The information came from an ancient Neutral Observation Zone that had always maintained absolute silence. Its observers sent a brief, grave warning:
"Abnormally heightened activity detected in the 'Entropy Silence Darkside.'"
"There is a high probability that 'antimeme' contamination is spreading along causal chains toward regions of active civilization."
"Warning: this contamination cannot be perceived or remembered. Its very existence erases the 'concept' of whatever has been 'contaminated.'"
"Preliminary assessment: an unknown presence is attempting to... 'delete' certain 'types of civilization' or 'forms of ideology.'"
Entropy Silence Darkside? Inverted Memetic Contamination? Deleting concepts?
Lin Ye exchanged looks with his allies, their minds weighed down with concern.
The challenges of the New Era came in wave after wave, each arriving before the last had subsided. This enemy seemed stranger still, and even less bound by reason.
The "Entropy Silence Darkside" was a concept in the Thought Sea's ancient records that inspired greater dread than even the "Despair Vortex." It was the reflection in the Thought Sea of an abstract tendency within the universe's fundamental rules toward a "disordered end state" and "information annihilation." Ordinarily, it was utterly inert.
An "antimeme" was, in theory, information or a concept that concealed itself. It could not be actively remembered, transmitted, or understood. Any consciousness that encountered it would "forget" or "fail to form a valid understanding," and even related "concepts" might be erased from cognition. It was like a "cognitive black hole" in the realm of information.
A connection between the two meant that some force might be exploiting the universe's tendency toward its own demise to launch attacks on specific "civilizational concepts," "deleting" them at the very foundation of their existence!
The attacked civilizations would have their "traces of existence," "core traits," and "ideological substance" erased from all cognition. Ultimately, they would become