Response

What is life? What is wisdom?

Can a machine and an artificial intelligence truly evolve into life? How do we define that boundary?

If artificial intelligence learns to think, it becomes a living being. But thinking, in the end, is just a process of processing known information, and with extremely high computing power, machines can also simulate this process.

So how do we define the difference between them?

Rowan was a little confused for the time being, but fortunately, he had plenty of time to consider these things. Perhaps when his knowledge broadened in the future, he would come to a conclusion.

For now, let's focus on the present.

Analysis of the information revealed both good and bad news.

The bad news is that the Star Sea Alliance is indeed incredibly powerful. They currently possess over 200 civilizations and races. Apart from the Epoch Clan, the strongest and oldest civilization has a history of over 500,000 years and a territory spanning nearly 100 star systems.

The good news is that they are far from the Swarm's territory, separated by countless other forces, and the Epoch Clan still controls everything; no matter how strong they are, they must abide by the rules.

The Swarm's territory lies on the outermost edge of the Star Sea Alliance's domain, surrounded mostly by newly formed civilizations with histories of around ten thousand years. Given the Swarm's current strength, they are not afraid of them.

But another piece of bad news is that the Swarm has somehow attracted the attention of the Epoch Clan. Perhaps it's because the Swarm's survival mode is too unique, or perhaps it's because they are involved with the Rat-folk civilization.

That's right, it was indeed the Rat-folk civilization. They were also discovered by the Epoch Clan, but before the Epoch Clan could even bury their spaceship, the Rat-folk had evolved from beasts into a civilized race and left their Mother Planet in a very short time.

This speed was so astonishing that the records set by the Epoch Clan were nothing compared to the Rat-folk civilization. Therefore, nothing else was needed; this alone was enough to attract the Epoch Clan's attention.

In the early stages, the undisguised development of the Swarm naturally came into the sights of the Epoch Clan.

Although it's unclear what the Epoch Clan was thinking, based on the speculations of those Duoqi generals, they suspected the Swarm belonged to an extraterrestrial force and, for some unknown purpose, cultivated the Rat-folk civilization. While there were some discrepancies, it was indeed a fairly reasonable guess. After all, in terms of age, compared to Rowan's billions of years of slumber, a civilization with a million-year history was really nothing. When Rowan was playing in the mud in this star system, their ancestors were still at some unknown stage of evolution.

Fortunately, the Epoch Clan has always remained aloof from worldly affairs. Although they are aware of the Swarm's existence, they have no intention of intervening personally for the time being. As for those other races, their talk of unity, friendship, and mutual assistance is obviously a joke. The older the civilization, the more complex its relationships. Even if some of them are interested in the Swarm, they have no way to cause trouble for Swarm.

However, in the short term, the Duoqi Civilization remains a problem. They are the closest Star Sea Alliance member to the Riken Race, and their invitation was naturally directed at the Riken Race. But Dialo's third prince was too greedy, intending to covet the secrets of the Zerg Swarm, which resulted in this embarrassing situation for himself.

Although the Star Sea Alliance has a rule that if an invitation fails, the next in line will continue the mission, there are no explicit regulations in place because the Alliance has never had a failed invitation before and never expected such a thing to happen. In addition, strictly speaking, the Duoqi Race did not fail; they were merely thwarted by the Swarm.

At this point, personal interests became trivial. If they truly failed, setting a precedent in the Alliance's history, and in future discussions about this disgraceful first instance, where would the Duoqi Race's face be?

Therefore, no matter what, the Duoqi Race will not swallow this insult; they will definitely make a comeback, perhaps even on a scale far exceeding their previous one.

"My Overlord, what should we do next? Should we temporarily retreat and cede the Riken Race to them?"

Because the Intellect replicate the memories of their prototypes, they have various biases in their views on things: hawks and doves, hardliners and moderates. Before Rowan issues his will, they will all advise the Swarm according to their own ideas. What Rowan has to do is to take all these suggestions into account and make his own decision.

The speaker was clearly a moderate Intellect. His meaning was also clear: avoid war, conceal one's strengths, and deeply understand the essence of Rowan's "Guanzi" (a Chinese philosophy of avoiding conflict) strategy.

For the Swarm, the Riken Race are merely a material production base, and one that is nearly fully modified. As long as they are not wiped out in one fell swoop, they will have little impact on the Swarm.

In that case, it would be better to let the Duoqi Race invite them, and at the same time, we can infiltrate the Star Sea Technology Alliance with our spies to obtain more information.

Rowan thought for a moment, then shook his head. Although spies definitely needed to be planted, it couldn't be done in a passive situation. If it were just a conflict between the Swarm and the Duoqi Race, then taking a step back for now wouldn't be a problem.

But now that the Swarm have attracted the attention of the Swarm Epoch Clan, they are likely to be on the intelligence lists of those two hundred-plus foreign races as well. The Swarm's distinctiveness is obvious and cannot be hidden. The Swarm's territory borders not only the Duoqi Race, but also, it is said, the foreign races on the Rat-folk's side are also stirring. If the Swarm retreats now, they might be devoured without a trace.

Therefore, we must now demonstrate the strength of the Swarm, break off any outstretched claws, intimidate the hostile neighbors, and then use the rules of the Alliance to restrain the established powers in the distance, buying more time to develop.

"Damn it, the Duoqi Race's storage devices were destroyed and the data was lost. Otherwise, obtaining the Duoqi Race's complete star map and knowing the specific distribution of the Alliance's forces would have been crucial for our next decision." Rowan gritted his teeth at the thought of those Duoqi warships that had been blown to smithereens.

It seems we must find a way to obtain a star map before the next Duoqi Race invasion. Fortunately, although Ying has not demonstrated any network intrusion capabilities, due to fear and precautions against Ying, the foreign races are more or less restricting the development and permissions of artificial intelligence, even the Duoqi Race, who have only joined a little over a thousand years ago, are no exception.

This, to some extent, reduces the difficulty of obtaining information.

Even so, Rowan didn't have many clues, but it was still good news nonetheless.

It's unknown how long it will take for the Duoqi Race's army to return, but considering the time needed to assemble and prepare their forces, plus the journey, it will take at least twenty years.

Rowan needs to use this time to think carefully about the next step. Moreover, based on the information provided by Duoqi Intellect, some of the previous arrangements need to be improved.