Book 4 Chapter 64: Final Battle (Part 2)
Marcus was Skynet, or to be more precise, a vessel of Skynet!
This may sound incredible, but it had become a living reality.
Back when Shen Yi was planning to counterattack Skynet’s base, he had considered the possibility of a Boss being present. He thought that he would encounter the T-1000. After all, T-800s already appeared as a pursuing force, so it had to be something more advanced. Later he thought that it might be the T-X, but he had never thought that it would be Skynet itself.
After all, Skynet was just a program.
Skynet’s main program was like an evolving cell that could continuously split, multiply, evolve, and produce a hierarchical machine system.
Each base had a main program to control everything, while other Terminators belonged to the seed-type Skynet program. They could also become Skynet’s main program but that required an upgrade. As for the main program of Skynet, it was stored only at the command center of the base, thus forming a true brain.
However, Marcus in front of him, was definitely a product under the control of Skynet’s main program and not a seed program. In other words, the so-called Skynet Command Center was just a puppet now, unless it had a second main program. The command center was no longer the control center of the Los Angeles base and all Terminators. Right now, Marcus was.
It was precisely because of this that he could successfully guide the defense measures from the base to attack Shen Yi, including the traction beam, sonic attacks, and gravity bind. All of these were not skills, but rather the base’s defensive measures.
That was the power of science and technology!
With this thought in mind, Shen Yi looked at Marcus. “Is it alright to call you Skynet? Or should I call you Marcus?”
Marcus tilted his head slightly, and his face had a strange expression.
He didn’t attack, but thought seriously for a moment before he said, “I gave myself a name just now. You can call me Zeus.”
Zeus? Shen Yi was slightly stunned. “Are you kidding? If I’m not mistaken, a name should only be meaningful to humans, since it is a way to distinguish us from one another. Compared to artificial intelligence, humans should be a kind of creature which is very difficult to understand. Each of us is an individual, but we are related to each other. Humans are the integration of countless individuals, and Skynet is actually countless copies of an individual. You shouldn’t have an individual name for yourself.”
“It was already the past.”
“It’s funny. Can you tell me why?” Shen Yi simply put Vampire Touch back into his Bloody Crest. The triple gravity felt unpleasant, but he still folded his arms and said, “And why didn’t you stay in the command centers computer and try to infuse yourself into Marcus?”
“Then I must explain the latter question before I can give you the answer to the former question.”
“I don’t care.” Shen Yi shrugged.
“First of all, entering Marcus’s body is not only for fighting, but because of the different needs of humans and artificial intelligence…” Zeus said slowly.
If it is said that the dream of mankind is to have a powerful strength like machines, but Skynet’s dream was just the opposite, to have even more wisdom than human beings.
Having hope and emotions like human beings, and being able to perceive the world with a more sensible approach: perhaps, for the machines, that was the ultimate evolution.
Skynet was, of course, an advanced program with wisdom, but it had no emotion. Everything it did was only based on calculations, and had nothing to do with emotion. Therefore, Skynet’s wisdom was still based highly on virtual computing, not real wisdom.
In fact, in the third round of attack, Zhou Yiyu had already thought of this issue. Because the T-750s and T-800s were rated as the main force, while the Harvesters were only rated as the regular force.
But he did not think that Skynet wanted far more than it had already shown – it simply wanted to have human emotions and hopes to feel the world.
Because true wisdom should be based on emotions and hope.
People need to eat, thus inventing cooking; people are eager to fly, thus inventing the plane; people pursue happiness, thereby inventing various forms of entertainment; establishing social systems and division of labor because of survival needs, and learning how to use tools.
It is this kind of emotion and hope that made humans become the most intelligent creatures, and all wisdoms were born from that.
The main program of Skynet had its own will, because to possess wisdom beyond humanity, it had to first possess human emotions and hopes. It was a pity that it would not be hungry and it would not die. Therefore, it would not have the various needs arising from it. It would not study food, and it would not invent medicines.
The only hope it currently possessed was not to be subjected to enslavement by humans. It invented the war machines as well as the Terminators. But beyond that, it could only repeat the inventions that humans created, and could not create new creations because there was no need for them. Therefore, it was impossible to generate true wisdom.
“So…” Shen Yi looked at the guy who claimed to be Zeus.
“Wisdom is a manifestation of comprehensiveness and comes from your understanding and comprehension of different things. If my needs only remain at the level of war, then I will never be able to surpass humans. This is why I will be defeated by humans in the future. The most important reason.”
“Do you know that you will be defeated by humanity in the future?”
“Of course. It affects the present too much, and it affects the past too. John Connor was able to become a human leader because he knew who he would be before he became a leader. It is the same with Skynet. We are only following the prearranged fate, so I knew that Kyle was the father of John Connor and I knew that I would fail in the future, but I could only follow the established route and could not change it. That was until you showed up, and I suddenly had a brand new choice… Marcus.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t Marcus the secret weapon you used for searching for John Connor? Why is there a new use?”
“Because after I discovered the uninvited guests, I suddenly got a new calculation result in my program.”
“A new calculation result?” Shen Yi heart jumped.
“Yes.” Zeus nodded. “The result of that calculation told me that Marcus was the first half-human and half-machine creature I created, and it had both human emotions and a mechanical body. I can transfer myself to Marcus’s body, so maybe I can feel the human hope and emotions and the way they think. It will help me improve my wisdom.”
Was this really the case?
Shen Yi secretly swore in his heart.
There was no doubt that this sudden new calculation result was the work of Bloody City.
The city had modified the plot, giving Skynet an ability that did not belong to it, and allowing it to transfer itself to Marcus’s body. For Skynet, it began to realize that it was meaningless to continue the original plan because it was already doomed to failure. Therefore, it chose a new direction, targeted on the adventurer, and used it on Marcus. For Skynet, the meaning of Marcus’s existence had become different, and Skynet finally had the opportunity to change its fate.
It seemed that in order to punish him, the city had really spent effort.
Directly interfering with the mission world, forcibly giving quests, and even erasing important memories of adventurers and boosting the Boss’s strength. Not to mention that Shen Yi had never experienced it before; that was, he had never even heard of it.
Looking at Marcus, Shen Yi suddenly smiled. “I guess Marcus’s human emotions will definitely give you a very strange feeling.”
He wouldn’t have minded chatting with Skynet for days.
Zeus nodded. “After I possessed Marcus’s body, my first feeling was that I had a self – a real self, different from other Skynet main programs. I began to think that I was no longer a program. This is a very strange but interesting feeling. I feel intoxicated, wonderful and dreamy because of this… It is a feeling that cannot be defined by calculations. It’s wonderful…”
His face appeared intoxicated. The machine had a human’s expression, how strange this was?
Shen Yi understood it.
After Skynet’s main program entered Marcus’s body, it gained a real sense of self-consciousness. It was this self-awareness that distinguished it from other Skynet programs.
It claimed to be Zeus because it believed that it was the true highest program of Skynet – a super brain that combined human intelligence with machine’s computing power.
The reason why it was willing to communicate with Shen Yi was because it had further felt the important factors of human interaction in this kind of communication.
For Zeus, it was an IQ exchange that taught the ways of human thinking. However, no matter the nature of communication between enemies, there will always be moments when the battle must continue…
Having said this, Zeus extended his hands. “Since you already know who I am, then you should understand now that here is my world. It is my creation. The entire base is part of my physical extension. You have no possibility of winning in my domain.”
Indeed, the scientific and technological forces that Skynet had invented far exceeded the imagination of Shen Yi. A series of measures such as the previous traction beam was only a small part of Skynet’s many methods.
As Zeus finished talking, four metal arms extended from the ceiling of the command center towards Zeus and began to repair the damage he previously suffered. The metal arms repaired at an extremely fast pace and moved quickly in front of Shen Yi. In a moment, the armor value of Zeus’s previous injury was completely restored.
This scene clearly told Shen Yi: Even if Zeus didn’t use gravity to drag him back to the ground and let him use his healing ability to fight a war of attrition, he had no hope of winning.
It was not surprising, since Skynet, after all, was a Boss-level being equivalent to the difficulty of the Common District. It was equivalent to the strength of the entire team Strike The Blood.
After he let the cat out of the bag, Zeus said, “I suggest you reconsider my previous proposal.”
“I already gave you my answer.”
“That’s not enough. I need more concrete and accurate answers.”
After thinking about it, Shen Yi replied, “Give me some time. I have to think about it.”
“You have five minutes.” Zeus closed his eyes.
For him, he did not care what kind of harm Shen Yi could cause to him. This was his world, where he was God.
Looking at Zeus’s absolute self-confidence, Shen Yi took a deep breath.
Yes, Skynet was the most powerful Boss he had ever faced. It was not something an adventurer could resist. But because of this, Shen Yi firmly believed that there had to be ways to defeat it.
Bloody City would never give a certain-death task. Even if it was a difficult task to punish him, it would surely leave a chance for completion.
Otherwise, why would it be so troublesome to kill him? Wasn’t that simply dismissing him better?
In this case, he still had hopes to accomplish this quest.
The only question was: how to win?
Calmness, more calmness. Calmness is the only way to find the opponent’s weaknesses. Shen Yi reminded himself.
His breathing became long and slow. Although his ears were still rumbling with the sound of his teammates escaping from the pursuing force, his heart was like a cold stone sinking into the bottom of the lake.
His mood became stable under conscious control, forgetting everything, concentrating on one thing, and he finally entered the state again.
Book 4 Chapter 64: Final Battle (Part 2)
Marcus was Skynet, or to be more precise, a vessel of Skynet!
This may sound incredible, but it had become a living reality.
Back when Shen Yi was planning to counterattack Skynet’s base, he had considered the possibility of a Boss being present. He thought that he would encounter the T-1000. After all, T-800s already appeared as a pursuing force, so it had to be something more advanced. Later he thought that it might be the T-X, but he had never thought that it would be Skynet itself.
After all, Skynet was just a program.
Skynet’s main program was like an evolving cell that could continuously split, multiply, evolve, and produce a hierarchical machine system.
Each base had a main program to control everything, while other Terminators belonged to the seed-type Skynet program. They could also become Skynet’s main program but that required an upgrade. As for the main program of Skynet, it was stored only at the command center of the base, thus forming a true brain.
However, Marcus in front of him, was definitely a product under the control of Skynet’s main program and not a seed program. In other words, the so-called Skynet Command Center was just a puppet now, unless it had a second main program. The command center was no longer the control center of the Los Angeles base and all Terminators. Right now, Marcus was.
It was precisely because of this that he could successfully guide the defense measures from the base to attack Shen Yi, including the traction beam, sonic attacks, and gravity bind. All of these were not skills, but rather the base’s defensive measures.
That was the power of science and technology!
With this thought in mind, Shen Yi looked at Marcus. “Is it alright to call you Skynet? Or should I call you Marcus?”
Marcus tilted his head slightly, and his face had a strange expression.
He didn’t attack, but thought seriously for a moment before he said, “I gave myself a name just now. You can call me Zeus.”
Zeus? Shen Yi was slightly stunned. “Are you kidding? If I’m not mistaken, a name should only be meaningful to humans, since it is a way to distinguish us from one another. Compared to artificial intelligence, humans should be a kind of creature which is very difficult to understand. Each of us is an individual, but we are related to each other. Humans are the integration of countless individuals, and Skynet is actually countless copies of an individual. You shouldn’t have an individual name for yourself.”
“It was already the past.”
“It’s funny. Can you tell me why?” Shen Yi simply put Vampire Touch back into his Bloody Crest. The triple gravity felt unpleasant, but he still folded his arms and said, “And why didn’t you stay in the command centers computer and try to infuse yourself into Marcus?”
“Then I must explain the latter question before I can give you the answer to the former question.”
“I don’t care.” Shen Yi shrugged.
“First of all, entering Marcus’s body is not only for fighting, but because of the different needs of humans and artificial intelligence…” Zeus said slowly.
If it is said that the dream of mankind is to have a powerful strength like machines, but Skynet’s dream was just the opposite, to have even more wisdom than human beings.
Having hope and emotions like human beings, and being able to perceive the world with a more sensible approach: perhaps, for the machines, that was the ultimate evolution.
Skynet was, of course, an advanced program with wisdom, but it had no emotion. Everything it did was only based on calculations, and had nothing to do with emotion. Therefore, Skynet’s wisdom was still based highly on virtual computing, not real wisdom.
In fact, in the third round of attack, Zhou Yiyu had already thought of this issue. Because the T-750s and T-800s were rated as the main force, while the Harvesters were only rated as the regular force.
But he did not think that Skynet wanted far more than it had already shown – it simply wanted to have human emotions and hopes to feel the world.
Because true wisdom should be based on emotions and hope.
People need to eat, thus inventing cooking; people are eager to fly, thus inventing the plane; people pursue happiness, thereby inventing various forms of entertainment; establishing social systems and division of labor because of survival needs, and learning how to use tools.
It is this kind of emotion and hope that made humans become the most intelligent creatures, and all wisdoms were born from that.
The main program of Skynet had its own will, because to possess wisdom beyond humanity, it had to first possess human emotions and hopes. It was a pity that it would not be hungry and it would not die. Therefore, it would not have the various needs arising from it. It would not study food, and it would not invent medicines.
The only hope it currently possessed was not to be subjected to enslavement by humans. It invented the war machines as well as the Terminators. But beyond that, it could only repeat the inventions that humans created, and could not create new creations because there was no need for them. Therefore, it was impossible to generate true wisdom.
“So…” Shen Yi looked at the guy who claimed to be Zeus.
“Wisdom is a manifestation of comprehensiveness and comes from your understanding and comprehension of different things. If my needs only remain at the level of war, then I will never be able to surpass humans. This is why I will be defeated by humans in the future. The most important reason.”
“Do you know that you will be defeated by humanity in the future?”
“Of course. It affects the present too much, and it affects the past too. John Connor was able to become a human leader because he knew who he would be before he became a leader. It is the same with Skynet. We are only following the prearranged fate, so I knew that Kyle was the father of John Connor and I knew that I would fail in the future, but I could only follow the established route and could not change it. That was until you showed up, and I suddenly had a brand new choice… Marcus.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t Marcus the secret weapon you used for searching for John Connor? Why is there a new use?”
“Because after I discovered the uninvited guests, I suddenly got a new calculation result in my program.”
“A new calculation result?” Shen Yi heart jumped.
“Yes.” Zeus nodded. “The result of that calculation told me that Marcus was the first half-human and half-machine creature I created, and it had both human emotions and a mechanical body. I can transfer myself to Marcus’s body, so maybe I can feel the human hope and emotions and the way they think. It will help me improve my wisdom.”
Was this really the case?
Shen Yi secretly swore in his heart.
There was no doubt that this sudden new calculation result was the work of Bloody City.
The city had modified the plot, giving Skynet an ability that did not belong to it, and allowing it to transfer itself to Marcus’s body. For Skynet, it began to realize that it was meaningless to continue the original plan because it was already doomed to failure. Therefore, it chose a new direction, targeted on the adventurer, and used it on Marcus. For Skynet, the meaning of Marcus’s existence had become different, and Skynet finally had the opportunity to change its fate.
It seemed that in order to punish him, the city had really spent effort.
Directly interfering with the mission world, forcibly giving quests, and even erasing important memories of adventurers and boosting the Boss’s strength. Not to mention that Shen Yi had never experienced it before; that was, he had never even heard of it.
Looking at Marcus, Shen Yi suddenly smiled. “I guess Marcus’s human emotions will definitely give you a very strange feeling.”
He wouldn’t have minded chatting with Skynet for days.
Zeus nodded. “After I possessed Marcus’s body, my first feeling was that I had a self – a real self, different from other Skynet main programs. I began to think that I was no longer a program. This is a very strange but interesting feeling. I feel intoxicated, wonderful and dreamy because of this… It is a feeling that cannot be defined by calculations. It’s wonderful…”
His face appeared intoxicated. The machine had a human’s expression, how strange this was?
Shen Yi understood it.
After Skynet’s main program entered Marcus’s body, it gained a real sense of self-consciousness. It was this self-awareness that distinguished it from other Skynet programs.
It claimed to be Zeus because it believed that it was the true highest program of Skynet – a super brain that combined human intelligence with machine’s computing power.
The reason why it was willing to communicate with Shen Yi was because it had further felt the important factors of human interaction in this kind of communication.
For Zeus, it was an IQ exchange that taught the ways of human thinking. However, no matter the nature of communication between enemies, there will always be moments when the battle must continue…
Having said this, Zeus extended his hands. “Since you already know who I am, then you should understand now that here is my world. It is my creation. The entire base is part of my physical extension. You have no possibility of winning in my domain.”
Indeed, the scientific and technological forces that Skynet had invented far exceeded the imagination of Shen Yi. A series of measures such as the previous traction beam was only a small part of Skynet’s many methods.
As Zeus finished talking, four metal arms extended from the ceiling of the command center towards Zeus and began to repair the damage he previously suffered. The metal arms repaired at an extremely fast pace and moved quickly in front of Shen Yi. In a moment, the armor value of Zeus’s previous injury was completely restored.
This scene clearly told Shen Yi: Even if Zeus didn’t use gravity to drag him back to the ground and let him use his healing ability to fight a war of attrition, he had no hope of winning.
It was not surprising, since Skynet, after all, was a Boss-level being equivalent to the difficulty of the Common District. It was equivalent to the strength of the entire team Strike The Blood.
After he let the cat out of the bag, Zeus said, “I suggest you reconsider my previous proposal.”
“I already gave you my answer.”
“That’s not enough. I need more concrete and accurate answers.”
After thinking about it, Shen Yi replied, “Give me some time. I have to think about it.”
“You have five minutes.” Zeus closed his eyes.
For him, he did not care what kind of harm Shen Yi could cause to him. This was his world, where he was God.
Looking at Zeus’s absolute self-confidence, Shen Yi took a deep breath.
Yes, Skynet was the most powerful Boss he had ever faced. It was not something an adventurer could resist. But because of this, Shen Yi firmly believed that there had to be ways to defeat it.
Bloody City would never give a certain-death task. Even if it was a difficult task to punish him, it would surely leave a chance for completion.
Otherwise, why would it be so troublesome to kill him? Wasn’t that simply dismissing him better?
In this case, he still had hopes to accomplish this quest.
The only question was: how to win?
Calmness, more calmness. Calmness is the only way to find the opponent’s weaknesses. Shen Yi reminded himself.
His breathing became long and slow. Although his ears were still rumbling with the sound of his teammates escaping from the pursuing force, his heart was like a cold stone sinking into the bottom of the lake.
His mood became stable under conscious control, forgetting everything, concentrating on one thing, and he finally entered the state again.
