After the meeting, Yao Yuan had second thoughts regarding further exploration into the junkyard. His doubts came not only from the things discussed during the meeting but also the long conversation he had with Ren Tao after the meeting.
Yao Yuan was on his way back to the reports that awaited his signature and approval in the captain’s room when the normally happy-go-lucky Ren Tao forcefully accosted him by the entrance to the war-room. "You have something to tell me?" Yao Yuan asked, rather impatiently.
Ren Tao nodded firmly. "I do, but this is only meant for the ears of… the exploration party, Black Star members, and definitely not these government officials. Oh! Right, Chou Yue, you’re not supposed to hear this either."
Before Chou Yue could even flare up, Yao Yuan had already ordered all the non-related personnel to leave the room. Out of her wits, Chou Yue resorted to stealthily pinching Ren Tao on his waist before reluctantly following the rest out. Only Guang Zhen and a few other Black Star members remained.
Rubbing the sore spot, Ren Tao laid his cards on the table. "I didn’t mention any of this during the meeting because I don’t want to cause unnecessary panic, but… Yao Yuan, I have to ask you to stop exploring the junkyard, especially plans that involve the main battleship."
"Hmm." Yao Yuan did a double-take. "So you’ve figured out my next course of action."
"It’s not that hard, actually." Ren Tao ventured cautiously. "You’ve asked for 500 prototype 1 combat suits and 500 Gaussian gun prototype 2s in the next 2 months. It’s not hard to see where you’re going with this."
"Really? Do tell." Yao Yuan feigned innocence.
"You want to build an army for space war, right? The Hope’s current military, while trained, have no experience in zero-gravity combat and doesn’t have the necessary equipment to do so. This sounds harsh, but for your future plan, our military at its current state is practically useless." Ren Tao continued, "Therefore, you need to fix that fast because I believe your plan is to conquer this junkyard one warship husk at a time. Since the robots are programmed to limit the use of their most powerful weapon inside the warships, you intend to lead this army of, I’m guessing, 300 to 400 people to storm the warships and overpower the robots using sheer numbers and combined firepower. Am I wrong?"
Yao Yuan stood in quiet contemplation and retrieved a pack of cigarettes from within his coat and flicked one over to Ren Tao. "You’re right, not missing even a detail. With your intellect, surely you understand how valuable this junkyard is to the Hope. An innocuous music box alone has managed to improve our technological level by so unbelievably much, could you even imagine how much progress the whole junkyard could provide? The most conservative prediction puts it at several centuries worth of development and research. How can you possibly ask me to give that up?!"
Ren Tao returned the cigarette kindly back to Yao Yuan. "Thanks, but I don’t smoke… What you said is all true, but one first has to be alive to enjoy all of that! By the way, have you seen the Terminator series?"
Yao Yuan furled his brows. "As a matter of fact, I have."
"Then you should know what the basis of an AI’s existence is. The entity that makes us human, or a kind of conscious existence, is our brain. What is the equivalent for AIs? Is it its hard-drive, CPU, or something else? We wouldn’t know because our own creation hasn’t achieved Singularity. That knowledge is literally beyond our intellect!" Solemnity entered Ren Tao’s voice as he continued, "There is another possibility behind the chip’s self-destructive set-up, and that is to prevent the malignant AI from hacking into the individual robots. In other words, even though the central mainframe is destroyed, the AI remains unharmed because, like Skynet, it is a virtual existence. It doesn’t need the mainframe to exist because its existence is anchored in the virtual world, and that world is not only maintained solely by the central mainframe but also separately by individual network servers."
"So what?" Yao Yuan took a deep drag of his cigarette and asked rather impassively, his previous impatience gone.
"Are you serious? So, we have a big problem!" Ren Tao argued. "How can you be certain there aren’t such network servers remaining in the bigger warship husks? If the smallest warship husk could manage to preserve its power, what are the chances that the bigger ones won’t have their servers still intact?"
Ren Tao raised his voice to emphasize, "You’ve heard the arsenals these robots carry! They are killing machines specialized in space combat, with extremely fast flight speed and incredibly powerful Gaussian weaponry. If they wish the Hope any harm, this ship will be torn into pieces in a matter of minutes! Therefore, we need to leave this star system this instant, warp out of here as soon as possible! I believe our presence is still undiscovered because the battleship fleet has already been destroyed, but I’m sure our existence will be exposed when we venture into the battleship itself! If the malignant AI is awakened, I doubt even this 10,000 kilometer distance will save us from its wrath. It’ll be too late by then, so I beg of you, please don’t toy with the future of humanity!"
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