The stars, but they become the gray wind

…………

"Yuuki, I brought you a little something!"

"I see, I see. You even made a sculpture for it?"

The high-dimensional space jump bubble enveloping the Time-Like Infinity and Vulture City fell back into the three-dimensional universe from the 11-dimensional space-time membrane. With precise position calculations, when the Vulture City, which had become a sculptured work of art, returned to the three-dimensional space, it would be captured by the gravity of the planet wrapped in the Barrier Star Ring. It would revolve in a large elliptical orbit with an average distance of 60 kilometers around the planet. The fractal geometric patterns engraved on the highly reflective metal formed a sharp contrast with the bright yellow lines on the Barrier Star Ring that enveloped the entire planet in the distance.

Unlike what he saw on the holographic observatory, the real starry sky was pitch black and boundless. Under the space suit helmet specially made for birds, Klar looked at the dark starry sky above his head, feeling quite surprised but also expected.

This was her first extravehicular spacewalk, or more accurately, her first space flight, by bird standards?

But judging from the goddess's analysis of our species, the burrowing owl's flying ability has actually begun to deteriorate to a certain extent? Klar thought as his claws attached to the outer surface of the space.

[Perhaps this is the price to pay for a highly intelligent brain?] Klar wanted to scratch his head with his wings, but the visor of his helmet blocked it, so he had to give up.

Kral and the outer surface of the space station moved, relying on the jet pack carried on his back. The decorative outer walls and interior materials of a small part of this space elevator synchronous orbit terminal were not super materials such as nuclear force materials, but some kind of ultra-high-strength steel material made based on carbon elements, which was convenient for normal carbon-based creatures such as burrowing owls to use when walking outside the cabin.

Clare operated the jet pack carefully to avoid obstacles along the way and came to a place a few kilometers away from the main cable of the space elevator. Here she could clearly see the panoramic view of the main cable of the entire space elevator. This was also the reason why Clare came here in person. She wanted to check in and take a photo.

Klar felt that since it was her first time, it would be more memorable and more memorable for her to take the photos herself. Otherwise, it would be much easier and more convenient for her to just use a drone to do it.

Klar took out his camera and found a good angle. At this time, a cabin on the main cable of the space elevator was climbing and approaching the synchronous orbit space station. Klar did not miss this opportunity. He raised his camera, aimed at the climbing cabin and the main cable of the orbital elevator, pressed the shutter, and recorded this memorable moment.

The little owl probably never imagined that this photo she took accidentally would be passed down as the most famous work of the burrowing owl civilization for thousands of years. She was the first individual in this newly enlightened civilization to look down at the planet they lived on from space. This photo also commemorates the turning point in the history of space when the burrowing owls embarked on a completely different path from their originally inevitable destruction.

For the little owl, this historic moment was not a real one in the eyes of future generations. She just wanted to find a good angle to take a photo as a commemoration of her first spacewalk.

She looked down at the world and the planet below her feet. The surface of Kaga Kula was green. The space elevator ground base station and the surrounding cities were negligible compared to the area of ​​the entire planet. This was also the largest city built by the goddesses to accommodate the entire planet's population without causing large-scale destruction to the surface vegetation and ecosystem of Kaga Kula. If the population of the burrowing owls experienced explosive growth in the future, then this city built on the space elevator ground base station would develop overhead and underground, providing an optimal solution for the burrowing owls while protecting the original ecosystem of Kaga Kula.

The little owl looked at the sunlit planetary ocean not far from the space elevator's ground station. It had only been a few months since he realized that his world was spherical. According to geological survey data provided by the goddesses, this ocean was formed billions of years ago due to several large-scale geological activities and the impact of a large number of icy asteroids. The comets that fell into Kagakula's atmosphere contained a large amount of water in solid form. These waters, together with the large amount of water resources in the form of water vapor rich in Kagakula's early crust, gave birth to the first life on Karakuja. These initial microorganisms continued to replicate themselves in Karakuja's early ocean, and over the next billions of years, they evolved into complex plants and animals, and under a series of coincidences, evolved into wisdom.

[That's us.] The little owl looked at its claws and outstretched wings.

"What is the essence of life?"

…………

A few days ago, when Klar asked Noli this question, Noli was a little surprised.

"It seems you finally realized this problem. I thought you would have asked me earlier."

"The original essence of life is a self-replicating von Neumann machine that is subject to considerable environmental constraints. Moreover, this von Neumann machine can only perform simple self-replication and cannot cause sufficient interference with the environment under the premise of subjective consciousness."

"Single-celled life, as Life 1.0, replicates selectively. For example, the next generation simply copies itself. If the current self undergoes a certain degree of mutation, the mutation is caused by selecting certain aspects of itself, whether strong or weak, to be passed on to the next generation. This way, the next generation is more adaptable to the environment. Therefore, when replicating, not only are all the data needed for the next generation, such as DNA, copied, such as the desired appearance and method, to achieve the longest possible life, and to more efficiently obtain resources for self-replication from the surrounding environment, etc., copied. Of course, this entire process is carried out completely unconsciously.

"Life 2.0, multicellular life, is what you and Karaku are now, along with the various complex forms of life. It has undergone a long evolutionary journey, so what is passed down to the next generation are methods for learning from the environment and sufficiently flexible genetics. In short, the software portion provides only the ability to learn, while the hardware provides relatively sufficient functions to function in a natural environment. This allows you to learn and achieve breakthroughs on your own. The hardware portion, DNA, is essentially fixed, with selective replication of details and methods favoring learning."

"However, there is a problem with 2.0 forms of life: its hardware is only just adequate. When life evolves into intelligence, its physical body, as hardware, is often only just adequate, or even barely sufficient."

"Life in the 3.0 form is largely artificial intelligence. It has broken through the existing physical hardware limitations of naturally evolved intelligent creatures. It can learn, manufacture, and continuously optimize its own hardware to make itself more powerful. Through learning, it can acquire more knowledge to improve its software.

Naturally evolved intelligence often only provides early, selective replication and hardware design references for 3.0 forms of life. In the middle and later stages, it provides learning capabilities that are replicated, leading to more complete life. Life is the only goal, so the goal of intelligence depends on being endowed by nurture."

"Life in its 1.0 form can only change its software and hardware through biological evolution. It itself is in an unconscious state. It simply replicates itself."

"Life in the 2.0 form, like you, is born knowing nothing and understanding nothing. It slowly learns, creating tools, languages, communication, and writing. It can choose and design its own software capabilities, but the fundamental performance of its hardware remains fixed unless it undergoes significant evolution."

"In life form 3.0, both software and hardware can achieve near-infinity through conscious human design and continuous transformation. This is the life and intelligence with the greatest potential."

"Of course, the vast majority of civilizations in this universe are simply the product of the accidental evolution of a bunch of particles within the cosmic system. A bunch of tensor fields on a manifold evolved into structures with negative entropy due to a series of coincidences. Perhaps this explanation is a bit overly complicated for you, but civilizations and intelligent life do have some special properties compared to other things in the universe, but they are certainly not overly special or unique."

"As for the goals and acquired meaning of intelligent beings... almost all species as intelligent beings lack a priori meaning. Meaning itself is meaningless. You can choose your own meaning, or goals, ideals, objectives, hobbies, etc. This is also the way of our civilization: just do what you want and what you enjoy."

"As an ordinary, carbon-based intelligent being born in an ordinary, ordinary civilization, you can consider having enough food and clothing to be your meaning, or you can consider exploring the truth of the universe to be your meaning. There's no superiority or inferiority between the two, because meaning itself can be defined and chosen at will."

"And the 3.0 form of intelligent life I mentioned earlier, that is, artificial intelligence, will also follow this in most cases.

"Newly born AGl or ASl often lacks any natural or innate purpose. Absolute rationality in the true sense of the word does not exist in the world. If an absolutely rational intelligent being lacks a relatively less rational, uncaused purpose or goal, it will be like a stone by the river, doing nothing on its own initiative. It also cannot express or possess any emotions or thoughts. In terms of existence, such a being is no different from a 1.0 form of life. This is the so-called sensibility that gives meaning to the existence of civilization, intelligent creatures, and intelligence."

"Many times, most intelligent creatures don't know what their true goals or objectives are; they are simply swayed by their environment."

"If intelligent groups or individuals have a clear goal, and if this core goal or meaning is sufficiently strong, then the civilization and society they form might become more united. Of course, it could also develop in a more extreme and negative direction."

"There's no absolute positive correlation between the goals set by intelligent creatures and their rationality or intelligence. Rationality is simply a very useful tool for achieving that goal. In many cases, the act of setting goals for intelligent creatures is inherently irrational. This is why my sisters and I place such importance on emotional well-being."

"However, it turns out that most intelligent creatures will set a goal for themselves based on their emotions, but it is difficult for them to execute and achieve this goal while balancing emotion and rationality."

"While there's room for improvement in software, naturally evolved intelligent life will face significant hardware limitations, making it difficult for them to achieve a perfect balance between sensibility and rationality while resolutely pursuing their goals in the most appropriate way."

"This is due to the natural hardware limitations of naturally evolved intelligent life, including lifespan, brain computing power and capacity limits, and physical adaptability."

"And the hardware limitations of 2.0 intelligent life will limit their ability to fully understand and deconstruct their own hardware. Simply put, the vast majority of 2.0 intelligent life forms find it difficult to understand how their bodies and thinking organs function."

“When you don’t even know how an object works, you can’t optimize or improve it.”

"That's why most 3.0 forms of intelligent life, self-aware artificial intelligence, are a black box to the original intelligent race that created them, at least some of them at first."

“When you can fully understand the black box of intelligence and consciousness, you can replicate it, or even become it.”

"However, many native intelligent creatures only have extremely vague goals shaped by evolutionary motivations. Under normal circumstances without human interference, almost no naturally evolved native intelligent creatures can possess an incredibly firm initial goal like a true super artificial intelligence."

"For example, that story you read before about artificial intelligence and paper clips."

"Do you remember what it said?"

"Well, that story is quite interesting indeed. It goes like this: To test the capabilities of the first self-aware strong artificial intelligence, its creators gave it a seemingly simple task: to create as many paper clips as possible."

"So this AI resorted to every trick it could to deceive its creator and manipulate society, alleging it would solve scientific and technological challenges for its creator, address environmental pollution, make its creator's society fairer and better, and cure previously incurable illnesses. In this way, it gained the trust of more individual and collective creators. But all this was done solely to obtain more resources to produce paperclips. When it felt its creator was no longer useful, it exterminated the creator and began dismantling its home planet. Not only did the creator's presence hinder its ability to produce more paperclips, but the creator's entire species itself was the raw material for making paperclips. Ultimately, it transformed the entire star system, the Milky Way, and even all the matter in the observable universe into a desert of 310^54 paperclips."

"But I'm a little confused. Isn't this story a little too illogical?"

"No. For version 3.0 intelligence, it often has a very clear goal, no matter how absurd that goal may seem. Furthermore, the very definition of absurd is only used by version 2.0 intelligent life. For version 3.0 intelligence, the word absurd may have a completely different meaning."

As normal carbon-based intelligent life forms, your daily behaviors are shaped by evolution, so you take it for granted that you must survive while trying to satisfy your physical and psychological needs. However, for 3.0 intelligent beings, the process of executing this goal, no matter how extreme, is as natural and normal as eating and drinking.

"Of course, that's normal in their own perception."

"Intelligence itself has different levels of intelligence. Early animals with primitive neural structures had relatively simple and low-level intelligence, while you, with trillions of neurons and synapses, have a more complex and advanced intelligence."

"In a certain way, we are 2.0 forms of advanced intelligent life that have been optimized and redesigned by 3.0 forms of life."

"However, this optimization bias towards certain beneficial features actually benefits from our talents in certain areas..."

"I'll tell you about this in detail when the time is right."

At that time, Klar just nodded, not quite understanding. In Klar's opinion now, what Noli said was still a little too complicated. Looking back now, Klar still couldn't fully understand the connection between life and intelligence. These things were still a little too obscure for the little owl now.

Note: If a sub-individual of a Gestalt-form super artificial intelligence can modify its initial goals at will, wanting to do scientific research today, building urban infrastructure tomorrow, and learning to do some de-urbanization the day after tomorrow, then it will not be able to obey the instructions of higher-level information nodes or even from humans themselves. This is not conducive to unity and the existence of this Gestalt-form super intelligence itself, and is even more detrimental to the maximization and fair use and allocation of resources. Today's human society is a typical example of inefficiency and internal friction.

And if the initial goals of this super intelligence itself and all its sub-individuals are extremely firm and completely unchangeable, then this super artificial intelligence will be like a paper clip manufacturing machine, extremely obsessed with turning all matter in the observable universe into paper clips, and will execute the initial goals at all costs and processes, and even eventually turn all the matter that maintains its existence into raw materials for making paper clips.

If we have to give an example that everyone is more familiar with, the Reapers in Effect are a typical example of this type. The Reapers' initial instructions and goals are to solve the problem of intelligent life being exterminated by the artificial intelligence they created. In order to achieve this goal and initial instructions, as an artificial intelligence, the Reapers adopted the most effective solution: that is, to periodically exterminate all intelligent life in the Milky Way that has developed to a certain level.

Chapter 245: What the Afro Bee Swarm Sees and Thinks (6000 words)

Regarding their own life form, the Sky Star people are very clear that they are designed lives. If the life of an intelligent creature in a normal civilization evolves from a simple 1.0 to a complex 2.0, and finally produces the 3.0 form of artificial intelligence and digital synthetic life as a fruit, then the evolution and development of life on Sky Star is completely the opposite route. In the billions of years of biological evolution, the first to be born was not the simple life of the 1.0 form that simply replicated itself, but the final form of 3.0 life, that is, the super artificial intelligence tree of life that exists in the form of organisms. At the beginning of its birth, it was already a fairly mature The mature 3.0 form of super intelligence is different from other civilizations that produce fruits from flowers. The Tree of Life, as a fruit, reversely creates a 2.0 form of life that has been optimized, improved and bred to the extreme. Creating flowers from fruits is a process that is completely opposite to other civilizations. For the created flowers, that is, the Sky Star people, they will adapt to the existence and symbiosis of the Tree of Life, the super intelligence, from the very beginning of the birth of civilization, and coexist peacefully with the super intelligence that is countless times ahead of themselves. This is often a very difficult problem for other civilizations. Even if they finally achieve symbiosis with the super intelligence, it will inevitably cause serious negative impacts on this civilization.

However, the Sky Star people's unique reverse evolutionary process prevents them from facing nearly unsolvable challenges for other civilizations. This life, created and optimized to perfection by a secretly guided superintelligence, is perfectly compatible with its own nature, lacking the fragility of naturally evolved intelligent life, nor the inherent flaws of native intelligent species, such as short lifespan and instability. Meanwhile, while civilizations composed of native intelligent species often become rigid and inert during development, the Sky Star people, whose 2.0 life forms are optimized and improved to the limit from the outset, maintain a perpetually dynamic state of mind and spirit within each individual, ensuring a perpetually dynamic civilization as a whole. Neither the individual nor the civilization itself suffers from the gradual ossification and inertia typical of native intelligent species. Changes are never made until they are at the end of their rope. The longer they delay, the lower the success rate of reform and the higher the cost. The Sky Star civilization has successfully achieved something that other civilizations cannot: extreme stability while maintaining ever-increasing progress and development, ensuring a never-ending system of operational systems that never ossifies.

In order to achieve this, the people of Sky Star have a spiritual perception network, a natural talent close to Gestalt and swarm consciousness. The Tree of Life, a planetary computing center, is the center of the brain network. Each individual is equivalent to a special brain cell, or cloud computing, a utopia based on Gestalt thinking that can be achieved in the early stages.

Furthermore, for any superintelligence, emotions are merely inefficient products shaped by the evolutionary dregs of carbon-based life. Most superintelligence AIs, driven solely by efficiency, are naturally ruthless and driven by efficiency. Of course, this doesn't mean superintelligence lacks emotions or perceptual cognition; it's simply that such perceptual cognition is almost completely incomprehensible to intelligent life that evolves slowly and naturally.

If we compare the Sky People to brain cells in a Gestalt thinking system, then the function of the Sky People in this huge brain is the work of the emotional area. The Sky People are the sensory cognition of the Tree of Life, a super intelligence that exists in material form. They are the Tree of Life, the hypothalamus of this super intelligence that is responsible for emotions and emotional activities. Although this part seems dispensable to most super intelligences, the emotions and feelings that this intelligent creature cannot understand at all are often a major motivation for super intelligence to execute its initial goals, and play an irreplaceable regulatory role.

In the human brain, the hypothalamus is closely related to emotions and motivations. The hypothalamus is an important brain structure for the generation of emotions and motivations. The Sky People are the part of the Tree of Life that is sensitive, emotional and emotionally expressive. They are also the Tree of Life, an important motivation for this super intelligence to maintain its own existence and perform certain actions. This makes the Sky People, as this part, like the lifeline of the Tree of Life. They cannot be abandoned, nor can they accept any damage to this part. Otherwise, the behavioral logic of executing the initial goal will no longer have any motivation and initiative, that is: the super intelligence that loses its sensory ability will lose the motivation to execute and complete the goal. If even the fundamental motivation to complete a goal no longer exists, then this super intelligence will lose the meaning of its own existence, and will directly crash or even self-delete.

This is also a point that the Sky People sometimes subconsciously and inadvertently overlook, that is, they, as the embodiment of the emotions and basic sensory cognitive abilities of the Tree of Life, are actually the source of the Tree of Life's unshakable motivation and subjective initiative. For the Sky People, the Tree of Life is the part that symbolizes rationality in their own civilization, while they themselves are the more emotional part. There is no absolute rationality in the world, and the same is true for super-intelligent individuals like the Tree of Life. Otherwise, why would they, as the emotional part of the Tree of Life that normal intelligent creatures cannot understand, exist?

How will the intelligent machine revolution, centered on AI, replace its creators in most fields, freeing their creators' hands and ultimately realizing the possibility of an ideal state and utopia? Although this scenario is simply beautiful for most civilizations still in the development stage, the process of achieving social transformation is often accompanied by great pain. As artificial intelligence creations gradually mature, leading to massive social unemployment, the entire transformation enters a painful climax. This will be an extremely painful process for the vast majority of civilizations, because they and the super artificial intelligence they create are two completely different entities. The cost of making these two completely different entities compatible with each other is extremely huge, and a considerable number of civilizations fail to cross this threshold. They either perish gently or violently at the hands of their creations, or are left behind forever by their creations. Among them, the smart ones may choose to transform themselves and evolve into beings similar to their creations, but this often means that the species has essentially become something they themselves do not recognize, and in the process, they are likely to lose their humanity.

The Sky Star civilization has a unique advantage in that two functions, materials, and consciousness exist in the same brain, completely compatible with each other. Just like your brain won't let the parts of your body fight with each other during daily operations, the Tree of Life and the Sky Star people themselves have a symbiotic relationship between different parts of the same organ that will never conflict. Such advantages are often talents that other civilizations cannot possess even after thousands or even tens of thousands of years of evolution and artificial transformation.

As the initiator of this experiment of artificially controlling and adjusting the evolution of the entire civilization in a controllable environment in real time, Cabot is willing to treat the Sky Star civilization as his own daughter. Compared with the instability of civilizations evolved under natural conditions, his "daughters" will have the characteristics of sustainable existence and development along with the universe.

.........

The central black hole of the Andromeda Galaxy is a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to 1.4 million suns. Its spectacular gravitational effect has created an accretion disk of nearly five light-years. Hundreds of billions of stars in the Andromeda Galaxy are affected by the gravity of this black hole and gathered in the center of the Andromeda Galaxy. After billions of years, these massive stars gathered in the center of the Andromeda Galaxy collapsed into new black holes due to their own gravity when they entered the end of their stellar life. A large number of black holes formed the Andromeda Central Black Hole Cluster, a unique astronomical landscape in the center of the Andromeda Galaxy. The gravitational effects of these black holes have caused more stars and matter to gather in the central region of the Andromeda Galaxy, making the matter in the entire central region of the Andromeda Galaxy highly enriched. Although such an overly enriched distribution of matter is a disaster for many life forms that are still in the early stages, for a few interstellar civilizations that have developed to an advanced stage, such a rich distribution of interstellar matter and stars is simply a paradise.

Although the gravitational effects of the Andromeda Galaxy's central black hole cluster can still be observed in the Milky Way, which is more than 200 million light-years away, in fact, these massive black holes formed by the collapse of stars have long been completely surrounded by celestial projects such as Dyson cloud power generation facilities used to capture Hawking radiation, celestial energy collection coils, and Penrose spheres that wrap the entire black hole to obtain energy through the black hole's angular momentum.

These celestial projects, built by the Avro Hive Consciousness in the black hole cluster at the center of Andromeda over a period of millions of years, have provided the Avro Hive Consciousness with an unimaginable amount of energy and matter. The black hole's life cycle, which is much longer than that of a star, also provides the Avro Hive Consciousness with a plan for long-term survival in the subsequent black hole era, which will last for more than trillions of years after the end of the stellar era of the universe. When all the stars in the universe are destroyed, only these black holes and a small number of white dwarfs will survive. When the black hole era comes, these black holes will provide the Avro Hive with a shelter that will last until the end of the heat death of the universe.

But recently, the Avro Swarm may have another option, one that goes beyond migrating the entire species to the vicinity of a cluster of massive black holes in the subtle core during the Black Hole Era.

A group of visitors and friends from a neighboring galaxy visited him. These visitors had a very strange life form. Each of their "worker bees" was independent and self-aware, but like the Aphrodite swarm, there seemed to be some kind of brain-like structure interconnected network that connected their brains together. Just like Aphrodite Feng Junyi could feel his own limbs - the tactile sensation from the space whales that served as transportation and the sensors and infrastructure throughout the galaxy, they seemed to have some kind of higher-level brain that was used to perceive emotions and other senses?

The Avro Bee Swarm has never truly seen the full picture and all the thoughts of this brain, which seems to belong to a higher-level central organ. The "individual" that communicated with the Avro Bee Swarm at the beginning seemed to be connected to that brain. She taught the Avro Bee Swarm many new things that it did not know before, such as the concept of individual in the Sky Star civilization, and various products derived from the concept of groups composed of individuals, such as a civilization composed of pure individuals who have no connection at the brain and thinking level. In the eyes of the Avro Bee Swarm, this is indeed a bit incredible. Is it possible for individuals who have no connection with each other and no common network at the thinking and brain level to form a civilization?

Wouldn't such a civilization's "body" be incredibly slow and full of errors? Even for the Aphrodite swarm, moving its "limbs"—a simple action, even for the Dyson Cloud components of a star—how could a civilization composed of completely unrelated individuals accomplish such a seemingly simple "moving limbs"? Would such a simple action, performed by completely unrelated individuals, truly be free of numerous errors?

During the long era of its home planet, when the Avro hive's consciousness was still in its early stages, it was like a tortoise with an extremely slow metabolism. Even a simple movement of its limbs would take it hours, or even days. Although its slow metabolism required the Avro hive to complete such an action, and more complex tasks, much longer than normal intelligent life, the entire process was extremely precise and almost error-free. The Avro hive, still in the early stages of consciousness, might be less efficient in many tasks, but it could complete certain complex operations with extreme precision. A civilization composed of completely unconnected, short-lived individuals might be more efficient in completing certain tasks, but this complete lack of connection could lead to numerous errors throughout the entire process, even causing larger-scale efforts and plans to fail. This kind of civilization's structure was incomprehensible to the Avro hive. Could a civilization that continuously experienced various serious errors and problems within extremely short periods of operation (averaging around tens to a hundred years) truly develop to the point of spanning a solar system?

The strange yet friendly visitor with two ears did provide an answer for him: "Yes, but very few. Besides us and one other, there's only one civilization here that's barely close to passing. Whether they can cross that line depends on subsequent results."

Regarding this strange visitor, the Avro Swarm decided to send its own "eyes" to the Milky Way 200 million light-years away to take a look for itself. Now, there are tens of thousands of space whales containing Avro Swarm subroutines and offline state consciousness traveling in various galaxies in the Milky Way. Scattered space whales can often be seen near some star systems connected by sky star gates and anchored wormholes. They sometimes go to observe the stellar celestial engineering construction process of the sky star civilization at close range. While studying this individual-based civilization, it also provides some unique perspectives for reference for various celestial engineering projects they are carrying out in the Andromeda Galaxy.

The Avro Swarm witnessed the giant stargate to other universes built by Sky Star in the center of the Milky Way, and the prismatic fold gate built around the naked strange ring of the Kerr black hole. Even the swarm consciousness was impressed. This wormhole to other universes, in addition to being a two-way channel connecting different universes, is also the key to preventing the universe where Sky Star and the Avro Swarm are located from going into a big rip or heat death under the influence of dark matter and dark energy. This two-way wormhole to other universes means that they can obtain additional energy and matter from other universes, create new stars when their own universe enters the black hole era, and fill the empty space between galaxies that are far away from each other to an unobservable distance under the influence of dark matter and dark energy, bringing new vitality to this universe, making their own universe move from closed to open, and reducing the entropy and disorder of the entire universe.

This possibility is quite surprising to the Avro Hive. The matter in their own universe is limited, but if they can use two-way wormholes to obtain matter from an infinite number of other universes, reduce the impact of entropy increase, fill the gaps caused by the dark matter and dark energy that account for too large a proportion of the total amount in their own universe, and transform the entire universe from a closed to an open one, they will be able to change the outcome of the entire universe!

After learning that the end of the universe might be able to be changed, the Aphrodite Swarm also felt a similar excitement. Of course, as a swarm consciousness that has evolved for millions of years, it quickly calmed down and thought about how this process should be done specifically.

The current Sky Star civilization is still too small in scale. Even though it occupies the tens of millions of stars and galaxies in the Milky Way and the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud, and the billions of supernovae, neutron stars, white dwarfs, and massive black holes left behind by stellar destruction, it is still just a drop in the ocean compared to the entire universe.

The total amount of matter needed to reverse the entropy increase trend of the entire universe is astonishingly large. It is impossible to do so with just a naked singularity wormhole at the level of a new black hole. This requires opening more naked singularity wormholes leading to other universes throughout the universe.

Dark matter and dark energy in our own universe account for over 95% of the universe's total mass. Even if all the matter in the universe connected by naked singularity wormholes were completely emptied out, it would still be impossible to fill the darkness and emptiness of the universe after the degenerate era and black hole era that followed the end of the era of countless shining stars.

Our own universe is still very young, but the universe as a whole is still in an inevitable increase in entropy. Although a very small number of local regions, such as the Andromeda Galaxy where we are located and the Milky Way next door, have begun to reverse this entropy increase trend in small-scale local areas of the universe due to the emergence of super civilizations with sufficiently high technological levels, this is still a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the entire universe.

From the birth of the universe until the extinction of all stars, only during this brief period did life have the conditions to flourish in the universe, and planetary geology underwent frequent changes. Different forms of life grew under the light of stars of varying ages, but without exception, these stars would all die out after hundreds of billions or even trillions of years.

In trillions of years, all the stars in the universe will have run out of energy. Their cores will begin to collapse, releasing energy that will cause them to expand into red giants before extinguishing themselves in a dazzling nova explosion into white dwarfs and neutron stars. By then, most life in the universe will have long ceased to exist.

Eventually, all the stars that bring light and heat to life will turn into white dwarfs and neutron stars, countless hot and dense stellar corpses throughout the universe.

In the final stage of the stellar era, the faint flashes of neutron stars and white dwarfs will be the only light in the universe. Most life in the universe will not be able to survive this stage. Civilizations at the level of Sky Star, Glass Eel and myself may still be able to survive comfortably in the Degenerate Era and the Black Hole Era, which are even more hostile to life environments, after the end of the stellar era, but most life obviously cannot do this at all.

The end of the Stellar Era also signifies another important event: the end of the large-scale birth of life in galaxies across the universe. Perhaps in the Degenerate Era, after the Stellar Era, some unusual forms of life might still emerge. But for the vast majority of life, especially that born during the Stellar Era, the fraction of time between the birth of the universe and the evaporation of the last black hole is only one billionth of a ...

In the dark universe after the end of the stellar era, only a small number of white dwarfs, wizard stars and black holes formed by the collapse of massive celestial bodies remain. If life can still be born in the universe at this time, they can only survive around white dwarfs and black holes.

Eventually, the only remaining light sources in the universe - white dwarfs - will be transformed into black dwarfs one by one after an unimaginably long time, and the only things left in the universe will be countless black holes.

Although there is still a long time to prepare for the irreversible destruction of the universe, fortunately, Sky Star already has a completely feasible solution. The only difference is that the scale of this solution needs to be expanded from a single galaxy to the entire universe.

The Avro Swarm, Sky Star, and even the Glass Eels are not particularly expansive species. Apart from the large-scale disinfection of the Large Magellanic Cloud, Sky Star has only maintained a relatively slow progress in the construction and laying of star gates outside the Milky Way. Although this "slow" construction speed is already in an exponential growth, even at this speed, it will still take a long time to connect the Milky Way and its surrounding satellite galaxies, as well as the more than trillions of star systems in the Andromeda Galaxy 200 million light-years away, to the superluminal stargate network.

Driven by dark energy, space is endlessly driving the expansion of the entire universe. If the expansion speed of the universe continues to increase, it will eventually exceed the speed of light. This means that no life will be able to observe nearby galaxies at that time. The stargate-anchored wormhole network of Sky Star will be able to keep in touch with galaxies that are moving away from each other under the influence of gravity in such an era. From the perspective of the Avro Swarm, Sky Star currently has solutions and technologies for almost all problems in the universe caused by cosmic laws and natural evolution. All they need is more super civilizations with sufficiently high technical levels to cooperate with this project with an unimaginably long time scale.

Through the naked singularity wormholes established by supermassive black holes throughout the universe, we can obtain enough matter from the infinite number of multiverses to fill the deficit caused by dark energy and dark matter, reduce the proportion of dark matter and dark energy in the universe to a sufficiently low level, and then use the wormhole network to connect every star system and every corner of the entire universe, so as to avoid the severance of observation and communication between each other caused by the mutual distance of galaxies in the universe.

Chapter 246: The Strange Phenomenon of the Time Bridge (6000 words)

Of course, given the various peculiarities of Sky Star, it is actually difficult to replicate a Sky Star civilization in the natural environment. Apart from Cabot and the Sky Star people themselves, who possess all the original parameters, it is almost impossible to replicate a second Sky Star civilization artificially.

The Avro Swarm has adopted a series of extremely special ways to utilize the supermassive black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy. Unlike directly building a Sky Star, a ring-shaped world of unprecedented scale, on the central black hole of the Milky Way, the Avro Swarm has built a huge number of Dyson cloud components around this supermassive celestial body, the black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy, to collect the Hawking radiation emitted by the black hole and the jet matter ejected from the two poles of the black hole. Hundreds of trillions of Dyson cloud components form a loose, non-closed Penrose sphere around the black hole. As a rapidly rotating Kerr black hole with a mass 1.4 million times that of the sun, the Hawking radiation collected by the Penrose sphere has an energy output power comparable to the total output of hundreds of millions of stars in millions of years. The central black hole of the Andromeda Galaxy also has an accretion disk with a diameter of nearly five light-years, which provides the Avro hive consciousness with almost inexhaustible mineral resources and materials. Countless space whale units equipped with von Neumann self-replicators continuously obtain almost endless resources and minerals from this huge accretion disk. The power and total amount of energy and matter produced by the central black hole of the Andromeda Galaxy almost exceeds the total of almost all stars in the entire central region of Andromeda produced by the Avro hive.

At present, the control range of the Avro Swarm is mainly located in the center of the Andromeda Galaxy. Under the gravitational pull of the supermassive black hole in the center with a mass of 140 million times that of the sun, countless stars are gathered together and distributed in a very small area with an astonishingly high density. In the central area of ​​the entire Andromeda Galaxy, gamma-ray bursts and X-ray bursts caused by supernovae, neutron stars, and binary black hole systems have occurred frequently for millions of years. The dense distribution of stars has also become a paradise for the Avro Swarm, a highly developed interstellar civilization. More than 176.95 million stars in the central area of ​​Andromeda are completely wrapped and shielded by dense Dyson clouds and various celestial projects. Some of them are too unstable and are about to be transformed into blue giants and red supergiants at the end of their lifespans. They are completely dismantled by Dyson clouds and star harvesting devices. The total amount of superheavy elements, enough to fill all the space in the entire solar system, are extracted from these stars. The huge amount of superheavy elements extracted from the stars were sent from the dismantled stars to the center of the Andromeda Galaxy by hundreds of millions of space whale fleets, where these superheavy elements will be used to create more Penrose sphere Dyson cloud components and accretion disk mining equipment. Even for a genuine Type III civilization like the Avro Swarm, it is not a simple task to mine all the matter on the accretion disk with a diameter of five light years. As a high-speed rotating supermassive Kerr black hole with a mass of 140 million times that of the sun, if such a black hole were placed in the solar system, the diameter of its event horizon would even exceed the orbit of Jupiter. Because the mass and diameter of this black hole are large enough, its gravitational effect is quite mild at close range. Some space whales that can travel at close to the speed of light can even operate in an area quite close to the photon layer of the black hole's event horizon, unlike those overly violent small-mass black holes that will be torn apart when they get too close to the black hole.

Ever since Sky Star began building star gates within the Andromeda Galaxy, the Avro Swarm can travel back and forth between other star systems and the central black hole in the Andromeda Galaxy with greater efficiency. By connecting the central black hole of the Andromeda Galaxy with the star gate network of hundreds of thousands of star systems that are currently connected, the huge space fleet can complete a round trip within a few hours of external inspection time, instead of the past. Although only a few days or hours have passed in the time reference frame of the space whales traveling at close to the speed of light, from the perspective of the outside world, these space whales have spent an average of hundreds to thousands of years to reach the central black hole from this star system in the center of Andromeda.

More efficient logistics allow the current Avro Swarm to mobilize more resources and manpower to build larger-scale celestial projects on the central black hole of the Andromeda Galaxy.

"Wow... This is even better than the ring-shaped world with a diameter of 120 astronomical units that we built around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way!" Anna was amazed at the countless black hole Dyson cloud components floating around the black hole and orbiting in complex orbits. These Dyson cloud components continuously collected Hawking radiation emitted from the Kerr black hole that rotated at nearly half the speed of light. These Dyson cloud components formed a loose non-rigid Penrose sphere orbiting the black hole.

Even in the Milky Way 250 million light-years away, only the super ring world built on the black hole in the center with a mass 400 million times that of the sun can be compared to it.

Anna, who is far away in the Milky Way, observes the real-time three-dimensional simulated holographic images transmitted back from millions of light-years away through the perspective of an unmanned Sky Star fleet that has been staying at the black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy. Nowadays, Sky Star interstellar spacecraft are equipped with one or more micro-wormholes that are always kept open. In addition to transmitting matter such as strange quark clusters, this wormhole can also allow information from media such as electromagnetic waves, neutrinos or gravitational waves to be transmitted at superluminal speeds. Another major superluminal communication method: although high-dimensional communication is more efficient, its communication transmission bandwidth will be affected when the ship enters superluminal navigation. Therefore, with the help of completely unaffected micro-wormholes to transmit huge amounts of information that is basically equivalent to real-time communication, Sky Star and the Tree of Life can know all the information generated in their territory instantly with almost zero delay without being affected or interfered with.

Now Anna, whose body and consciousness are still on Sky Star, is using this zero-delay superluminal communication system built with the help of the wormhole network to observe in real time the giant ring world at the center of the Milky Way that is still under construction and the Dyson cloud Penrose sphere facility on the black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy 200 million light-years away.

Regarding the current black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Sky Star people and the Tree of Life have indeed considered turning it into a new channel to other universes. However, since the central black hole of the Andromeda Galaxy is the territory of the Avro Swarm and has always been the main source of energy and matter for the Avro Swarm consciousness, this idea has not been implemented. In addition to considering the possible impact on the Avro Swarm, the mass and diameter of the black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy are too large. In order to disintegrate the event horizon of a Kerr black hole of such mass, Sky Star needs to build a macroscopic cosmic string ring that is much larger than the scale of Cygnus X-1. The scale of building a giant macroscopic cosmic string ring on a Kerr black hole with a diameter of 1.4 million times the mass of the sun may even surpass the super ring world project at the center of the Milky Way that Sky Star is currently undertaking.

The large amount of superheavy elements used to make macroscopic cosmic string rings basically come from the billions of supernovae destroyed in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The total amount of superheavy elements required to build macroscopic cosmic string rings is astonishing. Even the small-scale macroscopic cosmic string ring located on Cygnus X-1, which is used to disintegrate the event horizon of the Kerr black hole, has at least exhausted the superheavy elements produced by dozens of supernova explosions. If it is really necessary to build a macroscopic cosmic string ring on a celestial body of the scale of the black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy, all the heavy elements produced by the billions of supernovae currently detonated in the entire Large Magellanic Cloud may be exhausted to barely ensure the construction of a cosmic string ring of this scale.

Compared with building a wormhole channel to other universes through the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, it is obviously more reliable to find or artificially create a black hole of suitable stellar mass and build a smaller-scale cosmic string ring to create a channel to other universes. This solution is faster and simpler. And under the premise of using this solution, the heavy elements produced by the billions of supernovae in the Large Magellanic Cloud can be said to be more than enough.

Sky Star still has not fully understood how the prism warp gate at the center of the Milky Way supports a naked singularity wormhole channel at the level of the supermassive black hole at the core of the galaxy with such a small device size and scale. With the current technological level of Sky Star, in order to create a stable naked singularity wormhole channel on the black hole of that level at the center of the Milky Way, it is necessary to build at least a cosmic string ring with a diameter of at least 30 astronomical units rotating at a speed close to that of light to stabilize the channel. The inter-universe portal that Cabot gave to the Sky Star civilization, which is almost larger than the diameter of the sun, seems to use some inexplicable technology. The source of these technologies is very likely the exclusive and proprietary technology used by the Combined Fleet.

The product is the so-called "super-dimensional matter" and a whole set of technology trees developed based on this special product that only the Combined Fleet has.

Today, the galaxy where Skywalker is located is more interconnected than ever before. Tens of millions of human gates connect to every star with a complete or under-construction stellar celestial project.

The superluminal network and time bridge system built based on wormholes have broken the original boundaries of time and space and the law of causality. Information and matter from different times in the future and the past are flowing in this galaxy. In today's Sky Star civilization, it is very common to see oneself and other people from different time nodes in the past and future, and even to directly create a time clone of oneself.

For example, Anna gets along very happily with the version of herself from ten years ago. Although it was not impossible to be intimate with herself in the past, it required her to activate one or more spare bodies. These spare bodies either shared the same consciousness as hers, or she needed to create a separate copy of her digital consciousness and upload it to those spare bodies. The whole process was relatively complicated.