Chapter 899: The Process by Which Virtual Life Appeared |
A quasar is a very special kind of existence. From the name alone, one can tell that it has some similarity to a star.
Back in Earth’s era, when astronomy had only just begun to bud, people observed some bright stars in the sky. At that time, people already knew the difference between galaxies and stars, so they began studying whether these bright stars were galaxies or stars. After all, across extremely vast distances, even an enormous galaxy would look like nothing more than a point of light.
Preliminary studies showed that these bright stars were very small in scale, so they could not be galaxies. Further studies showed that these bright stars were not actually stars either. The people of that era were quite puzzled, so they gave this strange thing, which possessed some characteristics of an individual star and some characteristics of a galaxy, a name: quasar.
Now Xiao Yu already knew that a quasar was actually composed of an enormous black hole and an accretion disk revolving around it. Matter in the accretion disk falls into the black hole at extremely high speed, and the black hole’s gravity accelerates it. During this process, that matter collides with itself, thereby releasing extremely high energy. It is precisely this energy that gives quasars their extraordinary brightness. A quasar’s diameter is only between one light-day and several light-days, yet its brightness can reach several thousand times that of an enormous galaxy with a diameter of several hundred thousand light years.
They also possess extremely powerful jets. Xiao Yu had seen jets more than once already. In the Maffei One Galaxy, when Xiao Yu threw those stars into the Central Black Hole of the Maffei One Galaxy, Xiao Yu had observed the existence of jets. Endless matter, because of its extremely high speed of motion, gains extremely high energy, and it erupts violently along the two poles of the black hole. That is what a jet is. Depending on the strength of the energy, they can even shoot out for several thousand light years.
The jets Xiao Yu observed in the Maffei One Galaxy were already powerful enough, but compared with the jets inside a quasar, they were nothing at all. In a quasar, those jets can even shoot out for several million light years. One must remember that this matter is all moving at conventional speeds below the speed of light. To still be able to spray straight out for several million light years at such a ‘low speed,’ the strength of their energy can easily be imagined.
From this, one could see just how violent a quasar’s energy release was. Probably, even with Xiao Yu’s current Level 7 Civilization technological level, once he arrived inside a quasar, he would still need to be extremely careful. This truly was not a place suitable for intelligent life or the creations of intelligent life to exist. There, it was the domain where the wondrous laws of nature exercised their power.
Now, the next stop on Xiao Yu’s long journey was a quasar.
“Probably even the strongest spaceship of a peak Level 6 Civilization could not survive inside a quasar. But I am already a Level 7 Civilization. My warships should be able to withstand that level of energy eruption.”
Xiao Yu was carrying many stars with him on this journey, so even in the empty universe, Xiao Yu did not need to worry about a lack of matter. He could carry out scientific research here to his heart’s content.
Now, the Virtual Life Civilization had already been completely destroyed by Xiao Yu. Xiao Yu finally had enough energy and time to properly study the technology he had harvested during this period.
The Central Research Academy of Science of the Virtual Life Civilization was floating between several Star Cluster-Class battleships, carried by them as they traveled together at high-speed curvature flight. The scientist replicates living in this enormous structure had all already been destroyed by Xiao Yu. Compared with the limited scientific research abilities of those scientist replicates, Xiao Yu cared more about the danger they potentially posed. Such dangerous things simply should not be allowed to continue existing in the universe. So when he first obtained the Central Research Academy of Science of the Virtual Life Civilization, Xiao Yu had cleanly and decisively wiped out all of the scientist replicates.
In fact, Xiao Yu did not believe at all that those scientist replicates could have made any major scientific breakthroughs during the period after the destruction of the computer-direction Level 7 Civilization and the birth of the Virtual Life Civilization. Xiao Yu believed that the Virtual Life Civilization had merely been living off the old foundations left behind. This was also one of the reasons Xiao Yu felt no regret whatsoever in destroying those replicates.
And it was precisely these things that Xiao Yu valued. The technology of the computer-direction Level 7 Civilization that had been capable of developing true virtual life, merely thinking about these things made Xiao Yu feel a surge of heat rising in his heart.
Xiao Yu’s computational power slowly entered this enormous structure and began little by little reading the data within it.
Xiao Yu’s current computer technology was still very far from being able to create true virtual life. Yet this computer-direction Level 7 Civilization had already created true virtual life. From this, one could see how far this computer-direction Level 7 Civilization had advanced in computer technology, and how great a distance it had left Xiao Yu behind by.
Xiao Yu’s computational power had already begun reading that technological data. Under Xiao Yu’s commands, one stream after another of exciting technological data flowed into Xiao Yu’s storage devices. In Xiao Yu’s eyes, this technological data seemed as though it was glowing. To Xiao Yu, it was something more important than gold, than jewels, than warships, more important than anything else.
This treasure trove of technology continued to flow for more than ten days before Xiao Yu had fully absorbed it. From this moment onward, these things had truly become Xiao Yu’s own.
After that, Xiao Yu immediately began analyzing this data and verifying it one by one against his previous research results. During this period, Xiao Yu carried out a great number of experiments. The laboratories inside the Star Cluster-Class battleship Science were busy all day long. Here, large numbers of new computer models were created, and large numbers of new materials used to build new computers were developed… Xiao Yu was striving to digest the technology of the computer civilization, turning it into nourishment that could allow himself to grow.
“What a pity. It seems that even the computer-direction Level 7 Civilization did not grasp the method to achieve true infinite computational power. Perhaps in this universe, infinite computational power simply does not exist. This mode of infinitely copying oneself can only be considered cheating, and besides, relying on replicates to obtain infinite computational power is far too risky.” Xiao Yu sighed softly and executed a command in his mind.
The data in the storage device where Xiao Yu himself existed was immediately copied in full. According to normal logic, Xiao Yu’s own existence should also have been duplicated. And that was indeed the case. In another storage device, there truly did exist another ‘Xiao Yu.’
But this ‘Xiao Yu’ had absolutely no vitality. It simply could not function. In this attempt, it still ceased operation during the initial phase because of a large number of logical errors and contradictions. Xiao Yu had already tried this kind of experiment before, and now that he tried it again, the result was still the same.
“It seems that I cannot be copied.” Xiao Yu thought to himself. “In other words, the plan of using this method to obtain infinite computational power has basically failed. Mm… even if infinite computational power could be obtained this way, I still would not use it. The potential danger is simply too great.”
“The computer technology of this computer-direction Level 7 Civilization really is much more advanced than mine.” Xiao Yu sighed inwardly. “However, it seems that their creation of virtual life was still merely an accident.”
Within this scientific data were some traces regarding the research history of the computer civilization. Through these things, Xiao Yu roughly came to understand their research process.
“This is the greatest computer we have produced so far. It possesses computational ability beyond our imagination. It is even powerful enough to undertake all of the data computation needs of our entire civilization. Our Chief Scientist joked that after we built this computer, all other computing terminals in our civilization could simply be thrown away. If anyone needed computational power, they could just obtain it directly from this one.”
“The Chief Scientist was indeed joking, but I do not think so. Because this computer truly has that capability. After we finally activated it, a new world opened before us. In that world were rewards for all our painstaking research. There were endless treasures there. There is only still one regret. Although we have made artificial intelligence as perfect as possible, and with the support of a vast database it can simulate all kinds of emotions and moods just like a real intelligent being, in our experiment, one million test subjects who were kept in the dark communicated with it through a virtual network, and not a single test subject realized that what they were facing was actually only a computer program rather than a real person. Even so, I am still somewhat dissatisfied.”
“Because I know that it is, after all, only a program. Every response it gives can be traced back to its source, and one can find within its internal programming the code that produced that response. This proves that it is still only a tool. It still does not have thoughts of its own. It… still is not a true lifeform.”
Xiao Yu silently watched this piece of historical record, sensing the various emotional changes of the one who recorded it at the time this information had been written down.