The vast majority went out.

Enya's words were like a cold wind, which made Gao Wen, who was about to get excited, instantly calm down from the inside out, his face became calm, and savored the information revealed behind this "extinguishment", and broke the silence for a long time: "Extinguished...... How is it extinguished? Do you mean they're all extinct for all sorts of reasons? ”

"Those signals are like lights in the night flickering in the distance, perhaps because of technical limitations, the flickering lights can only reveal extremely limited information, sometimes the information is even so simple that it can only convey the meaning of 'I am here', and then at a certain moment, some signals will suddenly disappear, and no new news will come - too vast space buried too many secrets and truths, in the darkness, I can't see anything."

Enya spoke slowly, as if picking up the yellowed pages in a long, vague memory.

"I don't know exactly what happened to them, just like other minds trapped on this planet, I can only guess the end of those civilizations by speculating about known phenomena, but some of them ...... I've managed to decipher the messages they've sent, and I'm pretty sure they're either destroyed by a natural disaster or killed by the gods. ”

Gawain subconsciously repeated the last few words of the other party: "Death to the gods? ”

Enya whispered, "Dead to the gods—their own gods. Of the few signals that have been successfully deciphered, I have indeed heard their final cry in the wrath of the gods, a voice that is still unspeakably desperate even though it crosses the distant stars. ”

"So as we guessed before, if there are intelligent beings on other planets, and if their worlds also follow the laws of nature as we understand them, then they will also face everything we face......" Gawain took a light breath, "They also triggered the ritual of 'final disobedience' after they developed to a certain extent, leading to the loss of control and the destruction of the gods......"

Enya didn't speak, and Gawain paused before asking, "What about the destruction of the natural disaster?" What kind of natural disasters are they? ”

"Most of the signals that were lucky enough to be able to cross the galaxy were vague, and very few were able to transmit clear and detailed information, especially after the outbreak of the 'natural disaster', the civilization that sent the message was often in chaos, and this chaos was more serious than the incarnation of the gods, so that they could no longer organize manpower to launch an orderly 'deathbed cry' into outer space," Enya said quietly, as if analyzing a corpse in a calm tone, telling Gawain about the cruel clues she had been exposed to in the past million years, "SoThe description of the 'natural disaster' is very messy and broken, but it is this messy and broken state that makes me almost certain that they are encountering the 'demon tide'. ”

Magic Tide.

At this moment, Gawain's expression did not change in the slightest, although a strong ripple had stirred up in his heart, but this strong ripple only confirmed his guess that he had had a long time ago.

Enya's conclusion was what he expected—the magic tides were not confined to this planet, but a common phenomenon in this universe, and they would sweep across the stars fairly and periodically, erasing the records left by civilization in the stars again and again.

The golden dome in the room remained silent, and Enya seemed to be carefully observing Gawain's expression, and after a moment of silence, she spoke again: "All of this is just my conclusion based on the phenomena I have observed, I dare not guarantee that they are all accurate, but one thing is certain - this universe is more prosperous than we imagined, but it is also more dead and silent, and the dark and deep starry sky is full of countless flickering civilization candles, but under those candles, there are more tombs that have long been extinguished and cooled. ”

"These things...... Do dragons know about it, too? Gawain suddenly asked with some curiosity.

"They only know a small part, but no dragon dares to go deeper," Enya said calmly, "For a long time of one million eight hundred and seventy thousand years, there have actually been dragons who have been watching the movement in the starry sky at dangerous critical points, but I have blocked all signals from the outside world, and also interfered with their perception of the starry sky, just like you know, in the old Talrond, looking up at the starry sky was a taboo thing. ”

"But their gods of gods have been paying attention to the voices among the stars, and have even done so much research," Gawain looked at the golden dome in front of him with a somewhat strange expression, "If any dragon can't look up at the starry sky, then how are you ......?"

"Close your eyes and listen carefully," Enya said, with a smile in her tone, "Remember?" At the top of the Great Temple of Tallrond, there is the highest stargazing platform, where I often stand and listen to the sounds coming from the universe - it is dangerous to actively walk towards the stars, but if those signals have already reached this planet, passive listening is not so easy to get out of control.

"But even then, it's not easy...... Every time I stand on the observatory, I have to contend with two forces at the same time, one is my own resistance and fear of the unknown deep space, and the other is my destructive impulse to the mortal world as a god, so I will be very careful to control the frequency of my visit to the observatory to keep myself on the threshold of losing control. ”

Gawain listened to Enya tell these secrets that no second person had ever known, and couldn't help but ask curiously, "Why did you do this?" Since doing so much stress will put you on it......"

"Curious," Enya said, "aren't you curious?" ”

“…… Nature and instinct don't match, do they? Gawain shook his head with a wry smile after a moment's pause, "You know, what you're talking about reminds me of a ...... The theory that circulates in 'my hometown'. ”

"Your hometown...... Home of extraterritorial loiters? Enya's tone changed, "What kind of theory is it?" ”

"The Great Filter," Gawain sighed softly, patiently explaining, "a filtering mechanism that stands in front of all civilizations and determines whether they will be lucky enough to step out of the starry sky - we believe that the process of life from nothing and gradually developing into a higher interstellar civilization can be divided into several stages, and at least one of them is extremely dangerous and has little chance of survival, and some kind of crisis will cause almost all species to become extinct and disappear at this stage, so that they will not be able to set foot on their planet in the end, And this harsh screening and elimination mechanism is the 'big filter'.

"We can't say for sure when and in what form the Great Filter will appear, and we can't be sure if a civilization has passed the Great Filter test by luck or if the test is still tomorrow until we actually step into the stars...... But in this world, it seems that there is an answer to this difficult question that has puzzled scholars. ”

"Are the Demonic Tide and the Divine Disaster the 'big filter' we are going to face?" A gentle and calm voice came from the Golden Dome, "Ah, what a new and interesting theory...... Wanderer, it seems that in your world, there are many discerning scholars who are concerned with the mysteries of the depths of the world...... I wish I could get to know them. ”

The question had already covered complex areas that were difficult to answer, and Gawain cautiously paused before the topic could go any further—in fact, he had already said a lot of things that he would never say to anyone else, but he had never thought that he could talk to people in this world about these topics involving the starry sky, the future, and extraterrestrial civilizations, and a certain feeling of being hard to find a confidant made him want to continue to discuss more things with the dragon god.

"You mentioned that you've 'heard' the sounds of traveling through the universe at least a hundred times," he thought of a new question, "and that the sender of those signals at least didn't encounter a catastrophe when they made the call, does that mean that the act of building interstellar communication itself doesn't cause the gods to get out of control?" ”

This is critical, as the question of "where is the ultimate tipping point for the gods to get out of control" has always been a top concern for the Theocratic Council and its disobedient past.

At present, scholars have separated the "collective out-of-control phenomenon of all the gods in the world" from the "catastrophic disaster" corresponding to the runaway control of a single god, and named it "ultimate catastrophic disaster", so it can be said that before the crisis of all gods out of control is completely solved, the "ultimate catastrophic critical point" means the limit of the development of mortal civilization in this world, and the more accurately this critical point and all the technical limits related to it, the more countries can be as prepared as possible before the ultimate catastrophic disaster really comes, Let mortal civilization have a better chance of survival in the future.

So far, the theocratic council's presumed "ultimate catastrophic tipping point" is the "ultimate disobedience" determined by the rite of passage of Tallund, that is, "mortal civilization, with its own technological accumulation, allows explorers to physically and physically leave their home planet and step into a space environment that civilization has never explored", scholars have been able to determine that this behavior will lead to symbolic "ultimate disobedience", if it survives, it is the freedom of man and god, and if it does not survive, it is the martyrdom of civilization.

But there are still many uncertainties about this tipping point, and the biggest question is - will the "ultimate catastrophe" really not break out until the stage of "final disobedience"? Is the conclusion of the practice of the dragon family the "standard answer" to the laws of the gods? Is it possible for the ultimate catastrophe to erupt at some stage before the final disobedience?

If a physical and physical departure from the home planet would lead to the ultimate catastrophe, what about the preparation phase before the spacecraft launch? What about the observation stage of the starry sky on a large scale around the world? What if mortals launched an unmanned probe? If...... If another interstellar civilization sends a greeting to this planet, and the mortals on the surface respond to this voice, what will it lead to?

Each of these problems is not unfounded—each of these questions is marking the tipping point of the end of the world, marking the survival range of the entire mortal civilization.

Enya obviously knew what Gawain was worried about, so she was very cautious in answering the question, and after a long thought, the former god broke her silence: "I don't think it's exactly a symbolic 'final disobedience' ritual that really determines whether the gods will get out of control, but you should consider the meaning behind this ritual. ”

Gawain frowned, "What is the meaning behind the final disobedience ritual?" ”

"Mortals have access to the truth beyond the realm of cognition, and this 'truth' is irrefutable and unshakable," Enya said, "As a god, I don't know how to look at the ...... of this process from a mortal perspective Meaning, but you can imagine how can a person who firmly believes that we live in a flat world and not a planet, and who firmly believes that the sun is a ball of light that rises and falls from the edge of the earth, rather than that the planet under our feet is moving around the sun, how can he break this perception?

"Outside voices don't work, because those voices may be lies; The knowledge that the world acknowledges is not good, because the world can be deceived; Not even images from space, because they can be faked......

"No matter how bizarre these explanations may be, as long as they make sense, then the person who believes in the flatness of the earth can continue to place himself in a closed-loop and 'self-consistent' model, he does not need to pay attention to the real form of the world, as long as his logical barriers are not breached.

"Unless, let him see it with his own eyes."

Gawain listened carefully to what Enya said and couldn't help frowning: "I understand what you mean, but this is also the point that we have never understood - even if there are so many observers among mortals who have gone to space with great pains and used their own eyes and experiences to personally confirm what is outside the known world, this is just to change their 'personal cognition', how does this individual behavior have a ritual effect and affect the change of the entire trend of thought?" Why did the gods, as a product of the ideology, go out of control because a few humans suddenly saw a scene outside the world? ”

“…… This shows that you are still in a misunderstanding," Enya suddenly chuckled softly, "The stubborn and poor guy I just spoke of who needs to 'see for yourself' is not any mortal who launches into the sky, but the gods themselves. ”

Gawain: "You mean ......"

"Your understanding of the Institution is somewhat one-sided," Enya said, "It is true that the gods are born from a large number of mortal currents, and this is a macroscopic process, but that does not mean that the only way to get the gods out of control is to make the Institution change in the macrosis—sometimes a ripple in a tributary on the microcosm is enough to destroy the entire system."

"If you think of the gods as a huge 'entanglement', then this entanglement includes all the cognitions of all beings in the world on a specific thinking tendency, for example, I am the gods of the dragon clan, then my essence includes all the cognitive logic of the dragon clan in the mythological era of the world, these logics are tightly intertwined like a thread cluster, even if there are thousands of threads, all the threads are also included in this thread cluster, in other words - it is closed-loop, extremely xenophobic, and refuses to intervene in external information.

"Then there only needs to be one thread that is out of the order of the thread group, and the probe jumps out of this closed-loop system, which is equivalent to breaking the basic rules for the establishment of this line group.

"Under normal circumstances, within this closed-loop system, it is almost impossible to have such a 'jumping out of the thread', because the trajectory of all the threads has been determined, and the thread cluster itself is also preventing the generation of transgressive behavior, and the closed-loop system itself cannot produce a 'window' for one of its members to leave the system, so in most stages of civilization development, the only way to make the thread cluster collapse is the gradual overload and chaos of the entire system, which is ' The drastic changes in the macroscopic trend of the group of thought have led to the loss of control of the gods', that is, the quantitative change of the thought trend produced by a large number of mortals within this closed-loop system caused a qualitative change, and finally destroyed the entire system.

"The closest example to you is the God of War.

"In another case, information from outside the closed-loop system intervenes in the system, and this information is completely beyond the control of the 'thread', and it only takes a little bit to make a thread jump out of the closed loop, which will make the system that can explain itself suddenly become inconsistent, and it - that is, the gods - has a rule-breaking 'factor' in the original perfect operating logic, even if this factor is small, it will pollute the whole system.

"The closest example to you is me."

(End of chapter)