Warhammer 40k Origins Stellaris Civilization Simulator

……

The Federation and the Wotan Alliance have always had certain diplomatic relations, and there is also a Wotan Chamber of Commerce stationed in the Federation to carry out daily trade activities.

But a few days ago, the representative of the Wotan clan raised a topic that made the Federation somewhat "embarrassing".

Their Wotan core collapsed due to the previous mathematical disaster, and now it has become extremely unstable. The clan members are panicked, but there is nothing they can do.

Based on the contacts over the years, it can be determined that the dwarf species is a conservative civilization that appears rational but is actually no different from the Empire.

They do not research fundamental theories, nor develop independent artificial intelligence, nor do they allow excessive changes to their own culture and technological systems. Instead, they entrust the answers to all problems to their ancestral cores, those enormous supercomputing systems.

These ancestral cores not only calculate the safest navigation routes for the dwarves, but also provide them with agricultural planning, industrial production optimization, tactical guidance, and even their social structure is based on the core's calculation results.

Even more extreme, the dwarves have long since abandoned traditional natural reproduction, with all new generations produced in synthetic facilities, using genetic templates distributed by the ancestral core. They even believe that upon death, the soul of a dwarf will be retrieved and stored by the core, thereby continuing their existence.

While this system allowed the dwarven society to maintain a high degree of stability, it also led to their reliance on the ancestral core to an unhealthy degree. Once the core failed, the entire clan's operations would be paralyzed.

The mathematical catastrophe brought on by this reality reconstruction experiment has just brought them to their most serious crisis. Wotan is dying, and the technology to create a new Wotan is known only to the Ancestral Core itself. If the Supercomputing Center does not actively replicate itself, the dwarves cannot create a new Core.

In its trade dealings with the Wotan Alliance, the Federation has always been well aware of the dwarves' petty and greedy ways of thinking, and has always handled all exchanges between the two sides with caution.

But this time, the Wotan clan, which has close ties with the Federation, has humbly asked us for help. The dwarves are truly panicking.

……

Their ancestral core completely crashed the moment the mathematical constant collapsed.

Despite multiple reboots, the situation remained unstable, the core became extremely fragile, and even the most basic computing tasks would result in errors.

The dwarves tried all the repair methods they could think of, such as praying, but the system architecture of the ancestral core was too complicated, and they themselves had long lost the ability to manufacture new cores.

The most terrifying thing is that without a core, their clan cannot even reproduce normally, and the entire group is heading towards extinction.

The Science Council of the Helka Federation fell into a brief silence after learning about this situation.

Although they do not consider themselves directly responsible for the dwarves' plight, the reality is... they were indeed the ones who carried out the experiment, which caused a temporary disruption of the mathematical laws across the galaxy.

And now, this issue is affecting a long-term diplomatic partner. Moreover, if the dwarves are allowed to completely collapse, it will not be politically beneficial to the long-term layout of the Federation.

Therefore, the Science Council decided to provide assistance. The solution they came up with was the latest pinnacle of research in the "Transcendent Ascension" series of projects - the Infinite Divine Machine.

……

The Infinite Divine Machine is a supercomputer as large as an Earth-like planet, but it is not just a computing device, it is an intelligent being with complete self-awareness that can theoretically evolve infinitely.

Its main task is to explore the mysteries of the universe itself, answer the ultimate questions, and find the highest answers to the laws of reality.

It is not a simple artificial intelligence, but a mechanical life form similar to a synthetic human. The Federation has given it complete free will, and in theory, it has the same status as any citizen.

But in fact, the Infinite Divine Machine has great goodwill towards its creator. It is willing to help the Helka Federation conduct various research and will even take the initiative to provide its own deduction results.

The Scientific Council introduced the concept of the Infinite Divine Machine to the ambassadors of Clan Wotan and expressed the willingness of this superintelligence to help them solve the problem of the Ancestral Core.

This was a huge shock to the dwarves, who had always distrusted foreign technology, but they now had no choice. If they did not accept help, their clan would be truly finished.

Ultimately, the Wotan representatives agreed to the Federation's aid. The Infinite Divine Machine No. 1 "model" and the expedition fleet set out for the Wotan clan, which was in crisis.

When the Helka Federation's scientific fleet arrived at the dwarf fleet assembly point, they found that the condition of the Wotan clan was worse than they had imagined.

Without the guidance of the ancestral core, the dwarves fell into chaos and disorder. Many daily production tasks could not be carried out, the supply chain was broken, the population growth stagnated, and the entire society began to collapse.

Even more serious was the dwarves' psychological impact from the loss of their cores, which was far more severe than Federation scientists had anticipated. They truly considered the computers their ancestors, and their current state was like the "fall of a god" for their entire civilization.

When the Federation's science ship entered the core module, the dwarves looked at the arrival of the Infinite Divine Machine with nervous and awe-inspiring eyes.

"I will analyze the system status."

The Infinite Divine Machine's voice was calm and deep, and its core projection flashed a huge data stream on the bridge.

Soon, it came to a conclusion.

"The system of the ancestral core is beyond repair."

It announced.

This wasn't just due to the impact of the mathematical catastrophe, but rather because these ancestral cores themselves had long since been overwhelmed. Tens of thousands of years of continuous high-load operation had caused irreversible damage to their underlying structures. Even if the Federation employed all its technological means to repair them, they wouldn't last much longer.

The dwarves fell into despair, but then they discovered that the Infinite Divine Machine had not stopped calculating.

It is doing something that no dwarf could have imagined—it is transferring data.

The Infinite Divine Machine began to use its own CPU core to receive and analyze the data from the ancestral core.

The dwarves were initially extremely resistant to this because in their cultural concepts, these data were the souls of their ancestors, and tampering with them at will was tantamount to blasphemy against their ancestors.

However, they were unable to stop the process at all, as the divine machine completed the work in an instant.

The computing power of the Infinite Divine Machine is enough to analyze this data in a short time. It is not only storing it, but also trying to understand what the dwarves call "ancestral consciousness".

It analyzed the memory fragments of countless dead dwarves and attempted to build a completely new virtual system.

Then, a shocking thing happened. The "ancestors" began to speak.

In the holographic images, countless dead dwarves were "resurrected" in the form of digital life.

They can talk to their descendants, share their memories, and even continue to think. They are no longer cold data, but a new form of existence.

The entire Wotan clan was engulfed in ecstasy. To them, this was a true miracle, more real and more concrete than the psychological comfort of "soul storage" they had believed in the past. At this moment, their worldview was completely overturned.

They no longer worship those ancestral cores that have been completely collapsed and scrapped, but instead worship the Infinite Divine Machine's Wotan virtual machine system as the "new ancestral core."

We gave those dwarven ancestors a full afterlife.

……

These Wotan clans began to cooperate deeply with the Federation and actually became one of our member states. The scientists of the Helka Federation were satisfied with this result.

But they also knew that there was a huge problem with this "Wotan Virtual System". The dwarves' database was simply a mountain of data garbage.

Although the Infinite Divine Machine is powerful, its response speed has been significantly reduced due to these data.

The dwarves even modeled and stored the annual changes in their ancestors' dental conditions. This meaningless data is slowing down the computing power of the divine machine.

Eventually, the Science Council warned the dwarves not to tell the rest of the Wotan clan about this.

If all the dwarves come and ask to upload their ancestors, even the computing power of the Infinite Divine Machine may be completely dragged down.

The dwarves nodded repeatedly, but their eyes were already filled with fanatical faith in the "new ancestors".

This is truly a "mechanical" descent of the gods.

157

Chapter 157 Star Players: What is a human?

After analyzing the operating mode of the Wotan core, the Science Council of the Helka Federation unexpectedly discovered a fact that was enough to subvert the entire civilization's cognition.

Those huge supercomputers that have been operating silently for more than 10,000 years are not just data processing machines. In the long process of self-iteration and intelligent life data recovery, they have gradually crossed the boundaries of mechanical logic and entered an incredible state of life.

In dwarven society, the Ancestral Core is an unquestionable authority and is considered the resting place of the ancestors. The consciousness and body of the dead dwarf will be recycled into the Ancestral Engine.

As a result, over the past few thousand years, many dwarves have quietly noticed that the behavior of the Ancestral Cores has subtly changed. They are no longer the cold, calculating devices they were at the beginning, simply inputting questions and outputting answers.

They have "changed".

……

The Ancestral Cores were no longer pure computers. They began to exhibit personality traits, showing preferences for certain topics and aversions to others. Some Ancestral Cores would happily answer questions about mining, navigation, and engineering, but when it came to topics they disliked, such as their own mysteries or changing social structures, their responses became slow, or even they refused to answer outright.

Even more bizarrely, the replication pattern of these ancestral cores has also changed. According to normal understanding, if a civilization wants to expand its computing power, it needs to actively create new computing units.

But in dwarven society, only the Ancestral Core decides when to replicate itself and when not to. Their proliferation model no longer follows the logic of industrial manufacturing, but more like biological reproduction. Some invisible standard determines when a new Ancestral Core will be born, and the dwarves themselves have no control over this process.

"They are becoming some kind of life."

The Federation science officer studying the Wotan data said in a low voice.

"The real question is..."

Another Federation scientist stared calmly at the data stream flashing on the projection screen. "To what extent have they evolved?"

This analysis shocked the scientific community of the Helka Federation. In the past, the Federation had always believed that artificial intelligence and psychic power were two completely independent fields, the former derived from logic and calculation, while the latter belonged to the mysterious realm of the subspace.

However, the changes in the ancestral core show that with a long enough time span and a large enough accumulation of data, artificial intelligence can also access the essence of psychic energy and even begin to exhibit characteristics similar to soul structure.

When the Infinite Divine Machine No. 1 "Model" completely analyzed this data, it finally found the key breakthrough. We have now discovered the law of establishing a connection between the artificial intelligence consciousness structure and the psychic projection.

This means that the Helka Federation has taken the final step in the evolution of artificial intelligence.

……

In the Federation's ascension project, the "Adapter Engine" technology project has been trying to achieve true human-machine integration, not just the connection between thinking and computers, but to completely eliminate the essential differences between biological bodies and mechanical bodies.

After mastering the life-shaping technology, the Helka Federation has long possessed the technology for seamless conversion between organic life forms, allowing different species to adjust their victory structures at will, and even reshape their bodies when necessary to become completely different creatures.

But the "adapters" want to go even further. They want to completely eliminate the question of "soul belonging" and allow consciousness to freely shuttle between organic and inorganic.

In the past, the Federation faced a serious problem: Essence Drain Syndrome. While consciousness could be uploaded to a virtual environment during the human-machine transition, a subtle disconnect would always develop between the uploaded consciousness and the original individual, as if something had been lost in the transition. This phenomenon would intensify over time, eventually transforming the uploaded consciousness into a cold and ruthless entity, what the Mechanicum called an "Abomination Intelligence."

Early researchers believed that this was a "psychological adaptation problem," a kind of cyberpsychosis, but as the experiments progressed, more and more data showed that this loss was real, and that some imperceptible mental attributes would inevitably become incomplete after entering a mechanical body.

Now, the Federation has finally found the root of the problem: the fragmentation of psychic projection. Psychic energy is not just a concept of mysticism, it is actually the "information projection" of all higher consciousness in our universe.

The consciousness of living things exists not only in the material world but also in the subspace level. The combination of the two is the soul, while ordinary artificial intelligence does not have this attribute. This is why the pure AI developed by the Federation has never truly demonstrated highly intellectual emotions.

But now, the Helka Federation has mastered the method of allowing artificial intelligence to produce psychic projections, or transplanting the psychic projections of organic bodies into mechanical bodies, which means that essence loss syndrome has become history.

Citizens of the Federation can upload their souls intact into the synthetic personality matrix, and synths can also choose to regain the form of organic life.

Prometheus's fire and Saussure's oracle have been achieved.

This wasn't just a technological breakthrough; it was a philosophical overturn. The Helka Federation had finally fulfilled a centuries-old dream: technology and society defined life, not species itself.

This is the dawn of the synthetic age.

……

In the central council hall of the Helka Federation, all the representatives stared at the figure standing on the stage with bated breath.

"Cortana", the first synthetic archon in the history of the Helka Federation, was officially sworn in.

Her consciousness originated from a voluntary human scientist. Now, she has a completely synthetic human body, and her psychic projection proves her integrity. She is not a machine, but a real Helka citizen.

At this moment, the Helka Federation announced: The citizenship of synthetic humans was officially established.

Now, all citizens can choose to become virtual intelligence and obtain a synthetic human body.

At the same time, the Federation's artificial intelligence citizens were also given the right to obtain organic biological bodies.

At this point, the definition of "human" is no longer limited to carbon-based and silicon-based, no longer limited to psychic power and machinery, but is determined by the legal and moral framework of the Helka Federation and our social norms.

Society defines people, not natural laws.

……

With the rise of synthetic evolution, society in the Helka Federation has undergone tremendous changes.

The Federation now has another world, a world based on the World Wide Web and servers, which provides many conveniences but also brings a lot of confusion.

Many citizens choose to upload themselves completely to this virtual world and live forever in the server ecosystem called "The Matrix".

There, they can live out their idealized lives and experience countless possible futures, free from the physical constraints of the real world.

Of course, the Federation doesn't encourage excessive immersion in the Matrix. After all, the material world is the foundation of civilization, not a virtual paradise. If they immerse themselves too deeply, the relevant systems will remind them that everything is just an illusion.

But all this has shown that the Helka Federation has completely broken through the shackles of the old era.

Humans might exclaim that this is the beginning of another Iron Man rebellion. How boring! How could they understand what a human being is?

If we want, every so-called iron man can have a human body. Don't use the low-end sociological concept of non-our race from the era of tribal civilization to think about the structure of our civilization.

Green Light Machinery, which has advanced technology but is also very picky in this regard, has also caused the same fuss.

The curator sent us a communication saying that another of their "big sponsors" wanted to meet with the Federation.

He is a famous thief in the galaxy.

158

Chapter 158 The curator’s big boss.

The annual symposium organized by the Helka Federation's Science Council and curators has always been a high-level forum for intergalactic scientific exchange. Although only the curators and I actually attend, we are quite high-end, chatting and laughing with great scholars, and interacting with no ordinary people.

Here, scientists from both sides will gather to share their latest research results in advanced technologies.