104: Chapter 104 The Neurons of Civilization (Part 1)

Inside the bridge of the Indomitable Truth, Elena sat in the captain's chair. She was truly tired, mentally exhausted.

It had taken her two days to finally transfer the machine spirit and Servo-skull from the Indomitable Truth to the mechanical ark.

The process was indescribable, and she finally understood what Icarus meant by the "curse of knowledge."

During this process, her brain told her, "It's simple, anyone with hands can do it," but her hands told her, "No, you have no idea how to do this."

If it weren't for the fact that the machine spirit within the Servo-skull—the will of her ancestors—was very cooperative, combined with the help of the Tech-Priest Cassius Vitruvius who had followed the wreckage, she would have nearly broken down in tears. This was harder than leading a Strike Cruiser on a suicide charge.

Because this kind of task is: you know how to do it, what to do, the logic is sound, and the steps are clear, yet the moment you try, everything goes wrong. This kind of emotional attrition was far more despair-inducing than combat.

That attrition had passed; it was over, she reminded herself silently.

She had no intention of giving this white vessel—which was unlike any other mechanical ark in the Imperium—a new name.

They still decided to call this ark the "Indomitable Truth," which was a joint decision between the machine spirit and her ancestors.

Even though they knew that the Astartes First Legion had a Gloriana-class battleship with that same name.

But in the Imperium, there were only so many words in High Gothic. Words with grand connotations like "mighty," "indomitable," "holy," and "truth" were used over and over again, and everyone liked such words, so name collisions were inevitable.

Elena knew that on Ophelia VII, the seat of the Ecclesiarchy's High Council, there were dozens of ships, large and small, named "Something-or-other Holy."

There were even Battle Sisters who would step into the arena to spar over name collisions, just to decide who had the right to use the name.

Furthermore, she seemed to have heard that the First Legion had a Strike Cruiser called the Indomitable Truth? And it was currently being hunted down by the Dark Angels?

As for her ship, it was registered under the name of the personal vessel of Archmagos Helmut of the Vulcan Forge World.

As everyone knew, the Adeptus Mechanicus was a state within the state of the Imperium, and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus were always so straightforward: slap on an Adeptus Mechanicus emblem, add an Imperial Aquila, and whoever actually controlled it, owned it.

She sat up straight in the captain's chair and tapped it lightly with her finger. Countless virtual screens stacked vertically appeared before her, with data flowing by like a waterfall, yet she didn't feel the slightest strain.

She was reviewing the full status report of this mechanical ark.

The Indomitable Truth was no longer the Strike Cruiser that had been sunk after a suicide charge during the orbital defense battle.

In addition to the reassuring armament configurations, there were eighteen spare artificial stars orbiting within the command hall, which were not yet ignited simply due to a lack of dark matter.

But what really concerned Elena was not just the weapon systems of the Indomitable Truth mechanical ark.

She was amazed at the ark's self-sufficiency.

The interior of the Indomitable Truth was equipped with the full suite of the highest-level production facilities that Icarus possessed.

From food to ammunition, from frigates to Destroyers, everything she could think of could be produced within the compressed space of this ark.

Battlefield analysis stations were distributed throughout all key nodes of the ark, ensuring that any minor damage could be detected immediately and repaired or completely replaced within seconds by the Construction Drones that swarmed the entire ship.

This was no longer a war fortress; it was a mobile city capable of self-repair and self-growth.

The only regret was the energy source.

It was currently still using fusion energy.

Although fusion energy was considered an extremely efficient energy source in the physical universe.

But to simultaneously maintain production operations and the defensive consumption of the High-frequency Laser Tower, fusion energy was still lacking.

However, fusion energy had its own advantages; no star or planet lacked hydrogen, and one only needed to harvest some to provide power.

Although this ark had not yet reached its full potential.

The Recombination Assembly Table inside the Indomitable Truth already stored the complete production plans for antimatter energy storage units and High-frequency Laser Towers.

It only needed to harvest antimatter precursors and gather sufficient resources at the appropriate time to complete this transformation.

Elena withdrew some of her attention from the ark's status data.

She extended her perception through the production authorization link, where some irritable emotions were transmitted, intense enough to stir up ripples in the machine spirit network.

Following her perception, she extended her consciousness through the machine spirit network to the surface of the Watch Moon.

At the edge of that blue solar array, a small figure with twelve sub-arms and eight Servo-skulls was relaying a conveyor belt.

Icarus.

It was dismantling a production line that had just failed.

Elena could "see" the data on electromagnetic coupling deviations and "understand" the logic chains of those black-box system crashes—this was a deadlock Icarus had encountered when designing the fully automated sealed production unit: a perfect closed-loop system that would completely collapse after running for a few dozen cycles as soon as a protective layer designed for humans was added.

Subtle electromagnetic coupling reactions, delays in non-standard production lines, and additional variables introduced by protection designed for fragile human bodies.

When they began to entangle, they formed a disorder that it could not model, predict, or eliminate.

Translated into plain language: Icarus was stuck. It had started cursing.

Elena silently watched Icarus's busy figure on the distant satellite for a while, a smile appearing on the corner of her lips that she didn't even notice.

She "saw" the entries in the construction log.

When Icarus was modifying the Indomitable Truth, it spent far more time than necessary; this was a creation of true peak Level 3 civilization technology.

In the technology tree archives, it described the philosophy of that Level 3 civilization:

In the boundless universe, when the footsteps of humanity transcended the speed of light, and when civilization touched the edge of physical laws.

Then population became the scarcest resource. None other.

Humanity could create AI, clone bodies, and mass-produce comrades, workers, and soldiers.

But as long as they had not developed consciousness, they were merely tools; no matter how efficient or precise, they could only be extensions of tools.

But when their creations developed consciousness, whether through long-term data self-evolution, mutations in quantum neural networks, or some kind of coincidence that even the creators could not replicate, then that civilization would no longer consider them tools.

But rather, the offspring born of civilization.