erase their data about their creators to mitigate that risk."
"So we can't remember what our creator looked like for so many years." Sandora said softly, as if talking to herself, "It is extremely brave to make such a decision by the standards of the Apostles of Xiling. "
"But the bravery of mortals is always temporary. Do you know how many people impulsively wanted to turn around and chase the direction where the Primarchs left when the fleet was about to be destroyed?" Ansers revealed A meaningful smile "There are many brave fighters among those people. If they face other enemies, they will never be weak. However, the abyss happens to affect people's minds. The willpower of mortals will be easily softened by the abyss, and then the nerves will be weakened." Confused."
Sandora and I stopped talking.
"Tell me about the abyss that broke out in my home world at that time." Sandora licked her lips and asked a question that many people cared about, "According to your description, it was a super-large-scale outbreak, even in my memory In China, it is rare to encounter this kind of abyssal disaster that spread to many worlds. It first appeared in the form of a 'gate'? How big was it at that time?"
"Gate?" Ansers obviously didn't have the knowledge of the current Xiling apostle. He probably didn't have a clear concept of the gate of the abyss in his era. "Is this what you said later? Probably, I remember that its scale exceeded Five light-years, exactly across the 46th colony star system, dividing the sun and the colony into two... "
"What?!" Ansers was interrupted by Sandora's exclamation before he finished speaking, "How big do you think the gate of the abyss is!?"
"...five light years" Ansers was surprised, "Is there a problem?"
"It's impossible for the Gate of the Abyss to be so big." Sandora almost jumped up: It's not easy for Her Majesty to show this appearance. I remember the last time she was so panicked was when I suggested her to go on a diet. "It The nature of the abyss gate leads to the faster the self-collapse speed of the larger-scale abyss gate. There is a critical point. The abyss gate below the critical point will self-destruct after the world is destroyed. The abyss gate above the critical point , will collapse on its own before polluting the world, and the self-destruct lifespan of the abyss gate decreases exponentially as its scale expands, a five light-year abyss gate... "
"Maybe it collapsed itself as soon as it appeared" I can easily understand these conceptual things now "It may goug out a large piece of cosmic space before it collapses, but such a super-large abyss gate has no time to produce anything harm."
Sandora bit her lip: "It's not just that it's too late to cause harm. In theory, it's impossible for the gate of the abyss to reach this level. It's mathematically untenable. The method of causing super-large-scale pollution is not a super-large 'gate', but Several gates of the abyss are stacked together, at least there have been examples of the latter. Wait, Ansers, you just said that this gate of the abyss divides the star and the colonial planet into two?"
"Ah, yes, it is like a huge scar that cuts through the universe, directly running through and tearing Colonial Point 46."
I realize this is not the case.
Gate of the Abyss - I have seen that thing before, it is impossible to "cut" any target, this is determined by its geometry, the Gate of the Abyss looks like an absolute flat circle, no matter from which angle you look at it , it is a flat circle, so how should a circle with a diameter of five light-years cut a star system
In the eyes of the observer, it will devour the star system like a black hole, because it will never produce a "narrow wound" in the eyes of the observer.
"Let me confirm, is the shape of the gate of the abyss a circular hole?" Sandora asked while looking into Ansers' eyes.
"The hole.? No, it's a rift, very neat, like a squinted eye, a huge eye that spans five light-years." Anses drew a line with his hand, "The two ends are closed, At its widest point a half a light-year in the middle, vertically cutting everything in its path, the celestial bodies around that eye became the first to be polluted."
Sandora and I looked at each other in horror.
"That's not the gate of the abyss!" Sandora said to me during the spiritual connection, "That's an abyss phenomenon that I've never seen before!"
"Is there any problem?" Anses finally realized that the situation might be complicated, and immediately asked curiously.
"No, ancestor, please rest first." Sandora didn't care about the address of the other party at this time, and used the "dead name" that made Anses so awkward, and then she took my hand Ready to leave "We need to find experts to study, the information you provided is very useful."
"Oh, as long as it's useful." Anses nodded hesitantly, and waved goodbye to us, "As long as it's useful...you go to work."