Chapter 296: Unstoppable Momentum

Another 5,800 years have passed.

This is indeed a long time.

The Olive Branch civilization has been slowly growing and is finally approaching the threshold of level 2.5 civilization. Soon, perhaps in just 5,000 years, the Olive Branch civilization will become a level 2.5 civilization.

They might even fully enter level 2.5, as the Olive Branch civilization has acquired the Federation's advanced communication technology, which will allow them to make technological advancements and develop more useful weapons through research into dimensional relationships as a stronger civilization.

However, it is still too slow.

In a normal civilization, it should not take 40,000 or even 50,000 years to complete all this.

Long ago, in the initial 5,000 years, they should have transitioned from level 2.4 to level 2.5.

This is a clear disadvantage of the Olive Branch civilization.

During this period, another emotional outburst occurred within the Olive Branch civilization.

Gais could erase memories but could not eliminate the emotions of life; or more accurately, it was not that it could not do so, but that it would not do so.

It prided itself on saving and developing civilization; if it did so, it would simply be annihilating civilization, which contradicts its original intention.

Some lives would hypnotize themselves, constantly telling themselves that they could achieve this and that it was normal. The motivation for life arises from this; however, when a life tells itself that it cannot do this or that it cannot achieve anything in this world—what happens when it deceives itself?

Depression!

Gais would always tell itself that it was for civilization. But when it exposed its own lies and shattered its self-hypnosis, what meaning remained for life itself?

Thus, Gais would not destroy any emotions of the Olive Branch civilization; it merely continued to suppress them.

Perhaps at this level—without considering any other factors—the collective was indeed evil; they relentlessly pressured an individual with firm beliefs to admit that they were incapable!

Step by step tightening the noose.

Gais was being compressed; it faced yet another emotional outburst.

At this moment, it began to persuade once more.

However, this time it finally discovered a problem: beings of the Olive Branch civilization without memories acted on their emotions; they inherently lacked a baseline. When you expressed what you thought was a judgment, the beings of the Olive Branch civilization would not heed you.

They would only continue to resist; any words spoken to them sounded like nonsense.

Thus to resolve this issue, Gais must provide memories to the individuals of the Olive Branch civilization and persuade them based on those memories.

Upon realizing this, it decisively abandoned...

This would lead into a vicious cycle—constantly giving memories and then erasing them. What would be the outcome?

Yet it found itself compelled to do so because beings without memories could not receive anything; their resistance stemmed from deep emotional roots. To change those emotions required them to change themselves; facilitating that change necessitated injecting memories for them to generate such foundations.

Only when emotions were altered—even if only slightly—could Gais Glory take advantage of any openings like before.

It began repeating this operation: injecting memories, persuading, erasing memories—Gais Glory persisted.

However, it found this time even more difficult.

The emotions of these beings seemed to be compounding; the more they suppressed them, the thicker those emotions became because there was no outlet for release.

Over these tens of thousands of years, the emotional accumulation within Olive Branch civilization's lives surpassed what had built up over two hundred thousand years by tenfold, a hundredfold—perhaps even a thousandfold.

Gais felt this had spiraled out of control.

At this point, it wanted to expel individuals from the Federation but realized that wouldn't alleviate anything since their thoughts had already tainted others. Unless it expelled all individuals—what difference would that make compared to directly abandoning Gais Glory?

While pondering how to address this issue, news arrived from other star cities about individuals breaking away from Gais Glory. It suddenly realized that when it had mixed Federation individuals into all star cities with hopes of dissolving their influence—it hadn't anticipated being bitten back in return.

Initially hesitant about accepting Federation individuals due to concerns about similarity among all beings replicated from survivors after the second civil war—it hoped introducing smarter Federation lives could yield improvements even if only by 1%. Over time such gains would be considerable.

However, Olive Branch civilization had not established philosophical foundations early on because they had long since transitioned into machines; philosophy held no utility for them. Even if they had studied philosophy in their early days—it had been discarded afterward.

This led to individuals within Olive Branch civilization being unable to grasp overly abstract concepts.

For example—emotions.

They only understood broad concepts but could not delve deeper into them.

Gais also could not study this aspect; its focus lay solely on social structure rather than aiding in civilizational growth since Olive Branch civilization lacked complex social structures.

This rendered Gais completely unable to resolve these issues at present.

As Gais Glory faltered in other star cities, Gais Glory in Gais Star City also faced imminent danger. At this moment Gais felt somewhat powerless; it could not attend to so many matters at once.

"After an emotional explosion—I am destined for failure?"

At this moment Gais became aware of this fact.

It sought to halt everything but found no means to do so.

The will of individuals had developed over decades or even centuries in other star cities; they had formed unique systems. To resolve these issues might have initially been simple but ultimately grew increasingly difficult until reaching a critical threshold beyond its control.

At this point, it had glimpsed that critical threshold and thus recognized that it could not stop everything from unfolding.

It had failed!

It had actually failed!

It hadn't even realized its failure until too late when awareness dawned upon it—it already failed!

How absurd!

As the actual controller of a civilization—it couldn't perceive that its own governance had been overturned by its managed beings.

It could no longer continue suppressing these emotions unless...

It annihilated all emotions entirely.

"Must I truly do this?"

"Must I truly do this?"

It repeatedly questioned itself and received negative answers each time.

At present there may only be one method left capable of maintaining its rule—but that method was too dangerous and contradicted all its principles.

Yet now it found itself compelled to consider such actions seriously.

"The best way to resolve internal contradictions is by creating external conflicts…"

"Then I must—initiate war!"