"Does being like our body bother you in any way?" The Archon of the Second World seemed to be a very attentive man, and after letting the pleasure boat continue along the course forward, he took the initiative to open up the topic.

"......No," Wu Xiaoqing said, "the structure of your body is not much different from ours as a whole...... It's just that there's a difference in size. ”

"It's thanks to the time we met," the archon joked, "if we had met tens of thousands of years ago, perhaps our relationship would have been that of predator and prey in the food chain." ”

Wu Xiaoqing smiled faintly, then pointed to the wall of the tunnel outside the window and asked, "How did you solve the high temperature of the lava inside the planet?" ”

"It's simple," said the Archon, "and we'll just hollow out the planets......

Wu Xiaoqing patted his head, indeed, he used the "heart of small civilization" of the earthlings to seize the "belly of the great civilization" of the dwarf civilization. Forget that they are a civilization capable of planetary transformation.

"I thought you'd pay attention to the reality of this world first...... "Archon Fan Wen curiously, "Is there a design similar to the virtual world in your civilization?" ”

Wu Xiaoqing shook his head: "Our virtual world is still very rough, just a simulation of reality. A complete replica of the physical level is simply not possible. That's far worse than you. ”

"But you don't seem surprised at all."

Wu Xiaoqing did not answer his question, because if he wanted to answer, it would inevitably involve civilization A. Following the prompts of the search and rescue team, he immediately changed the subject: "I heard that you came to me to ask a question about the Second Earth." ”

"Yes, Second Earth." Although there was no one in the cabin except for the three of them at the moment, the Second Archon couldn't help but lower his voice: "It is said that this meeting between you and the First Earth has also invited the rebels to participate. Are you here to mediate this war? ”

"In a way, yes."

"Then you should also know that this war ......," said the Second Archon, after a moment's hesitation, "there is no such thing as good and evil...... In essence, it is still a conflict of interests between the two sides. ”

"Only when there is a conflict of interests can there be justice and evil," Wu Xiaoqing said, "and the one with greater interests and the longer term is more just." But if it's outside of interests...... In fact, good and evil do not matter. ”

"So in your opinion, which side in this war represents the greater and longer-term interests?"

This is a very obvious cliché, Wu Xiaoqing glanced at the other party - he was not used to dominating this furry body, and his movements were a little awkward. But he was sure it should be said — that he wasn't very willing to cooperate with the issues. Then he added, "I heard that Second Earth is nominally an independent country. ”

"That's true...... But we are still members of the Commonwealth. ”

"But I've heard that members of several virtual social groups represented by you have their own opinions about this war."

"Yes," said the Second Archon, "we have always had reservations about the federal government's hasty use of war to deal with this so-called 'rebellion.'" Do you have any comments or suggestions on our attitude? ”

Wu Xiaoqing vetoed the archon's rich imagination: "No, we focus on these issues only because they are part of the war. We want to mediate this war, that's all. From this point of view, our purpose should be the same. ”

The Archon was silent for a moment, and he could feel that at this moment he must be practicing in the game to get more information from others in order to participate in this game with him. Sure enough, a minute later, the consul asked Wu Xiaoqing, "We also want to know what is the basis for your judgment on the war between civilizations and interference." ”

"Quite simply, it is whether a civilization has sufficient potential, and the ability of war to destroy this potential...... We try our best to save a healthy civilization that died in an accident. ”

"Health?" To describe civilization in terms of health, this is a completely new usage, "in your opinion, our civilization...... Is it still healthy? ”

"Of course," Wu Xiaoqing said in surprise, "Don't you think so?" ”

The Second Archon shook his head slowly: "I'm afraid that in the entire Federation, there will be no more than 10,000 people who will have this kind of cognition...... Maybe not a thousand. ”

"Why?" Wu Xiaoqing had actually guessed the reason, but he still took the initiative to ask for the purpose of this mission.

"Quite simply, because no one cares about real reality anymore," said the archon, "and nearly 95 percent or more of the entire federation is concerned only with the virtual world." They are more concerned about the loss of their centuries-old wealth in the game than the enormous consequences of this war. ”

"In-game riches?"

"Yes," said the archon, "the government has proposed several times that a portion of the resources used to sustain the virtual world be levied in the form of a war tax and used directly for the industrial production of the war." ”

Such a point of view is very surprising in the eyes of an innocent earthling like Wu Xiaoqing - shouldn't this be?

This social phenomenon of dwarf civilization has been given a certain amount of science by the search and rescue team before this - for civilizations that have entered the virtual era, this is actually the normal state of society.

The resources consumed by the game affect a war, which sounds like a fantasy on Earth. But in dwarven civilizations, this is a very harsh social reality. For a highly mature civilization like theirs, when there were no AI rebels before, most of the civilization's energy was invested in games, which was an inevitable trend for the normal development of society.

- In fact, in the future, games will be the only art form for almost all civilizations, and even from a broad perspective, it is not that civilization is becoming more and more virtual, but that virtual is beginning to become more and more realistic. When the boundary between the two gradually blurs to the point of indistinguishability, in fact, the so-called truth is just an inconspicuous part of the game.

Just like on Earth, there is nothing wrong with human civilization creating works of art, but in turn, countless works of art have in turn defined humanity. The more mature a civilization becomes, the higher the requirement for self-definition at the level of virtual meaning – and the greater the proportion invested in the virtual world.

This overemphasis on the importance of the virtual world is often a symptom of irrationality and decline of a civilization...... Of course, these are not things that Wu Xiaoqing wants to study in detail on this trip, but as far as this mission is concerned, this voice within the dwarf civilization is very worthy of attention. It can even be said that the most mainstream political force within the dwarf civilization, and making good use of them to help the search and rescue team complete the task is also one of the purposes of Wu Xiaoqing's trip.

What surprised Wu Xiaoqing very much was that the attitude of a virtual world ruler who should have paid special attention to his own class interests and the legitimacy of the game's wealth did not seem to be particularly satisfied with the existing model.

"I am certainly satisfied if the present state of society can continue," said the Second Consul, "but we must always look at the reality, and the reality is that if we do not mobilize enough force to safeguard our civilization, we will most likely be left with nothing after the defeat of the war." ”

"The virtual world should be an elevation of the real world, a heaven-like existence, not an escape from the difficulties of reality – in that case, it would only build the virtual world into a refugee camp like a rat hole...... Look at this geocentric park, what we need is the courage and imagination to build this kind of park, which is the greatest meaning of the existence of the virtual world. ”

The Second Archon said these words very well, but the only thing that Wu Xiaoqing couldn't understand was that these words should be addressed to those "players" or citizens of the Second Earth in public, not in a deep-sea cabin, whispering to an alien......

"I said it far more than once......," the Second Archon said with a wry smile, "otherwise, I wouldn't have come to you today. If your search and rescue team is really on a mission to save civilization, I think the place you should start is by reforming the selfish ideas of the majority of the citizens of the Federation, which are completely irresponsible.

"Changxing," Wu Xiaoqing asked Changxing, who heard the current Changxing on the side, "What do you think?" ”

Changxing didn't hesitate, and shook his head decisively: "I don't see it that way." ”

The archon's eyes immediately fixed on Changxing, and Changxing said to himself as if he hadn't seen it at all: "I'm speaking from the perspective of a soldier. I don't know if you've ever been on the battlefield and paid attention to the data on the battlefield...... With my decades of experience in the military, I can tell you very responsibly, Your Excellency, no matter how many games we shut down, even if we shut down all the virtual industries, mobilize all the energy, and work overtime to produce fighters, we can't win the war, do you know why? ”

The archon's face became a little ugly, obviously, he understood the hidden meaning of Changxing's words.

Changxing continued: "Because wars are fought by people, at least, on the side of the Federation, wars are still fought by people, even if only two people are needed to control an attack ship weighing tens of thousands of tons. But on the intellectual-physical side, they don't need it, all the fighters are just a part of the intellectual-physical body, like his cells. ”

"The biggest problem with the Federation's defeat in this war was that the front-line battles were overwhelmingly suppressed - both sides used weapons from almost the same production lines, the only difference was in the people. But...... All of them are influenced and controlled by one will. I don't think I need to go on, you should be able to understand the huge gap in combat that this mechanic creates. ”

"Let's take the simplest example, a battle-level formation attack. On our side, just sending out an attack request and getting the approval of the superiors, these simple command actions will take tens of seconds, or even minutes, but the time it takes for the other party to be almost zero! Each of their attack ships knows what to attack, and every weapon knows what area to target......

"And what about our soldiers? To put it bluntly, when we first went to the battlefield, we did not even have the slightest psychological preparation, and the upper echelons of the army, in order to inspire our courage to fight, portrayed each other as foolish opponents similar to the rigid enemy in the game. But after the real fight, you will know that they are all operational geniuses. ”

"The country used to recruit people like me who had previous game experience to participate in the war, and although our skills were not bad, there was basically no advantage over AI. But our psychological qualities ...... and the other party is not at the same level at all. ”

"In my opinion, under the logic of pre-existing war, this is already a war that must be lost. If you can't solve this kind of war logic, then extract all the resources of the game, I'm afraid it won't help, war is not a game where the two sides compare the number of ships......"

Changxing said a lot in one breath, as if he had spit out all the words that he had been trapped in his stomach for the three years he had been trapped on the attack ship.

The Second Archon retorted almost subconsciously: "If we don't resist, can't we still surrender?" ”

"No," Changxing said, "I mean very simply, instead of abolishing the game, on the contrary, we also need to speed up the military application in the game field in the shortest possible time - the simplest one, put an enemy like AI into the game, at least in this way, we can find the opponent's possible flaws without really losing the battleship and life." ”