If you want to call the Olive Branch Civilization an advanced civilization, it wouldn't make such a low-level mistake.
But this isn't really a mistake.
Take a life, for example. You harm another life for your benefit, which is wrong in the eyes of the other, but not for you, as you are doing what is right for yourself.
This is different from a typical mistake.
A mistake is when you don't gain any benefit from doing something, or you gain a certain benefit but lose more.
Does the Star City fit this situation?
For the Star City, it is doing what is right.
The only thing that makes the whole thing seem like a mistake is 8672804, a manager who was kept in the dark, like a blind man being misled.
But 8672804 is just a third party in this situation, not a participant.
The decision-maker for the Olive Branch Civilization is still the Shared Consciousness Cluster. It's like two people fighting, and then a third-party reporter appears, who reports on the fight. One side, to avoid damaging their image, starts emphasizing that they are the good guys, and the other side is the bad guys.
But this doesn't change the nature of the fight.
To put it in simpler terms, the Star City's actions are not due to 8672804's mistake but Chu's strategy, and everything that is happening is within Chu's expectations.
Because of this, what seems absurd from 8672804's perspective becomes quite normal from Chu's perspective.
The Star City's shared consciousness cluster took advantage of the trust of the manager and the supporting fleet from other Star Cities of the Olive Branch Civilization, thereby directing the outbreak of this war.
And after the first round of attacks...
The second supporting fleet sent a request to the Star City to join forces against the first supporting fleet. 8672804 received this request but had doubts, and the Shared Consciousness Cluster analyzed the situation.
"Fraud, a common tactic of the Civilized Federation. The other side seems to think that we don't know about the first fleet, so they are trying to frame us."
8672804, due to limited information, still had doubts but decided to intensify the attack.
The war intensified.
The Star City's battleships began to help the first fleet eliminate the second fleet. At this point, the second fleet realized that perhaps the Star City had been attacking them from the beginning, and they had been deceived.
So, the Star City became their enemy.
The second war began, and this time, both sides, except for 8672804, knew each other's identity and started attacking each other.
This battle lasted for nine years, with no pauses, no diversionary tactics, just constant bombardment, and neither side chose to retreat temporarily.
In the end, the first fleet lost 180,000 battleships, the Star City lost 14,000, and the second fleet was completely annihilated, with no survivors.
"A great victory!"
8672804 was overjoyed when he received the news. The Olive Branch Civilization hadn't had a war in a long time.
He would become the only manager to receive military honors in the past several tens of thousands of years, which made him very happy.
"However, the supporting fleet has also suffered heavy losses, so we should request more support."
8672804 sent a message to the other Star Cities of the civilization.
About 180 years later, he received a response, but it wasn't about support; it was a declaration of war.
"The Star City should be destroyed!"
8672804: "????"
If he had a face, it would probably be full of confusion, not knowing what was happening.
This war was indeed a great victory, but not for the Olive Branch Civilization against the Civilized Federation; it was for the Star City against the other Star Cities of the Olive Branch Civilization.
With just 14,000 battleships, they eliminated over 400,000.
...
Finelli and his group of federal officials and scholars were just as confused as 8672804.
The war lasted only a decade or so, but they felt like they had experienced rapid changes.
"Has the Olive Branch Civilization really entered a major civil war?"
"Chu is probably stronger than we imagined and has already turned other Star Cities against us?"
Without any information to refer to, they couldn't analyze the situation.
Since these hundreds of thousands of battleships were initially heading towards the Federation, the battlefield was actually closer to the Federation than to the Star City.
So, the Federation could directly clean up the battlefield.
Finelli sent out some interstellar cleaners, which were generally 300 to 500 meters in size and looked like spiders. However, instead of legs, they had ten flexible, gripping claws that could rotate 360 degrees. These claws didn't drag the interstellar debris but threw it in a specific direction using centrifugal force, like throwing a shot put.
These cleaners could reach speeds of 1000 km/s, and along their flight path, there were special magnetic recycling devices, like a lying trash can with an open interior to receive the interstellar trash. Once full, it would activate and recycle the debris back to the Star City.
Interstellar garbage recycling has always been a significant business for the Federation, especially in war recycling.
The scrap of a battleship can sell for tens of millions of source coins, and if you recycle one, you won't have to worry about money for the rest of your life.
The Federation probably made a fortune this time.
Hundreds of thousands of Olive Branch Civilization battleships, at a minimum of one billion each, would amount to tens of billions of source coins. In fact, it's even more than that, as the cost of these battleships is very high, with each one costing hundreds of billions of source coins. The scrap value would be at least ten billion.
It sounds exaggerated, but it's true.
Even if they were recycled for their metal value, the Federation's current price for every ten thousand tons of iron is usually between 0.1 and 0.3 source coins. A battleship of the Olive Branch Civilization is on the order of hundreds of millions of tons.
The Federation's current giant ships are generally on the order of billions of tons. Even the Kunlun, the first one built, weighed nearly 800 billion tons, and after modification, it came to 7 billion tons. It seems like a lot, but it's not.
In terms of quality, the Federation's giant ships are only a few ten-thousandths of Earth, and in terms of volume, they are only a few thousandths. The difference in quality and volume is due to the internal space of the battleships.
If the Federation enters the planetary-class giant ship era, these planetary-class giant ships would each weigh trillions of tons, while the moon only weighs 735 billion tons.
It sounds like a lot, but compared to the Star City itself, it's just a small thing. Standing next to the Star City, it's like an ant next to a giant.
Finelli and his group made a profit, but they had more questions.
What direction will things take from here?
Not only were they confused, but Ella and Yan Xia, who received the news, were also bewildered.