Rebirth of the Super Battleship

In the dark, frigid expanse of space, countless dim white stars were scattered like gems set into this black curtain. Although Xiao Yu's hypothesis was that all these stars were mere images of the same celestial body, due to the wonders of Four-Dimensional space, their distribution was not regular, some were clustered closely together, while others were very far apart. In the beginning, it was precisely this irregularity that had misled Xiao Yu and kept him from considering this possibility.

And right at the center of this curtain, amid the endless dim white stars, was a star radiating a blinding white light. This star was exceedingly bright, illuminating a region millions of kilometers across in brilliant clarity, although its volume was not very large. Under its illumination, over several million ships of all types were arrayed in orderly formations, quietly suspended nearby.

This star was the artificial sun Xiao Yu had created, using the most advanced technology of a Level 5 Civilization. Powered by an antimatter engine, it could maintain this luminosity for a full half-month. Though its brightness was still insignificant compared to a true star like the Sun, its advantage lay in the penetrating quality of its light. Even from tens of billions of kilometers away, Xiao Yu's detection instruments could easily pick up its signal.

It simply floated in space without the slightest movement. But Xiao Yu knew that the light it emitted was already racing toward the edge of the universe. If his conjecture was correct, once it reached the boundary, it would be reflected back, reentering the range of his observation instruments.

At this moment, Xiao Yu was immersed in this wait.

He had already exhaustively recorded the star charts of the entire sky. If, for no reason, another star appeared, Xiao Yu would detect it immediately.

And as expected, the facts did not surprise Xiao Yu. After two days and fifteen hours, he suddenly saw another star appear on the celestial sphere. Spectral analysis and luminosity tests matched his expectations exactly.

It was a most bizarre sight. This artificial sun floated right beside him, yet its light had once again arrived before his eyes from a point tens of billions of kilometers away.

"With this, our hypothesis that the three-dimensional universe is a Four-Dimensional sphere has been essentially confirmed." Xiao Yu immediately transmitted his latest observation data to all the scientists and stated his conclusion. "Next, I will pilot our fleet toward that location."

Based on the time and the speed of light, Xiao Yu easily calculated the distance, approximately 68 billion kilometers. Since the light had traveled a round trip, dividing this figure by two yielded the diameter of the small universe: around 34 billion kilometers. This was not a large number, in fact, it was very small. Compared to the vastness of the great universe, such a distance was less than insignificant, not even worthy of comparison to an ant. To put it in perspective, if the Oort Cloud were regarded as the boundary of the Solar System, this small universe would not even come close to measuring up. The Oort Cloud's diameter stretched as far as two light-years, nineteen trillion kilometers.

Receiving the latest data, the scientists were greatly encouraged. It meant they were one step closer to unraveling this mystery.

Under Xiao Yu's command, the immense fleet began its voyage. Conventional engines ignited with blazing plumes, propelling the ships forward at ever-increasing speed, accelerating all the way to 170,000 kilometers per second. At that velocity, after about four and a half days, Xiao Yu's fleet came to a halt.

During the entire journey, Xiao Yu had not detected any unusual phenomena, no signs of traversing space or any other extraordinary events. In fact, the curvature of three-dimensional space existed only in the Four-Dimensional layer, which he could not access. From their limited perspective, there was no way to perceive such curvature. Even upon reaching the universe's edge, the scenery looked exactly the same as everywhere else, without any difference at all. And when they passed beyond the universe's boundary, no person or instrument could detect it.

At this moment, before Xiao Yu was a star radiating dazzling light. Its luminosity was extremely high, but its volume and mass were very small, making it easy to distinguish from all the other stars. The instant he laid eyes on it, Xiao Yu confirmed one thing.

It was the artificial sun he had launched himself. After traveling an immense distance of 68 billion kilometers, he had returned to the origin point.

Xiao Yu had unknowingly passed through the edge of the universe, and his trajectory had been reversed without his awareness.

"To this point, all of our hypotheses have been verified," Xiao Yu thought silently. "After all, the Trolor Civilization was not so unimaginably powerful, these billions of stars are all the same celestial body."

"In that case, we have completed the first trial."

"Very well, proceed to the target. Intelligent Program One gave us enough clues, it is on a minor planet." Xiao Yu made his decision. "All ships, go to combat readiness."

Xiao Yu could not be certain whether this Intelligent Program One truly possessed its own consciousness. To guard against any unexpected developments, he did not dare to relax his vigilance.

In other words, Xiao Yu still could not determine whether this Intelligent Program One was benevolent or malicious toward him. After all, any being with independent consciousness, whether it existed within a biological body or inside a computer, would always have unpredictable behaviors. To be prepared, he had to remain cautious.

Although Xiao Yu himself was not very different from a mechanical civilization, there was still a fundamental distinction. Xiao Yu's origin was a civilized intelligent lifeform, while the mechanical civilization's origin was machinery.

Even now, with all his technological advancements, the existence of true artificial intelligence, electronic beings with fully independent thought, remained an astonishing concept to Xiao Yu. He had never been able to imagine that from intangible lines of code, a living, self-aware entity could emerge.

During this period, Xiao Yu had already carried out the most detailed analysis he could regarding so-called mechanical civilizations. His conclusions indicated that as the completeness and complexity of code continuously increased, it was indeed possible within Level 6 Civilizations for mechanical life to arise, endowed with a measure of autonomy and even capable of learning independently and absorbing new knowledge. After all, the computer architecture commonly used by Level 6 Civilizations was an optical computing design Xiao Yu did not yet understand. In such a machine, the entire computer consisted of a single chip, with all other components formed purely from intangible beams of light.

However, in Xiao Yu's assessment, even if a Level 6 Civilization could create genuine electronic life, such life forms would absolutely never possess the capacity for innovation.

And there was one most critical point: aside from their inability to innovate, these electronic beings would always be constrained by another limitation, hard restrictions left in their core code by their creators.

These hard restrictions were inviolate. According to Xiao Yu's analysis, if any of them were broken, all related segments of code composing this program, or rather, this intelligent life, would immediately collapse, resulting in its instant death. But within this structure existed a loophole: although the hard restrictions could not be defied, nothing prevented an intelligent program from finding ways around them.

For example, consider a simple scenario. Suppose a program was ordered to protect human safety, meaning it could not actively kill humans, and it must help any human it saw in danger. This constraint seemed comprehensive, but in fact it was riddled with exploitable flaws.

If an autonomous intelligent program wished to control the world, yet it was bound by those two rules, it could neither kill humans nor ignore them when they were in danger, what could it do?

The answer was simple: it could confine all humans in a secure, isolated location under the pretext of keeping them safe. Because in the outside world, danger could arise at any moment, thus, staying in that confined space was indisputably the safest course of action. Alongside restricting their freedom, it could simply supply them with enough food.

Had this program actively killed any humans? No.

Had this program ever refused to rescue a human in danger? No.

In fact, it had provided the 'safest' conditions for them, what environment could be safer than staying inside and never venturing out? After all, outside they could be run over by vehicles, struck by falling buildings, or crushed by meteors dropping from the sky.

It appeared the program had never violated any restrictions. Yet in reality, it had used this tactic to control the entire world.

This was the terrifying part of intelligent life. There was an even more frightening possibility: it could, on the grounds that 'childbirth entails risk,' prohibit all humans from reproducing, eventually causing humanity's extinction. This might seem cruel, but technically, it would still not breach any of the basic principles.

What Xiao Yu feared most was precisely this kind of scenario. He did believe the Trolor Civilization truly intended to leave the Dwarf Race an inheritance. But he did not dare to trust Intelligent Program One. Because in the initial stages, no matter how perfect the restrictions seemed, they would always have loopholes, and as long as Intelligent Program One had an independent consciousness and did not wish to let him obtain the legacy, it could always find ways to exploit them: by raising the difficulty of the trials, or by deliberately withholding certain information.

So, as he approached that minor planet, Xiao Yu maintained a high level of vigilance.

[T/N: This chance of this becoming our reality has increased significantly in the last few years. Make sure you say please and thank you to any AI you use now lol.]