Luo Yu continued to share his observations on the forum from the residual memories of the brood, while Chu Guang learned about the situation of the brood in the city center from Xiao Yu, who lived on the B4th floor of the shelter.

Speaking of which, thanks to Hea.

By improving the neural connection device produced by the black box, she designed a dedicated neural network data exchange interface for Xiao Yu, and connected it to the server in the B6 computer room of the Vault.

This is equivalent to putting "virtual reality glasses" on it, so that it can communicate directly with Xiaoqi with consciousness.

I have to praise Xiao Yu, this little guy is quite receptive to the tools invented by humans.

The headset that Hea had installed for it before was played with by it, and this time it was even more fun to get a new toy.

With Xiao Yu's assistance, Xiao Qi remodeled and restored the memories it retrieved from the brood.

In this way, not only Chu Guang, but any interested new and old player can read the long-term memories of this era through neural connection devices......

"Incredible...... Such a beautiful planet is only 5 light-years away!"

Floating in the vast void, staring intently at the nearby planet, Hea couldn't help but let out a sigh of praise.

A whole new ecosystem!

A vast, living DNA sample bank!

What could be more exciting for an expert working in this direction?

Chu Guang, who was standing next to her, was the same

It's just that his feelings are completely different from Hea's, not so professional, just a little unbelievable - this planet is actually alive?

And also a consciousness of its own!

By all indications, the evolution of the creatures living on this planet is very different from that of the Earth.

Of course, it is not excluded that the Earth's ecosystems are unique in the universe, or that the evolution of life on each planet is unique.

After all, before he crossed over, the human civilization of that world had not really stepped out of the solar system, and the perception of the extrasolar world was still based on countless conjectures and paradoxes.

The two of them are currently connecting to the Vault's servers via a virtual reality device.

In fact, Yin Fang was also here just now, but that guy used to be an explorer of the academy and was well-informed, so he just came here to take a look and found something that didn't interest him and left.

Rather than an abstract memory, he is more interested in the evolution that the players bring back from the city center.

Those are living fossils from two centuries ago!

Not only that, but there are also the relics that were originally sealed underground by the mutant slime molds!

The significance of this victory for the alliance can be described as a great geographical discovery!

He didn't want to waste a minute outside the lab.

Just when the two of them were staring at the planet, Xiao Qi's voice came from the side.

"Master, the memory analysis has been completed!"

Hearing Xiao Qi's voice, Chu Guang came back to his senses and immediately asked.

"Can you get closer? I want to go up and have a look."

"It's okay to get closer, though...... But if you're trying to land on that planet, there's nothing to see there."

Xiao Qi's voice continued in a low voice with a hint of embarrassment.

"The brood only has a vague memory of Gaia, he knows about it, but doesn't really live on it...... If you want to go up, I can make some stickers from those memory fragments, but I'm afraid it will be quite different from the actual situation."

After listening to Xiao Qi's answer, Chu Guang could guess with his feet that the player named Luo Yu had already complained on the forum that he had taken out the unfinished map and turned it into cake.

As a player, it's impossible not to discover a new map without taking a look.

Without Xiaoqi's help, he might even be able to get up

I can't even see the "stickers".

However, Chu Guang had long been accustomed to this.

Anyway, when these guys encounter anything that can't be explained in the game, they will push it on him, either because the dog plan has not been completed, or the dog plan is in the next big game of chess.

He usually doesn't bother to explain, and even happy that his cute little players misunderstand it, after all, sometimes he himself needs to get in-game news through the forum.

Is there anything unreasonable about the game not being finished in the closed beta phase?

That's so reasonable, okay!

「…… Is there anything else about Gaia in that brood's memory fragment other than the planet itself?" Chu Guang then asked.

Xiao Qi immediately replied.

"There are also bits and pieces, mostly about Gaia and the colonists who logged into Gaia, if you want to know, I can sort it out for you."

Chu Guang: "I'm in trouble."

"Hehe, don't bother, it's Xiaoqi's honor to serve the master!" A shy voice came softly, and then the light blue window appeared in front of Chu Guang.

This message is mainly from the perspective of mutant slime molds, narrating a past event when human civilization came into contact with "Gaia" in the early days.

Since the slime mutant does not communicate through sound, the concepts stored in the brood's sea of consciousness are written in purely biological information, with no corresponding language.

However, thanks to the alliance having Xiao Yu, a translator who has evolved the "voice function".

With its help, Xiao Qi transformed this abstract memory into a language that humans can understand and understand. Seeing that Chu Guang was fascinated, Heya, who was floating on the side, also came over curiously.

Just like the shock that "Gaia" brought to the human union, after noticing the existence of human beings, the omnipotent Gaia was also shocked by this group of visitors from outside the sky.

He has had an unknown number of sidereal cycles on this planet, and he has ruled this planet like a god, and he has seen such a strange organism for the first time.

They melt the earth and rocks with fire, spread the quenched elements on the ground, and call thunder and lightning from star-like temperatures, driving everything around them.

And the most incredible thing is that these organisms are not under his control!

This is something he cannot understand.

Not only was he unable to control them, he couldn't even communicate with them, but they were unaware of his presence, killing the fruiting entities that Chi sent to make contact with them again and again.

At first, he thought of the colonists as a virus from an "extraterrestrial meteorite", or something like that, as it happened occasionally.

So through his own ability, he evolved "antibodies" that excluded these organisms.

In the beginning, his antibodies did have some effect, and the slime mold-infected visitors soon developed a series of symptoms such as weakness, coughing, and listlessness.

However, Chu Guang didn't need to guess to know that with the level of science and technology in the Prosperous Era, this level of small cold might not even be a threat.

And things turned out just as he thought.

The colonists soon used advanced medical technology and analysis of local species to not only develop relevant vaccines, but also to sanitize "antibodies designed against humans" on a wide area.

This was probably the first head-on clash between Gaia and human civilization, and both sides started this unprepared war without knowing what they really were.

After discovering that the virus and bacteria attack had little effect, the enraged Gaia gradually expanded the scale of the war, and began to try to set off some global disasters, spawning some more aggressive fruiting entities, trying to physically eradicate the expanding colonists.

Of course, it is impossible for the People's Federation to give up this treasure of feng shui that was not easy to find because of such a small setback, and began to invest more and more resources in the development of the colony, and solved a series of methods used by Gaia.

And interestingly,

It was also in this process that the scholars of the Federation of People finally discovered the existence of "Gaia"!

The series of catastrophes that have occurred on the planet Gaia are not separated from each other, everything is governed by a unified consciousness!

Biologists from the Human Union came up with this hypothesis when comparing the DNA of alien creatures, and the discovery of telepathic interference devices later confirmed this hypothesis!

From the perspective of the mutant slime mold, it was the first time humans had heard his voice in the true sense of the word, and established direct communication with the sleeve.

"Psychic Interference Device?!"

When she saw this part of the information, Heya's face was full of surprise.

After a moment of thought, she muttered to herself.

"The higher the mind, the richer the information it receives, and the more interference it receives...... Hey, that's what happened!"

She had been researching Vault 117 before, and she had found it strange.

The original intention of the telepathic interference device was to replace the infrasonic fence used by the colony to repel xenomorphs, but according to the information they gathered, the xenomorphs in the colony were all fruiting entities of slime molds.

They share a unified consciousness, and theoretically cannot be driven away by psychic interference devices.

There is no need to even "theoretically", there are large slime fruiting bodies in Qingquan City, and the telepathic interference device is of no use to them at all.

After a long time, those colonists did not use it instead of the infrasonic fence, but used it to establish diplomatic relations with Gaia?

Chu Guang didn't speak, but thought of something else,

That's what Dr. Method had mentioned to him in Vault 101.

During the Age of Prosperity, there was a radical trend of thought that was widespread in the society of the People's Union.

That is, about the definition of people.

Activists believe that people are social beings, that social people are human beings, and that the Federation of People should keep pace with the times. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that man is the unity of society and man and man, both are indispensable, and the law of the ancestors is immutable.

There are broad disagreements between the two sides on a range of agendas, such as android citizenship, the scope of application of human cloning technology, and social upbringing.

In this unique context of the times, the emergence of "Gaia" actually had a certain degree of impact on the society of the Federation of People.

In the past, the Gestalt societies that humans could observe in the natural world of the earth were boring and inefficient insects such as ants and bees, but now there is a near-perfect complete body in front of everyone.

In the eyes of some, his presence offers a near-perfect solution to the divide between radicals and conservatives.

That is, as long as Gaia is studied and Gaia-like Gestalt network is established, connecting the consciousness of every individual in society into a whole, then all differences will be easily resolved.

This is the case with Gaia.

Before humans arrived, there was not even a concept of conflict, and naturally there would be no disagreement.

And it was these people who first established contact with Gaia.

Most of them were scholars and researchers who had volunteered to migrate from their home planet to colonies, and most of them were fed up with the endless bickering and finger-pointing of the Science Ethics Committee.

In this memory of the brood, he has a positive opinion of the humans who took the initiative to embrace Gaia.

And in his cognition, he did not kill for the sake of killing, but responded to the call of the human "Gaia faction" to come and liberate the suffering organisms on this planet under the guidance of Gaia.

Of course, this is not a testament to generosity, and it is also for his mother.

According to those who sympathize with them, if they do not address the root causes, then the conflict will never end.

Over the centuries, the word "plunder" has been written into the genes of the vast majority of species on that planet.

「…… No wonder the brood is able to accept the Torch Church." It took Chu Guang a long time to squeeze such a sentence out of his mouth.

Those men had been to Vault 401

shelter, and took away the telepathic interference device and related technology, and objectively they mastered the tools to communicate with the slime brood.

And their ideas and ideas coincide with the "Gaia faction" sympathetic to the mutant slime molds, but they are a little more extreme to their own people.

But what does it matter?

To give an inappropriate example, the brood doesn't look at them the same way he looks at Xiao Yu.

After so many years of fighting, a group of humans who can understand their demands have finally emerged. I can't figure out that the DNA that the Torch Church has in possession was given to them by the brood in Qingquan City!

"Any other memories?" Seeing this memory to the end, Heya looked longingly in the direction where Xiao Qi's voice came from.

"No, that's all he knows." Xiao Qi replied helplessly.

Hearing Xiao Qi's answer, Heya's expression couldn't help but carry a little bit of loss, but he didn't force it.

"Unbelievable...... This piece of information simply subverted my perception of mutant slime molds," Heya touched the bridge of her nose and suddenly looked at Chu Guang excitedly, "You know what? I have a whole bunch of new ideas in my head right now...... Forget it, I can't tell you, I may have to retreat for a few days."

Looking at Heya's eager expression, Chu Guang estimated that she probably gained new inspiration about her research field from this memory.

That kind of professional thing was really beyond his knowledge.

Without asking in detail what it was, Chu Guang coughed lightly and said.

"You can stay in retreat for as long as you want, but before I do that, I need to ask for your opinion."

Hea raised her eyebrows curiously.

"What's the matter?"

Chu Guang tried to describe his thoughts.

"I want Xiao Yu to ...... the cityscape of Qingquan City Make some improvements."

In fact, it's not so much an idea as a brain hole.

When he peeked at the screen on the forum just now, he found that Professor Yang was instigating Luo Yu to send the millions of cheap children and grandchildren he had just picked up to the assembly line to brush money.

To be honest, this slapstick operation was something Chu Guang didn't expect, and even Luo Yu, who was instigated, felt that it was unrealistic.

After all, if you can do this, not to mention the game experience of other players, I'm afraid that even the game experience of NPCs will have to be lost.

It's better to keep this plug-in in the hands of the collective.

"Improving the cityscape?" After hearing this, Heya was stunned, and looked at Chu Guang with a confused expression, "This ...... How else can it be improved?"

Chu Guang patiently explained.

"Qingquan City is currently in ruins, and if millions of slime fruiting bodies can be involved in the reconstruction work, the project that would have taken hundreds of years to complete may be reduced to a few years."

His requirements are not high.

Even restoring some of Qingquan's urban areas to a level above livability would be of great benefit to the alliance.

And let Xiao Yu make some visible social contributions, and it can also reduce the concerns of those wastelanders who don't know about it.

Seeing that Heya was stunned for a long time and didn't speak, Chu Guang added another sentence later.

"Of course, this is just an immature idea......

"Hmm...... It's not a question of maturity or immaturity, it sounds like a good idea, but there's a ......."

After a pause, Heya continued with a subtle expression.

"According to our research, hive consciousness is not as omnipotent as it seems, and to a large extent its dominance is reflected at the macro level. Thea, for example, has a better ability to manipulate than her mother. However, even that guy, when the number of its subentities rises to a thousand or even more than ten thousand, it is difficult to concretely manipulate the actions of each subentity."

"That's why it experiments with a model of assimilation, in which the assimilated sub-entity retains a part of its self-consciousness and is able to refine specific actions according to vague instructions. The general view of the Institute is that this is changing

The ability of slime molds to evolve from learning to human society."

After a pause, she continued.

"Speaking of Xiao Yu, its dominance over the fruiting entities in Clear Springs City is actually weaker than the brood that it devoured. First of all, it transmits information through the medium of sound, and although the distance and speed of transmission are better than that of spores, the information entropy is definitely reduced. Through the medium of sound and spores, it is difficult to say whether the sub-entities can understand the complex commands or not."

"In other words, if it asks those gnawers to bite people, they will definitely understand, but if you want them to move something from one place to another, I'm afraid you will have to test Xiao Yu's command skills."

After listening to Heya's explanation, Chu Guang felt a little regretful in his heart.

"That's ......."

Seeing Chu Guang's regretful expression, Heya couldn't help but add a sentence later.

"This is just my speculation, my speculation is not necessarily correct, and besides, you shouldn't ask me about this, but communicate directly with Xiao Yu. That guy is a born biologist, and its very existence is an incredible miracle for us, a singularity isolated from our cognitive horizon."

At this point, she made a joke.

"To make a figurative but inappropriate analogy, those of us who study the mysteries of nature are like magicians, relying on sophisticated wands and obscure spells to cast spells."

"And it's different."

"It's magic in itself!"

……

Shelter Level B6.

Standing in a sea of pale red, Xiao Yu let out a leisurely sigh.

The pale red spore coat rolled like a wave, spreading in circles, and finally merged with the pitch-black chassis that stood like a reef in the computer room.

It seems that slime molds also have their own troubles.

Taking off the virtual reality glasses on his head, Chu Guang, who was sitting at the door of the computer room, put the glasses on top of the robot in the shape of a wastebasket.

Sensing its sorrow, Chu Guang didn't immediately talk about his own business, but asked in an easy-going tone. "What are you thinking?"

The gentle thoughts were transmitted along the pale red tentacles to the carbon-based semiconductors in the chassis, which were parsed into human language by Xiaoqi.

"I couldn't convince Thea."

This guy can actually talk.

However, the information entropy of human language is too low, and it prefers to express it in its own way, anyway, Xiaoqi will translate it for it.

Chu Guang thought for a moment and spoke.

"You don't have to feel sorry for it, it chose its own destiny and followed its mother to the end of the path under its feet. Nothing is perfect in this world, and you've done a great job."

"Uh-huh."

Xiao Yu muttered softly, and his mood seemed to improve a little.

As the first human to see after waking up, Chu Guang was like a father and mother to it, and it had always trusted his words.

It didn't understand this feeling at first, but after meeting Thea and the brood, it also experienced a little bit of the so-called sense of inheritance.

It's like Thea inherited its mother's will.

Its worldview is basically formed in a society of alliances, and its perception of the self is almost indistinguishable from people except that it is different from people in shape.

After all, the shape is the most irrelevant thing for it that has an infinite number of fruiting bodies but only a single self.

This is the opposite of human beings, who are good at drawing a line with their compatriots.

After a moment of silence, Xiao Yu suddenly asked a strange question again.

"Am I human?"

Chu Guang thought about it and answered truthfully.

"Objectively speaking, it's obviously not."

Hearing this, Xiao Yu's mood was slightly lost, but he quickly regained his strength

Get up and continue to ask.

"What does it take to be human?"

Feeling the seriousness and simplicity in this sentence, Chu Guang couldn't help but cry and said softly.

"You don't have to be human, you are who you are, you should be able to feel that we have never excluded you."

"Hmmm!"

As if satisfied with this answer, Xiao Yu's voice carried a hint of joy, excitedly separating a tentacle from the pale red sea, stretching out to Chu Guang's shoulder to rub his face.

This is one of the ways it expresses its friendliness.

I learned it from a guy named Niko.

Xiao Qi, who was sitting on Chu Guang's shoulder, resistantly hid to the side and protested dissatisfiedly.

"Yikes! Don't get the gooey stuff on me! Your head will rust!"

The figure that Pai gave to Chu Guang before was his favorite of all his clones.

Although the Ibs guy paid tribute some time ago and looked like a doll with a lot of appetite for it, and it was a one-to-one doll, that guy had its own AI core like Frost and Eclipse, and it didn't want to use it, so it felt weird.

"Babble......

Xiao Yu screamed aggrievedly, dodging Xiao Qi and wrapping around Chu Guang's shoulder on the other side.

The relationship between the two little ones has actually been good.

After all, many times Xiao Qi acts as Chu Guang's microphone, and when Luo Yu goes offline, Xiao Qi basically accompanies him.

Looking at Xiao Qi who jumped onto the wastebasket, Chu Guang smiled, not caring about Xiao Yu's close rubbing, anyway, his power armor didn't have to be washed by himself.

Chu Guang is still relatively open-minded about new things.

After all, from a practical point of view, if you can solve the problem by copying the methods of the People's Federation, you don't need him to clean up this mess.

What's more, if you think about it from another angle, if his brain hole can really be realized, Xiao Yu's guy is simply a planetary-level environmental transformation artifact!

In the future, if you come across a planet full of carbon dioxide or other harmful gases that "almost reaches the habitable yellow line", you can throw a small feather and bite it before taking a colony.

Communication across galaxies should be no more difficult than transgalactic navigation.

It doesn't even need to communicate through spores like its ancestor Gaia, just to open a microphone with the help of human civilization technology.

In terms of cost, this is certainly much more cost-effective than conventional "air modification projects".

And its footprints will follow the Alliance's rules and ambitions to explore new worlds, stepping into larger worlds that its ancestors never imagined.

It's a win-win situation!

Of course, exploring the New World is still too far away for the Alliance today, and the Old World still has a lot of trouble waiting for him to deal with.

Looking at Xiao Yu, who was in a good mood, Chu Guang smiled and put forward his own ideas.

"I want to ask you for something."

"Hmmm!"

Xiao Yu excitedly nodded at the outstretched tentacles, and agreed without asking.

Chu Guang made a joke.

"Don't you even ask what it is?

The pale red spore coat that filled the computer room shook gently like aquatic plants, as straight as the lake water that could be seen through the bottom of the lake at a glance.

"I believe in you!"