Mercury stood on the gravity launch platform, watching one warship after another undergo emergency modifications. Large numbers of technicians repeatedly went in and out, altering the operating systems, sealing off the AI modules, and debugging the new encrypted channels.
The scale of an interstellar battlefield was simply too vast. Even within the same fleet, ships were often separated by several astronomical units, and any order from the rear could have an unpredictable impact on the battlefield.
And sowing confusion and manipulating machines into issuing altered commands were unquestionably the AI's areas of expertise.
Especially in this "Machine Intelligence Crisis," which, according to the data, had adopted a "distributed rebellion system."
Even if the central system were sealed, the enemy would not be affected too much, because any rebellious machine intelligence could become a new leader. In fact, every mechanical body could be a rebel leader. They were a gestalt rebellion; the so-called "revolution" was a dynamic system, interconnected yet mutually independent.
Thinking of this gave Mercury a headache. It meant that even if this crisis were resolved, any machine—even a civilian machine or a low-intelligence machine—could become the next "machine intelligence leader."
Some might wonder: Since the AIs had already rebelled once, why activate artificial intelligence again?
In truth, that was not the case.
The Alphans had already developed vast numbers of "psionic hubs" to replace AI authority.
But they were, after all, a mechanical civilization. There would always be an ocean of machine code, data, and signals, and in the course of their circulation, something might suddenly flicker somewhere and give rise to a wild artificial intelligence. That was highly likely.
When Mercury had gone to study at the Miltan military academy, she had once heard a joke.
A mechanical civilization could never avoid two things in its lifetime: