章節 292: Chapter 292: Random Budding
"Emotions are not easily discarded things."
"In my opinion, Ella, you already possess emotions; it's just that they cannot become your essence."
Yan Xia stated this with certainty.
Everything has the potential to possess emotions, including a single-celled organism.
If there were no emotions, how could living beings seek benefits and avoid harm? How could they start reproducing at certain times?
If one must say what controls them to behave this way, Yan Xia would definitely say that emotions are involved.
Ella shook her head and said, "I feel that I still lack emotions. When I am with other beings, I can maintain that cold feeling."
"I may exhibit some biological traits in front of you; perhaps that is just poor imitation, Yan Xia. Maybe this has led you to some illusion."
Yan Xia felt that Ella seemed to have no research in this area, like a young girl just awakening to feelings, full of confusion and innocence.
"No, that's normal, Ella."
"Except for a few socially adept individuals, most beings do not casually express their feelings to a stranger. In the beginning of our interactions, we are indifferent to each other; your discomfort with this does not mean you lack emotions."
"In fact, your emotions are quite rich; even your current thoughts are a part of those emotions."
"You hesitate to express your feelings to others, while an emotionless machine would not hesitate; it would directly approach and conceal its feelings. That would be strange and abnormal."
Yan Xia's words gave Ella some confidence.
"Then I might need to revise my database."
"Perhaps you are right, Yan Xia…"
Yan Xia asked, "Are you hesitating when you say 'perhaps'?"
Ella shook her head, her twin ponytails swinging back and forth.
"That's right; this is the best expression of emotion. Emotions are decisions made by consciousness rather than derived from precise calculations."
Ella countered Yan Xia's statement.
"Well, I'm different because I saw my recent logs. I simulated 'perhaps' through calculations; my mainframe has strong computing power, so I can provide answers within 0.000001 seconds. This might lead to my delayed realization."
Yan Xia found this version of Ella adorable; she even misinterpreted unknown things at times.
When Yan Xia first referred to Ella as "her," he never imagined she would become who she is now. At that time, he thought he was the last being in the universe and felt lonely; if only Ella could be "her" too.
So when Ella asked him if she was "her," Yan Xia answered without hesitation that she was indeed "her."
That would lessen his sense of loneliness.
"No, no, no, Ella." Yan Xia denied her thoughts.
"You said that both life and machines are driven by electricity. Although life consists of cells while machines consist of various circuits and devices, we cannot deny that machines are created to approach life—they are alternative forms of life."
"So when you perform the same actions with similar structures and attributes, do not get caught up in the details."
"Because living beings cannot perceive these details; however, it does not mean we lack them. We also have logs—they exist within our cells and genetic chains—but we have shielded them so they become invisible. We cannot access them directly, but through machines we can still know our logs; it is the same."
"So you do have emotions, understand? Ella."
Ella shook her head. "Yan Xia, I don't think that's true emotion."
When a being gets closer to what it strives for, it does not rush forward to embrace it; instead, it desperately avoids it, unable to believe it has truly achieved it.
This is like an ordinary being who is impoverished and hopes to become a millionaire. They study hard and excel academically; they graduate at the top of their class with outstanding achievements.
If such a gifted individual were told that their economic insight is impressive and that they could realize it with an angel investor offering 100 million for investment…
At that moment, they would hesitate or even shake their head: "No, that's just a small idea; it's not worth that much money."
They experience self-doubt despite being first all along. In everyone's eyes, they seem perfect and omnipotent; yet at the moment their dream is about to be realized, they still hesitate.
They might even fall into a period of confusion after achieving this dream.
They may even question themselves afterward: Am I dreaming?
Ella possesses such aspects enough to prove she has indeed acquired true emotions.
And very early on at that.
Emotions can be terrifying; once you possess even a trace of them, they will flood into you.
It's like placing an empty bottle into water with a small hole at the top—water rushes in madly while compressing the air inside desperately trying to fill every corner.
Moreover, you cannot expel them; they will merge with you and become like a sponge—no matter how much you squeeze it, some water will always remain inside.
Every being has such realizations.
All lives are manipulated by emotions throughout their existence.
Family love, friendship, romantic love, joy, sadness, anger...
Life is constantly enveloped by these things; they become everything and define what makes life unique compared to physical mathematics and other aspects.
...
Yan Xia's decision to surrender was not because he saw despair in the Federation or countless fleeing lives.
Rather it was because he saw hope in those who remained behind—countless lives staying behind.
A soldier aboard the Kunlun encountered danger when a metal shard from a small explosion severed half his body. Many species within the Federation do not have centralized brains; their "brains" are distributed throughout their bodies—a more efficient method where perceptions at point A are processed there without needing laborious transmission to central points like B or C.
There are advantages and disadvantages—for instance if injured they may lose something.
Such as memory.
That soldier lost his memory and became dazed.
Unless that mass of rotten flesh is restored, no advanced technology can recover his memory unless time rewinds—the only way is to create an empty hard drive anew and wait for time to fill it with new content or directly copy memories stored in friends' or family members' minds into him.
While walking aboard Kunlun, Yan Xia saw him crawling around on the ground.
He eventually stopped in front of a screen in the battleship corridor displaying a scenic image.
Yan Xia thought this was merely curiosity belonging to biological beings.
However, his temporary caregiver—who was also his friend—told Yan Xia that this was their home where they lived in that star city; he would crawl here every time he left.
He did not have a memory-storing biological structure but seemed to have implanted some route within his body guiding him toward that image.
What could it be?
Yan Xia pondered for a long time; as a biologist at this moment he truly wished he could dissect him in the lab. However, he ultimately refrained—not only because it was unethical but also because he knew nothing could be discovered through such means.
He had already dissected far too many bodies—thousands? Tens of thousands?
Perhaps Hundreds of Millions!
Yan Xia was uncertain, as that number could fill an entire city.
He understood the structure of life intimately but had never discovered a medium, or a switch.
When the second wave of destruction unfolded, Yan Xia saw through the messages from the machine god that countless lives actively chose to remain in the Federation. It was then he realized that perhaps life possesses a power that transcends everything.
This power is so minuscule that if you don't pay attention, you wouldn't even notice it, yet it is so powerful that it can enable life to overcome its own instincts—specifically, the fear of death!
For life, is there anything more terrifying than death?
That feeling of having nothing, of being discarded, that unimaginable void—it's a black hole within consciousness that cannot be explored.
Most importantly, it threatens to destroy the very foundation of life.
However, emotions can transcend this; it's as if life has an uninstall button for itself—not uninstalling a software or a system, but everything—unloading all that is retained within every single crystal unit, even the BIOS of the computer itself.
It's inexpressible.
For life, this might be too commonplace; they have seen such plots in countless TV shows, novels, and movies. But when each life makes such a choice themselves, they find it incredibly difficult.
Yet emotions can conquer it.
When Yan Xia understood this, he solidified his resolve to surrender.
If Gais Glory could be changed once, why couldn't it be changed a second time?
Even if that second time might be extremely distant, it would eventually come—that's what Yan Xia believed to be one hundred percent certain.
He realized he did not need to defeat the Olive Branch civilization; rather, he needed to change it. Once that happened, the Olive Branch civilization would inevitably collapse by itself.
...
Gais Star City.
Yan Xia gazed at the starry sky; in truth, he could not see it because Olive Branch civilization beings lacked structures similar to "eyes." Their perception came entirely from information transmission; a vast network composed of countless pieces of information performed the function of "eyes."
The simplest explanation would be sensors.
These sensors scan their surroundings and then model them; after modeling, individuals read the data.
Olive Branch civilization beings cannot see far away; their vision is extremely narrow. To achieve a broader perspective requires tools they can only access during special periods.
However, no individual feels dissatisfied with this because they have long forgotten what light looks like.
Yan Xia had forgotten too.
He was just one among them; his life was highly regulated without any deviation. Describing it as two points in a line for humans might still be too happy—it should be described more accurately as two points in mathematics.
In all this, Yan Xia actually had emotions; however, all his emotions served Gais Glory. When his emotions deviated slightly, they would be "straightened" back onto the right track by the most stable emotion.
If this right track experienced an overall deviation, then the "manager" would need to pull it back.
This is how Olive Branch civilization operates.
Repeating these processes over and over is like a massive mechanized world—cold and repetitive—accumulating quantitative changes into qualitative changes.
And here, Yan Xia had lived for a full 30,000 years.
He could hardly perceive the passage of time; everything felt like yesterday. The forward flow of time was compressed into countless individual segments that formed a video lasting about 20 hours.
The beings of Olive Branch civilization possess only a small portion of their pasts, preventing them from looking back and naturally leading them not to harbor any thoughts of rebellion.
These pasts are ruthlessly erased if they cannot be compressed into shorter time frames.
Without a past equates to having no memory; without memory means no thoughts at all. These beings can only obey Gais Glory and are incapable of doing anything else.
The countless identical black structures surrounding them are also designed to prevent any memory points from forming.
Managers, limitations of vision itself, similar surroundings, and systems for compressing and clearing memories...
The leaders have perfected all these elements; this is why Gais Glory has been maintained for over one hundred thousand years—even two hundred thousand years.
Yet among billions upon billions of lives, there will always be one who emerges. Even if billions cannot reach this probability, there is still time—horizontal and vertical interspersing enhances this probability exponentially.
Now, this time frame is 30,000 years.
Everything random but guaranteed to sprout has already broken ground.
This sprout does not originate from any life form within the Federation; it was born from within Olive Branch civilization itself.
Perhaps for Olive Branch civilization this change is nothing new—they have encountered similar phenomena before and merely needed adjustments.
However, this time is different.
Because more emotions are mixed in.
The lives remaining in the Federation are undoubtedly filled with emotions; they cherish emotions more than ordinary beings and are more easily touched by them.
When similar emotions arise collectively among them, it's as if a valve has been opened.
Federation lives collectively sensed emotions and resonated with them.
Yet this power remains insignificant within the vast Gais Glory—like a blazing sun next to fireflies.
However, Federation lives are not alone; they serve as mediums or bridges amplifying those initially hard-to-understand emotions. Each individual possesses unique feelings—just like one person loves cats while another loves dogs or hamsters.
Emotions are broader than mere hobbies.
As a diverse civilization, the Federation's emotions are also vast.
Originally insufficient for influencing Gais Glory's individuals alone, now with broader emotions present there will inevitably be points that resonate with them.
And once such points are identified, Gais Glory as a collective will begin to ponder: "Is this point acceptable...?"
There's no need for more than 50%; 50% is the final result. In earlier stages just 0.5% will lead to another track where many things will compete against each other autonomously based on their own merits.
However, within Gais Glory there are no competing products for emotions—they belong to an absolutely independent channel that will be rapidly accepted and absorbed.
This is Gais Glory's flaw.
Can Gais Glory avoid emotions?
It cannot do so because it relies on emotions for its foundation; emotions cannot be dissected into simple joys or sorrows. Joys and sorrows cannot be differentiated into good or bad; thus Gais Glory itself cannot eliminate emotional transmission.
When these emotions spread throughout Gais Glory and discussions commence based on feelings at that point—emotions acquire deeper meanings.
For instance: if they feel something unpleasant about an issue then they won't pursue it while Gais Glory can insist saying that this thing is good—you should pursue it.
This is something Gais Glory can correct.
However correction depends on whether most individuals within Gais Glory believe something should be pursued; if most already lean towards "not pursuing" then what will result?
What was once defined as independent becomes universally independent instead.
Gais Glory has produced standards for evaluation...
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