Chapter 97: The Pseudo-Shared Consciousness Collective Civilization

Over the next ten years, the modular Border City was fully customizable, and the area designated for the Civilized Federation was transformed into a replica of their city.

The moment Yan Xia saw the completed city, he became even more convinced that they were on a battleship.

With the modular nature of the Border City, there should be more variety, and each region should have its unique, customized features.

But here, there were no cold, metallic pillars.

This level of discipline could only exist in a civilization under the absolute control of a ruler.

Starting from the eleventh year, Yan Xia began to venture out and interact with the lifeforms of the Olive Branch Civilization. He had already mastered their language, which was similar to the C++ programming language. In essence, they communicated using calculated quantum signals.

They could also transform into human forms and produce actual sounds, as they could assemble into any shape.

Through these interactions, Yan Xia discovered something else.

When he asked the same question to two lifeforms of the Olive Branch Civilization, they gave almost identical answers.

These questions were more exploratory, and if asked to the lifeforms of the Civilized Federation, there would be as many answers as there were individuals. However, the responses from the Olive Branch Civilization were surprisingly consistent, as if these questions had become as simple as 1+1=2.

Their answers made Yan Xia feel like he was dealing with a single lifeform rather than multiple entities.

Collective consciousness.

Yan Xia thought about this long-standing hypothesis.

Strictly speaking, he had rejected the idea of collective consciousness many years ago because it was too disadvantageous for the development of a civilization. Unless the collective's mother body was incredibly powerful, like Ella, who could still grow through technology, it would be too inefficient for lower civilizations to provide sufficient individual intelligence.

For higher civilizations, it would be extremely challenging to make all individuals abandon their thoughts and follow a single leader, akin to a pipe dream.

Yan Xia didn't know the developmental history of the Olive Branch Civilization, but they exhibited tendencies towards collective consciousness.

His previous inference had been overturned, which was normal in the pursuit of knowledge. The essence of science is to constantly overturn old theories and establish new ones as the protagonists of their time.

By repeatedly engaging in this process, we can approach the truth, but like absolute zero and the speed of light, science may never truly reach the truth.

After returning to the designated area, Yan Xia quickly sought out Ella to discuss his thoughts.

Ella had also been gathering information about the Olive Branch Civilization through other means.

"Yan Xia, I believe your idea that the lifeforms of the Olive Branch Civilization are individual terminals is both correct and incorrect."

"Based on my observations, the lifeforms of the Olive Branch Civilization do express emotions."

"Although their words may be similar, there are subtle differences in the information they convey, and these differences represent their individual emotional expressions."

"Emotions provide individual lifeforms with different understanding abilities. If these differences are not deliberate, then I believe the Olive Branch Civilization is a pseudo-shared consciousness collective civilization."

Not a collective consciousness, but a shared consciousness collective.

There is a fundamental difference between these two concepts.

Collective consciousness is like the relationship between a queen bee and worker bees, where the worker bees, after becoming part of the collective, follow the instructions of the queen bee and serve her.

A shared consciousness collective means that the consciousness of all individuals in the civilization merges into a vast composite entity.

One is under fundamental control, while the other has its own consciousness, which is fused with other consciousnesses.

"Why do you say it's pseudo?" Yan Xia asked.

Ella explained, "If it were a true shared consciousness collective, there shouldn't be a ruler who dominates this vast shared consciousness collective. All individuals should be equal."

"The existence of a ruler in the Olive Branch Civilization indicates that, in addition to the shared consciousness collective, they also follow another set of class systems."

This is indeed a strange aspect.

Unless Chu is a representation of this shared consciousness collective, but this possibility is small. Based on their interactions, the class concept of the Olive Branch Civilization is deeply ingrained, almost to the point of militarization.

"Is there something else you've noticed, Yan Xia?"

Ella's expression was solemn.

"What is it?"

Yan Xia had been thinking about something else and didn't know what Ella was referring to.

"The changes in the starry sky."

Yan Xia looked up at the starry sky but didn't notice anything unusual, as he was not a camera and didn't constantly observe the stars.

"Based on my observations over the past eleven years, I've found that the changes in the starry sky are very strange."

"Their direction and speed of movement are different from previous calculations."

"To be more precise, our star system is not moving at all. This movement is relative to the galactic center."

All celestial bodies in the Milky Way revolve around the galactic center at speeds exceeding 200 km/s. They are directly or indirectly pulled by the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way, with the help of dark matter, allowing the tiny Sagittarius A*, with only 400 million solar masses, to leverage other black holes and high-density stars to rotate the entire Milky Way.

This should be true without exception, but in Ella's observations, the star system they were in had deviated from this pattern.

Yan Xia thought about it carefully and tried to find the reason.

"The Border City is too massive, and if it were to be calculated, it should have a density of 0.2 to 0.3 grams per cubic millimeter, given the average density of buildings."

"So, it should weigh around 35 billion billion billion tons, right?"

Yan Xia double-checked his calculations and found that it was indeed that heavy, but it seemed a bit too scary. After all, the Sun only has 200 billion billion billion tons, so is the Border City 175 times heavier than the Sun?

How could such a massive object not collapse into a black hole?

Ella corrected Yan Xia.

"According to my actual measurements, although the Border City is enormous, there is a node cavity every twelve astronomical units. Its single-sided surface area, when calculated precisely, is 32 billion billion square kilometers, and through the cavity, you can see that the Border City is actually hollow. Its overall density is negligible, with an average thickness of 2150 kilometers."

"In reality, it is much lighter than it appears, approximately 0.59 solar masses."

That made sense.

"A mass this large should directly influence a star, right?" Yan Xia asked.

He meant that the mass of the Border City was already sufficient to form a binary star system with the star it was orbiting. The Olive Branch Civilization might be using the mass of the Border City and some technological assistance to stabilize the star in space, preventing it from orbiting.

Even though he had already guessed this, Yan Xia still felt a chill down his spine when he thought about it again.

"A Level 2 civilization can utilize all the resources in a star system, and their technology is a million times more advanced than a Level 1 civilization. Can they already control the entire star system and the star itself?"

It was unimaginable, but only through direct experience and observation could one truly understand the gap between civilizations.

However, it was precisely because of this gap that Yan Xia wanted to take a small risk for a big reward. Otherwise, how would the Civilized Federation defend itself if the Olive Branch Civilization became displeased?

The best defense is a good offense. Even if they were like ants, they had to bite the elephant to make it feel the pain and prevent it from accidentally stepping on the anthill.