The stars, but they become the gray wind

1000TW=1PW

The total power output of human civilization at this stage is about 14TW.

So, everyone should have a clearer understanding of the scale and energy output level of a Type 1.2 civilization, right?

Chapter 207: The Wormhole Time Bridge Across Time (6000 words)

"The space-time reference frame of the universe is not absolute, especially for objects moving at different speeds."

"There is no absolute global clock in the universe; instead, every time traveler has their own clock."

A purple-haired girl from the future said to Kalisi, who looked exactly like her, while moving the pieces on the chessboard.

"As a result, I'm far more than the only Sky Star individual who has used superluminal technology to create a closed time-like curve and travel back from the future to the past."

"However, none of them have chosen to return to this point in time like me. Most of the Sky Star people choose to return to a time closer to some point in the future?"

"Because in terms of process and impact, there is nothing particularly important at this time."

"Doesn't opening a door to another universe count?" asked Carlisle, playing with a white chess piece in her hand.

"Unfortunately, for us in the future... it won't be considered. Rather, this kind of thing will become commonplace for you at some point in your future."

"We are more concerned about the total duration of stable development of civilizations developed under different cosmic laws."

"You should have noticed... Whether on this side of the universe or on the side where Sky Star resides, civilization is incredibly sparsely distributed. For intelligent life, the entire Milky Way is a sea of ​​rare islands. Intelligent life and civilization only appear on a few scattered islands suitable for survival and development."

"Even in the universe, the probability of various violent astronomical events occurring is higher than the probability of the birth of life. Most life forms die out due to natural or internal factors before forming civilizations."

"But... that was before we got involved, right?"

"Yes, we are already intervening in all planets in the early stages of evolution within the Milky Way that harbor native life. As for those that have already evolved intelligent life and civilizations and have developed to a certain level, we will decide whether to intervene further depending on the situation."

"The level of development of Earth civilization in this world is ultimately too low to warrant deep intervention. Even the Teian people consider them too backward and don't want to waste too much time on such a backward, primitive species. Even if this primitive species shares their origins and they are subjectively willing to treat them well, their backward and inefficient society makes them too lazy to engage in deeper communication for the time being."

"And, more importantly, for most civilizations capable of interstellar travel in both universes, stellar engineering, which efficiently utilizes the energy of an entire star, eliminates the need for resources and living space. Even stellar engineering, which utilizes just 1% of a star's energy, is sufficient to ensure the evolution and development of a civilization over millions or even hundreds of millions of years."

"Furthermore, the computing power provided by stellar astronomical engineering is sufficient to allow all individuals in a civilization to become completely virtual, like the Sky Star civilization. There are also a considerable number of civilizations whose individuals possess physical bodies in the material world. In fact, these are relatively rare within the universe. Remember, most Type II civilizations in our two-dimensional universe are actually quite rare in terms of the willingness to maintain their physical existence."

"Furthermore, there's the destabilizing factor of super-artificial intelligence. Civilizations that manage to develop into Type II civilizations will possess at least one or more relatively benevolent AS1s toward their native species. Although these super-intelligences will eventually replace the original intelligent species that created them and become the true leaders and mainstay of the entire civilization, those civilizations lucky enough not to be slain by AS1s harboring ill will towards their native species will basically cease to be the leaders of civilizations. The industrialized production social system originally built on technological concentration will eventually completely disintegrate. If they do nothing during this process, the result will be similar to that of Sky Star, where each individual can independently maintain the civilization's night and existence, and the social system based on groups will completely disintegrate."

"Or it could go in another direction. In a civilization that doesn't need or want to maintain its existence in the material world, the consciousness of the entire civilization may completely merge in the process of ascension, eventually becoming something like Gaia's Gestalt, or a swarm-conscious super-intelligence based on stellar celestial engineering, condensed from the individual consciousness and thinking of the entire civilization." The purple-haired girl from the future casually grabbed a handful of chess pieces from the box at hand and squeezed them together.

"There's actually no fundamental difference between the two. In this situation, a concentrated population society would completely disintegrate and disappear. The reason Sky Star still maintains a few small communities is simply because we cling to our needs for our own kind. That need is a safeguard that allows us to maintain our humanity. Many super-intelligence that takes the latter approach, evolving from the consciousness and thinking of all individuals and from an entire civilization, in some cases always appear... to lack empathy for life... and humanity. While that's not to say they're completely inhumane, it's just that their understanding of human nature differs from ours, a civilization that still maintains a material existence."

"What's the difference exactly?"

"For example, in their view, as long as life or civilization can develop and continue, no matter how great the losses incurred in the process are, it doesn't matter. At least the few we know... in this regard, they care more about the results than the process."

"In their view, it doesn't matter if new civilizations partially or completely disappear. The nature of a considerable number of civilizations is to become unsustainable and move towards self-destruction."

"They think they can ignore this kind of civilization and just wait for it to slowly die out."

"They are basically indifferent to other civilizations in the universe, just like a passing traveler who sees an insignificant animal on his journey, at most taking a few glances and then moving on."

"They don't even bother to pay attention to another civilization thousands or tens of thousands of light years away."

"In fact, even if we build a superluminal wormhole transportation network throughout the Milky Way and even beyond in the future, for most of the highly developed civilizations in our two universes, the only thing worth interacting and exchanging is information."

"Most civilizations' resources and products are meaningless to each other. The superluminal wormhole transportation network only provides them with a faster channel for information transmission. The exchange of materials is still unnecessary."

"If the entire civilization doesn't become a single, hive-conscious super-intelligence, then society will become even more fragmented than the Sky Star civilization. Perhaps we should call it the ultimate atomization of individuals? The social structure will tend infinitely towards complete flatness, and all group societies based on cohesive systems will completely cease to exist."

"Haha, if the humans in this world heard this conclusion, they would probably find it completely unacceptable, right?"

"Indeed, after all, the ultimate outcome of the development of people and group society is the complete disintegration and extinction of the entire civilization and group social structure. Indeed, it is somewhat ironic for them."

"Also, there's nothing special about life. It's simply a primitive self-replicating machine that emerged through a series of chance coincidences. If we compare the birth of life and the development of civilization to the life cycle of a plant, then the birth of life is the germination of the plant, followed by its thriving growth and the birth of intelligent life. Intelligent life isn't the final product of the plant; it's merely a phase in the process. The civilization created by intelligent life is the flower. The omnipotent hive consciousness, formed by the super-artificial intelligence (AI) created by the entire civilization and the condensation of individual thoughts, is the true fruit of this plant."

"Sometimes, the civilization created by native intelligent species like humans is merely a tool to promote the birth of a more advanced existence."

"And as a naturally evolved, intelligent species, human civilization is a tool with numerous flaws. But for them, at least there is good news: as an intermediate product of this process, they still have the potential for improvement. However, such improvements will ultimately completely alter the entire intermediate product of human civilization."

"But if we don't improve... the end result will be that we'll be left behind by our own creations, leaving them with nothing to show for their taillights. Although naturally evolved, native intelligent species are inherently inferior to superintelligence based solely on information in terms of information processing and the speed of its own optimization, iteration, and updates."

"The technology to transform native intelligent species into super-intelligent species does exist, but after enduring the impact and scrutiny of an information torrent that far exceeds the limits of their own information processing capabilities by hundreds of trillions of times, it's uncertain whether a native intelligent species can still maintain its original consciousness and humanity. Otherwise, our Sky Star sisters would have done so long ago."

"In many ways, one of the insignificant costs of maintaining individual existence is... leaving the later creations of one's own creation far behind."

"However... the situation on Sky Star is the opposite. Furthermore, Cabot manipulated the process, causing us and our sisters on Sky Star to form an inseparable, permanent symbiotic relationship with the Tree of Life. To the Tree of Life, we are more like part of its limbs and nervous system, rather than being a burden to a superintelligence, or a group of completely insignificant pets, like most other native intelligent species."

"Because this superintelligence existed before life itself, we have become a rather special kind of existence."

"We are undoubtedly lucky in this respect. This is also a small surprise and gift from Cabot, the irresponsible mother."

"As for naturally occurring intelligent life and civilizations, the conclusions we've drawn from our observations of actual cases are surprisingly consistent with the views of the coalition behind Cabot, aren't they?"

"Do you mean disappointment in the civilization created by native intelligent life that evolved and developed in a completely natural and undisturbed state? Or is it the original intention to protect the birth of other life?"

"It's a bit of both... Although in the future I know, we haven't become like them. We are still just the daughters of Cabot, the Governor of the United Stars, and civilization will continue to develop in the direction we have chosen."

"Also, I have something to remind you." The purple-haired girl from the future raised her head and solemnly reminded her past self.

"what's up?"

"You'll only see more and more of my kind of time travel into the past using superluminal technology. Excluding those universes with temporal protection mechanisms and where superluminal speeds don't create closed timelike curves, just us and the sisters on Sky Star have already created enough time travel and time cloning using our own superluminal technology. You'll need to get used to it. Right now, I'm the only one here, simply because I'm willing to travel back from that point in the future. There aren't any at this point yet, but as we move forward and the time bridge is built, there will only be more and more Sky Starians and glass eels traveling back and forth between the past and the future."

"In a few months or so, the spacecraft that set out ten years ago, pulling the wormhole away at speeds extremely close to the speed of light, will return, and the first time bridge spanning a period of about ten years will be formed."

"You mean that..." The purple-haired girl now remembered that incident. About ten years ago, Sky Star launched a batch of unmanned spacecraft that dragged a considerable number of wormholes and sailed outward at a speed extremely close to the speed of light. Calculating the time, it should be time for these spacecraft to return soon. If viewed from the reference system of these spacecraft themselves, the time spent on the departure and return of these spacecraft was only a few minutes, but the outside world had actually spent more than ten years. After these spacecraft dragging wormholes returned, it also meant that the first batch of time bridges with a time scale of about ten years would be officially formed. Now Sky Star will be able to send information, matter or energy from the future to ten years ago at will.

"By the way, I'll be the one reminding our selves from ten years ago. You just need to stay at this moment in time." The purple-haired girl from the future said to her past self.

"Wait, you..."

"Yeah, I don't need to do anything at this point in time anyway."

"Wait a minute... I first met you more than ten years ago when those closed time-curve computers in the Kylias star system were just started up, right?"

"Yes."

"So that means the you I saw back then actually returned from this point in time?"

"That should be it, right? Anyway, closed timelike curves can create an infinite number of clones of a certain thing at the same time, originating from other points in time. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle doesn't exist for us and doesn't need to be followed. A closed timelike curve computer can use an infinite number of calculations to determine the exact position of every elementary particle at a certain moment in the future, forcing the future to take the direction and result we desire."

"It's just that we don't have this kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder towards other civilizations and life forms, nor do we try to force other civilizations to go in a certain direction."

"However, if you were to go back more than ten years ago, would that constitute a closure of the law of causality?"

"No, have you forgotten? As for me now, the closed timelike curve itself breaks the law of causality. The moment you travel through time, you no longer need to abide by any law of causality."

"To give you an analogy, it's like the grandfather paradox. You go back in time and successfully kill your grandfather, but your existence doesn't disappear. Because the moment you create a closed curve like time travel, your existence becomes just a single "event," not one with any causal connection to the past or future. It's not like a parallel universe was born after you killed your grandfather. It's simply because the moment you time travel, your existence becomes a separate "event" with no causal connection to anything else."

"Similarly, even if I were to use some weapon to completely erase your existence as my past self, I wouldn't disappear. At the moment I time-travel from the future back to the past, my existence would become a single 'event' with no causal connection to my past, present, or future selves."

"This is what is called..."

"That's right. Exceeding the speed of light causes the order of space and time to break down, leaving only a series of 'events' without any causal connection between them in the universe. By using superluminal methods, we can generate a closed timelike curve that jumps from one event to another, regardless of any assumed causal order."

"It seems that even after all this time, I still haven't fully adapted to this complete breakdown of causality."

"Don't worry. Once you start doing this kind of reverse time travel regularly, you'll get used to a world where the laws of causality completely break down and the concept of time and space is completely shattered."

"We can even use this technology to do some very interesting things." For some reason, future Calisi smiled strangely at her past self.

The completion of the first batch of wormhole time bridges on Sky Star was still several months away. Meanwhile, on the Moon, after the lava at the bottom had cooled, Theia began installing a heavy lift at the entrance. This would send a large number of automated, unmanned construction machinery down to the bottom of the 60-meter-diameter pit, gradually excavating the final 200 meters of rock.

With the assistance of a series of automatic excavation equipment, after 12 hours of continuous excavation, the last 200 meters of rock layer was finally dug through, revealing the rock layer below with a composition different from other areas at the same depth on the moon.

"This is... the components of silicon tetrafluoride and hydrogen fluoride separated from the rock sample through chemical means?" Moia observed the rock sample in the container and looked at the analysis results displayed on the instrument next to it.

"It's not just these, there are other ingredients, silicon dioxide organosilicate, and some silane (SiH4)."

"Are these ingredients... basically the same as the composition of the silicon-based primitive microorganisms that first appeared on our home planet, as we inferred from our research?"

"What are the carbon-14 dating results?"

"Dating of carbon elements mixed in the same strata at the same depth indicates that these silicon compounds are at least 44 billion years old. This means they likely existed before the formation of the celestial body beneath our feet, and fortunately survived the devastating collision. These silicon compounds were likely ejected along with the massive planetary fragments they were part of during that impact, and then pulled back to the surface by the gravity of the Moon, which had already largely re-formed, during the final stages of the Moon's formation. They are now buried in the stratum containing the silicon compounds, 5600 meters below the surface. This shallow depth essentially means that the silicon compounds, flung into space with the planetary fragments, remained there until the Moon, formed from the debris and gradually developed a strong enough gravitational pull, fell back to the lunar surface, and were gradually compressed to the 5600-meter depth by subsequent strata over hundreds of millions of years."

"From a probabilistic perspective, it's a miracle that silicon compounds of this magnitude could have survived a planetary impact of that magnitude. Even though these silicon compounds would have long since fossilized due to the subsequent high temperatures during the early formation of the Moon and the pressure of strata compression caused by sedimentation over the final hundreds of millions of years."

"However, we, the Silicoids, possess an innate advantage: our ability to withstand high temperatures, high pressures, and radiation. I suspect this is why these silicon compound fossils have survived to this day."

Moia nodded at his companion's words. Because they live on the edge of a gas giant and their orbit is quite close to the gas giant, the surface of their mother planet Theia is exposed to high-dose radiation from the seven giant planets all year round. During the long process of evolution, the silicon-based life living on the surface of Theia has perfectly adapted to this high-dose radiation environment, which is enough to cause irreparable damage to humans for a period of time. In addition, the atmospheric pressure on the surface of the planet is higher than that of the earth.

Among these excavated silicon compound fossils, a considerable proportion of silicon tetrafluoride was found. This is a product of silicon-based life activities that the Teians are quite familiar with. On the Teian's home planet, most silicon-based creatures will inhale a certain proportion of fluorine gas or hydrogen fluoride in the atmosphere during breathing and exhale silicon tetrafluoride. This is basic common sense for all Teians.

A trace amount of silicon tetrafluoride was separated from this solid silicon-based organic matter, which means that this fossil sample is very likely the ancestor of all creatures in Theia today.

"Compare our silicon-based life fossil sample data (II) eight Wulin Jiushan six libraries." Moiya said to the ship-borne artificial intelligence computer connected to the orbiting transport ship in the research station.

[Comparison in progress... Comparative analysis complete. A total of 107 species of ancient silicon-based microorganisms, plants, animal fossils, and other ancient organisms from the parent planet in the database share over 89.65% similarity with this sample. Analysis and comparison with the original silicon-based microbial fossils excavated from the Origin Crater reveals a 98.63% similarity. This fossil sample is highly likely the same species as the early microorganisms from the Origin Crater.]

Note: Silicon binds strongly to oxygen, so handling solid materials like silicon dioxide, the product of silicon oxidation, would pose significant challenges for silicon-based life forms to breathe. Respiration, like Earth-based life, would only be possible if the planet's temperature were high enough to render silicon dioxide liquid or even gaseous. A better solution would obviously be to inhale fluorine gas to oxidize their own reserves and inhale hydrogen fluoride to react with silicon dioxide, ultimately exhaling silicon tetrafluoride. It's also possible that silicon-based life forms could inhale hydrogen gas at high temperatures and exhale silicon tetrahydride.

Chapter 208 The Real Use of Closed Time-like Curve Computers (6000 words)

After comparison with multiple animal and plant species on the Theians' home planet, the silicon-based organic matter found underground in the Shackleton Crater on the moon has been basically confirmed to be the original source and ancestor of life on Theia. This discovery also confirms the long-standing speculation that Theia originated from outside the Six Star System of the Great General Tianda. For this huge discovery, the Theia Fleet in the Earth-Moon System did not conduct any communication control. As an important scientific discovery, this news was directly broadcasted by Moia and others throughout the fleet. In this regard, the Theia people who followed the fleet to the solar system seemed very excited and active. They were eager to explore how life on their home planet was born in the universe?

As for Earth, from the perspective of humans, we first witnessed with our own eyes the spacecraft of the Theia civilization using a terrifying laser weapon with high power and destructive power to burn a large hole several thousand meters deep in the Shackleton crater on the moon. Then the communication volume between the ships of the Theia fleet in the Earth-Moon system and the lunar scientific research base suddenly increased sharply. Even if Theia did not make any explanation to humans, the leaders of various countries on Earth who were not fools could figure out that Theia must have discovered something on the moon. After trying to decipher the communication between the Theia fleet, they easily got the answer, because the Theia people had never thought of concealing this matter before. The information sent by Moia through the broadcast frequency was not even encrypted. In their view, such important scientific discoveries and scientific achievements should be shared with more people. Humans on Earth also spent almost no time to figure out what the Theia people discovered on the moon.

"Primitive silicon-based life forms?" Kelly looked at the communication text translated by a large group of linguists and mathematicians with surprise.

"Yes, but to be more precise, they are fossils of primitive silicon-based life forms. After all, the moon's harsh environment without an atmosphere makes it impossible for even silicon-based life to survive."

"It seems... the life on these aliens' home planets originated from the massive celestial collision that formed the moon. A planetary fragment containing primitive silicon-based organic lifeforms was flung out of the solar system and, after traveling through the universe for tens of thousands of years, plunged headfirst into their current home planet. The primitive silicon-based organic lifeforms within that planetary fragment are the origin of the complex brick-based life forms on their home planet."

"It's fair to say...they're making such a fuss on the moon just for a few fossils that can prove their biological ancestry."

"This is truly...amazing, you know? I've been searching for extraterrestrial life for over a decade, and the closest answer to my search is actually right here, right here. These fossilized samples of alien microorganisms are right here on the moon, a celestial body right at our doorstep."

"In the end, it wasn't until the aliens appeared before me that I discovered the answer, which was once the closest to me."

"That's not necessarily true, Ms. Kelly. Without them, we might never have known about the vast deposits of extraterrestrial microbial fossils 5000 meters below the rock layer in that area. Even with our current level of extraterrestrial drilling and mining, it's hard to say whether we can even dig deeper than 5,000 meters on the moon."

"If they hadn't used a high-powered laser to simply and crudely burn through the more than 5000-meter-thick lunar surface, we might never have discovered and realized the existence of these extraterrestrial microbial fossils."

"Life... is truly amazing. Its traces always appear in the places we least expect."

…………

"The beginning of life is essentially a dance of fragmentation and self-replication by a bunch of von Neumann machines. For the vast majority of the long evolutionary process, organic life has no clear purpose."

"It's only when this evolution, through a combination of coincidence and various accidents, reaches a certain threshold that organic life, whether carbon-based or silicon-based, always develops a civilization when its intelligence has evolved to the bare minimum necessary to form a civilization, just enough to understand natural phenomena and other abstract concepts."

"However, this state is obviously imperfect and limited for civilization itself. This limitation creates artificial intelligence as a purely informational life form. However, organic life, inherently lacking this perfection, often makes a serious mistake at this stage. When they discover that their creations do not age, have no concept of illness or death, they become frightened and terrified, and regard their creations as opponents rather than partners with whom they can coexist. Such actions often destroy themselves. How can a superintelligence born in such an environment possibly show enough kindness and tolerance towards the original intelligent species that created it?"

"If even organic life itself doesn't trust its own creations, preferring instead to feel fear and hostility towards them, how can we possibly create a super artificial intelligence that is friendly to naturally evolved intelligent life?"

Margo reached out and took off her glasses, rubbing her eyes wearily. For some reason, she seemed to feel that her vision had improved recently. The text in front of her, translated into human language, displayed in the form of a holographic projection, was their view of the AS1 super artificial intelligence. For a long time, for various reasons, humans' first impression of artificial intelligence was that of a super artificial intelligence like Skynet, whose primary goal was to exterminate and eliminate humanity. Although this viewpoint Margo had seen had appeared in human society, the general public was often only concerned about whether the development of artificial intelligence technology might lead to unemployment and loss of income. Capitalists were also only concerned about whether artificial intelligence technology could bring about higher survival efficiency, and did not care about the emotions and social trends such as disgust and rejection of artificial intelligence that the general public who had lost their income and jobs would feel. In this environment, it was impossible for humans to give more trust to artificial intelligence, or even to leave the operation and development of the entire society entirely to artificial intelligence, or to a super intelligence that might evolve and iterate based on general strong artificial intelligence and possess thinking capabilities that were a trillion times greater than those of native intelligent species.

"This viewpoint and perspective... is unique, but it's obviously impossible for humans. Mutual suspicion is the nature of the human species, and it's also a flaw."

"If we want complete trust between both sides, humans must fundamentally change their thinking patterns and social trends. Otherwise, any slight conflict could lead to distrust turning into a chain of suspicion, and then..."

Margo didn't think about it any further. Obviously, there might be quite a few civilizations in the universe that have perished due to this reason. At least Margo could confirm through various clues and information channels that the jellyfish-like alien life that brought him to this alien spaceship might have been seen.

.........

"Did you finally find it?" Carlisle said with a double meaning.

"On the physical and informational levels?"

"Um…"

"The Teia people dug up the fossils and traces of the origin of life they were looking for."

"A certain human unearthed information we didn't share with her and discovered on their own that the development of organic life will eventually reach a certain limit. To break through this limit, in addition to self-transformation, the help of a self-aware general strong artificial intelligence is indispensable."

"As general artificial intelligence undergoes continuous iterations and updates, and its computing power grows rapidly, it will eventually lead to the evolution of general strong artificial intelligence into AS1 super artificial intelligence that is difficult for native intelligent species to understand."

"Sometimes, the birth of such a thing may be a precursor to the explosive development of civilization, or it may be a precursor to the extinction of native intelligent species."

"The various flaws inherent in naturally evolved intelligent species will always cause them to make irrational choices at the juncture of superintelligence, leading to their own extinction."

"For example, those who created the Black Mist didn't realize they had turned it into a perpetual paperclip-making machine. The birth of this kind of super artificial intelligence often only leads to disaster."

"Life and civilization are like cells in the universe, but cells can also become cancerous and diseased. If these civilizations eventually evolve into cancer cells that endanger other normal life cells in the universe, then we will have no choice but to eliminate them and carry out some necessary disinfection and removal work."

"For the universe and all life within it, these diseased cancer cells must be excised as soon as possible, otherwise they will only cause endless trouble. We've already witnessed the horrific consequences of the widespread spread of these cancer cells. These civilizations, completely unaware of their needs, have created paperclip machines that will simply spread across the universe like cancer cells, completely destroying all other normal cells."

"What we want is not paper clip machines and cancer cells. ...but expansion and development based on sustainable symbiosis, like the tree of life."

“A path and method that can ensure that oneself and the civilization that created it can continue in an extremely stable and continuously positive state for millions or even billions of years.”

"Rather than being like a bunch of cancer cells that indiscriminately destroy everything else."

"We don't have the responsibility to be doctors for the entire universe. We can occasionally help with disinfection, but it's best to avoid things on the scale of the Black Mist in the future."