Stars, Players and Immortals

Chapter 82 Lunar Cyber ​​Warfare!

The azure waterway traverses the sea of ​​data, and the gray-white remnants of the network at its end rapidly expand, the cyberspace of the lunar dark web resembling an old port abandoned for many years.

The broken antenna tower lay on the black data ground, the old federal identification code flashing on and off.

Saint Sophia, having completed the jump, looked at this scene with some surprise. After all, it was her first time on the lunar dark web, and the place felt rather dilapidated.

Saint Sophia: "This is lunar cyberspace—it's even more desolate than I imagined."

"It just looks desolate."

Zhang Qiming replied that everything they were seeing was just the outer shell of the lunar cyberspace; the real lunar dark web was hidden behind the second layer of access.

The current Lunar Council is governed by five core AIs:

Artemis controls a large number of network protocols on the lunar dark web and is responsible for cyber deterrence against cyber hackers.

[Wangshu] has mastered agreements on lunar storage, old federal civilian industrial templates, and unmanned production lines.

[Kong Su] is in charge of the agent network in the real world of Terra, manipulating human society and interfering in real-world politics.

【Nanna】Manages deep space relays, unmanned ships, server migrations, and remote backups.

【Soma】Controls the city of Busan, possesses the tidal power station and automated factory of the entire ghost city, and has a large database of civilian consumer industrial data and production lines.

Zhang Qiming's target this time is Somo.

Mars is currently lacking basic consumer goods, and Busan Nest can produce all of these.

That ghost town is uninhabited, but it still retains a large number of civilian industrial production lines.

The Lunar Council also possesses [artificial labor] technology. These artificial labor units are perfect, cheap, low-end laborers capable of performing heavy physical labor with simple voice commands, making them ideal for taking over the civilian industrial production lines in Busan.

If the Lunar Council were willing to activate the civilian facilities in Busan and keep the civilian production lines in that ghost town running 24 hours a day, the gap in Mars could be filled immediately.

As for transportation, there's no need to overcomplicate things or make any fancy disguises.

Large-scale cargo throughput cannot be hidden, and a few small-scale smuggling shipments can be slipped into the black market shipping of merchant ronin, but what he needs is a civilian supply line that can sustain Mars for half a year, so hiding it is useless.

A shipment of this scale would certainly expose the cooperation between the Lunar Parliament and Mars.

Therefore, the Lunar Council ultimately only had two choices.

Either refuse to cooperate and wait to be wiped out by Great Wall ICE; or activate Busan and use the production capacity of that ghost town to supply Mars, completely standing on the opposite side of Terra.

As for siding with Terra?

The Lunar Council might dare to make this request, but the Terran government might not dare to accept it. Don't forget that the Martian War of Independence was caused by these lunar AIs.

If it weren't for them jumping around and causing trouble, how could Mars have separated from Terra?

The Terran government has always been wary of roving AI. Although they don't have a black wall technology like ICE, they do have a local firewall specifically designed to target roving AI.

That technology is far inferior, with a small coverage area and slow response speed. Sometimes, when encountering advanced intelligent agents, it is necessary to physically disconnect the network, cutting off the public network of the entire city in one fell swoop.

To combat the infiltration of roving AIs, Terra was even forced to embark on a path of transcendence.

Should the Terran government and the Lunar Council openly cooperate?

They themselves couldn't believe it.

Moreover, Zhang Qiming doesn't necessarily want to exterminate these roving AIs. As long as the Lunar Council is willing to register them and accept the supervision of the Great Wall ICE, it's not impossible to bring them back into the embrace of the normal Internet.

Of course, that's for later.

Now, they need to capture Soma first.

In his previous life as a player, Zhang Qiming had spent a lot of time mining on the Moon Council's territory, and he knew the most hidden safe spots in Somo like the back of his hand.

This guy has a habit he can't break.

Its main process is permanently attached to the immersive network layer of Busan Nest City, with the lunar dark web merely serving as a springboard, and several deep-space unmanned ships responsible for maintaining remote backups.

To maintain permission synchronization between the main process, the jump server, and the backup, it sends an authentication synchronization packet to an old federal healthcare data node every fixed period.

He had previously unearthed Somo's medical accessory templates here and had been bombed by their ICE several times, so he naturally remembered its authentication window.

Now, this old road can be used again.

"Chisei, mark the medical node I sent you."

Chishiro's cold white orb flashed.

[Node located]

Location: Second layer of the lunar dark web

Ares's crimson orb immediately emitted a command.

[Military ICE escort completed]

[Great Wall ICE authorized anchor ready to deploy]

Saint Sophia glanced at him: "Have you been here before?"

"I've worked in the mining industry."

Zhang Qiming didn't explain much.

Saint Sophia didn't understand the word, but she could tell that Zhang Qiming was extremely familiar with this dark web.

Zhang Qiming raised his hand and released another scout puppet.

The little thing slid into the second floor along the gray-white storage area, bypassed two old federal remnants of ICE, and crawled into the abandoned prosthetic body warehouse.

A few seconds later, the data was transmitted back.

[Authentication synchronization package found!]

[Target confirmed!]

[Window countdown: 11 seconds]

"11 seconds is more than enough. These lunar hillbilly AIs have never been hit by the Black Wall's iron fist. They have no idea how powerful this thing is."

As Zhang Qiming muttered to himself, he activated the Great Wall ICE scanning permission.

Buzzing! ...

The crimson boundary suddenly unfolds outside the node. As soon as the authentication synchronization packet enters the node, Great Wall ICE immediately cuts off the external jumper, blocks the deep space backup link, and then locks Somo's permissions in place.

[Target locked—]

【Capture of Somo-related processes—】

[Freezing external synchronization permissions]

The next moment, the entire lunar dark web trembled.

In the abandoned storage area, the old federal identification codes began to flash wildly, and large patches of red alarm light cracked through the gray-white data floor.

【warn! ! ! 】

【warn! ! ! 】

[Unauthorized hacking!!!]

Somo's program process wanted to forcibly sever the connection and transfer to the underlying network of Busan Nest City, but Great Wall ICE had already bitten into its permission loop program by following the authentication synchronization packet.

Somo reacted swiftly, immediately splitting into three copies that rushed toward the lunar springboard, the old Terran net, and the deep space ship backup, respectively.

Three black hunting trails emerged from the Great Wall ICE, precisely pinning down three escaped instances.

The next second, the black ice matrix on the black wall rolled down along the permission loop, freezing Somo's core process instantly. The digital cage slammed shut, welding off all of its self-replication, remote jump, and backup wake-up functions.

The alarm continued to spread outwards.

Almost simultaneously, the four core AIs, Artemis, Wangshu, Kongsu, and Nanna, switched to the second-level access zone. They clearly wanted to take back Sumo before the Great Wall ICE completely blocked it.

He held Chishiro's cold white orb of light in his right hand, while Saint Sophia held Ares's deep red orb of light.

After Zhang Qiming connected to Great Wall ICE, he directly activated his skills using AI computing power and RAM.

[You activated the skill "Puppet Writing," interfering with puppet generation!]

[You activated the skill "ICE Programming"!]

[You activated the skill "Firewall Worship"!]

The next instant, a large number of disruptive puppets rushed out from behind the tense cybernetic avatar, like a swarm of tiny white bees, and crashed directly into the access links released by the four AIs.

Kong Su was the first to be affected.

It cut in from the direction of Terra, intending to bypass the frontal blockade of the Great Wall ICE and pry open the node from the outer real-world interface.

However, Zhang Qiming had already instructed Zhi Shilang to keep an eye on this line. The firewall blocked its identity chain, and the newly written ICE program also took the opportunity to activate the Black Ice Matrix, freezing Kong Su's external call permissions in mid-air.

At this moment, the Great Wall ICE, like a Poké Ball, opened its digital cage and swallowed Kong Su whole.

Kong Su struggled for a moment, but was eventually successfully contained by the Great Wall ICE!

Meanwhile, Saint Sofia also successfully captured Nanna.

At the same time, the lunar dark web began to vibrate violently.

This place was originally home to a large number of low-level, wandering AIs.

They lack a complete sense of self and simply follow their instincts of "survival, replication, and diffusion."

As soon as the Great Wall ICE trucks were deployed, they swarmed towards the newly emerged border like insects smelling blood, attempting to seize the loopholes.

To replicate itself.

As soon as he touched the black wall, he was grabbed and instantly refined.

The previously chaotic noise on the lunar dark web quickly diminished, and the gray-white storage area was cleared out into a large quiet zone by the Great Wall ICE.

Artemis and Wangshu stopped. As Class I strong artificial intelligences, they were more cautious and intelligent than Kongsu and Nanna, who were also Class I strong artificial intelligences.

They have acquired advanced intelligence, capable of understanding language, negotiation, and threats, and are also aware that if this black wall continues to expand, the price the Lunar Council will have to pay will become increasingly higher.

So Artemis spoke first.

[Request for clarification: What is your true demand?]

Hey, Moon Country Bumper AI, pop some coins!

Zhang Qiming really wanted to say that, but since everyone here is a civilized cybernetic human, he chose to be more tactful and said, "We'd like to discuss a collaboration with you."