NCCnovel Chapter 140 Curse: The Dark Forest
Chapter 140 Curse: The Dark Forest
"This is... an observation station!"
Luo Ji pressed his face against the glass, looking at the building in front of him, and was immediately surprised.
“The Hubble Space Telescope Observatory is the fifth observatory built after you went into hibernation, Dad. Its main purpose is to monitor the star 187J3X1,” Luo Congmin said.
"Why is no one here?" Luo Ji asked.
"After you were stripped of your Wallfacer status, your Wallfacer project was deemed a pointless project by them, so only a few people were left here to continue the observation."
"Later, after they confirmed that the star 187J3X1 still existed, they completely lost interest in observing the star, which is the fundamental basis for their teasing you as a charlatan."
Upon hearing this, Ding Yi, who was standing nearby, slammed his fist on the table in anger.
"This is utter nonsense. These people are just messing around. When doing academic research, you have to get to the bottom of things. They give up on observation before even getting the final results. This is a desecration of scientific experiments. How is this any different from those academic fraudsters who get professorships by just producing quick experimental results?"
Luo Ji: ???
"No, why do I keep getting the feeling that you're making veiled criticisms?"
“The transport ship’s final destination is here. Lin Xuan probably wants us to come here to hide for a while, but it’s hard to say. He and Thomas Wade are both cunning and scheming. Who knows what other motives they might have?” said Radiaz.
"Let's go down and take a look. Maybe we'll find something." Wang Miao tossed the popcorn aside and wiped his mouth with a tissue.
"You guys go ahead, I'll stay and watch the spaceship." Wei Cheng lay on the bed, turned over, and continued sleeping.
Finally, led by Radiaz, the crew of the spacecraft entered the observation station located in space one after another.
“It looks like no one has been here for a long time,” Luo Ji said.
Wang Miao took out his ID card, swiped it to open the access control. He had personally built almost all the space projects, so he had access to most of the space buildings.
"Teach me how to use this thing."
Luo Ji gestured for Wang Miao to come forward, and the latter then demonstrated to Luo Ji how to use the observation station to see what he wanted.
After getting familiar with the operation, Luo Ji aimed the Hubble Telescope at the star 187J3X1.
He was stunned for a moment.
"what happened?"
Luo Congmin thought something had happened to her father, so she rushed over to check on him, only to be stunned.
"Star 187J3X1 has been destroyed."
"This... how is this possible? It was there just a few months ago." Wang Miao looked at the now-vanished star 187J3X1 on the screen and said in surprise.
"What does this mean? Was Luo Ji's experiment successful?" Radiaz asked.
“Hmm, that should be the case, but is it possible that star 187J3X1 destroyed itself?” Zhang Xiang, who had been silent until now, asked.
Bai Bing, also an astronomer, shook his head.
"Impossible. The 187J3X1 star couldn't have destroyed itself. It's quite stable and could have existed for a long time. Now that it's suddenly gone, it must have been destroyed by something!"
"But what does this prove?" This question arose in everyone's mind, and then they all turned their gazes to Luo Ji, waiting for his explanation.
"The Dark Forest Theory." Luo Ji simply uttered these few words.
"what?"
"There are two axioms in the universe: first, survival is the primary need of civilization; second, civilization continues to grow and expand, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains constant."
Luo Ji's voice was deep and resonant, as if it came from the center of a distant black hole. He was explaining to everyone present a law of death in the universe.
"and then?"
"There is no more."
"Just these two?" Wang Miao was somewhat surprised.
"Just these two." Luo Ji's voice remained calm; at this moment, he seemed like a completely different person.
"I don't quite understand. How can you deduce anything from such a small amount of information?" Wang Miao was still puzzled.
But Luo Congmin, standing to the side, seemed to have realized something.
"Dad, I studied sociology for a while before. These two axioms you mentioned are actually also mentioned in human sociology. So, are you saying that the laws governing the universe are actually similar to those governing human society?"
“Yes.” Luo Ji nodded.
"You can use something you're most familiar with as an example, and I'll help you complete the derivation."
Upon hearing this, Luo Congmin thought for a moment.
"Let's keep it simple. I used to write online novels for a while, and there are certain sociological relationships between authors. Let's take that as an example."
"Okay, let's do axiom substitution. Give it a try, it should be easy, you just need to replace the nouns."
Luo Ji seemed somewhat gratified. He hadn't expected that the first person to understand his theory would be his own daughter. Could this be considered a kind of genetic inheritance?
"Hmm... So, to put it another way, readers are the primary need of a novel, and secondly, while the word count of a novel continues to increase, the total number of readers remains constant?"
“Yes, yes!” Luo Ji nodded.
"Then I'll introduce two more concepts to you: chain of suspicion and technological explosion. Can you find the corresponding terms in the novel?"
“Okay!” Luo Congmin said.
“When I was writing my novel, the authors didn’t know each other, so we were separated by the internet, making communication inconvenient. This situation seems similar to the formation of a chain of suspicion, doesn’t it?”
"Yes, I guess so. What about the other one?"
"Well... um, I've got it! The recommendation slot. When we were writing novels, good works would get recommended, and works that got recommended would gain a lot of readers. That effect should be similar to the technology explosion, right?"
"Moreover, the recommendation mechanism is based on big data and is given to readers in a quantitative way. For example, once a certain threshold is exceeded, the system will no longer recommend new readers, which also reflects the characteristic that the total amount of matter is fixed."
"Smart!" Luo Ji couldn't help but praise.
"Now let's build a model. Like you said, let's say we're both authors who don't know each other right now, and we're both writing the same type of novel together. After you find out about each other's existence, what would you do?"
“I chose to communicate with you and share my writing experience,” Luo Congmin said.
“Okay, now that I have your writing experience, I can incorporate it into my book. This way, my book will have more readers than yours, and I'll have a better chance of getting featured on better recommendation lists,” Luo Ji said with a smile.
"Then can't I incorporate your experience?" Luo Congmin countered.
"Sure, but how do you know if the experience I give you is correct?" Luo Ji hit the nail on the head, leaving Luo Congmin speechless for a while.
"If I give you the wrong experience, and you give me the wrong experience, then I will not believe your experience, and you will not believe me either, and a chain of suspicion will be formed."
"Then I choose not to share my experience with you. I'll work behind closed doors and make a fortune quietly. You can't lie to me about that, can you?"
"Sure, but if you're already better than me, wouldn't all the readers go to your side?"
"What if I'm weaker than you? My books are terrible, but you can't expect me to be hostile towards you, can you?"
"Have you forgotten about the explosion of technology? Once you get on the recommended list, you'll likely become more powerful than me and take away my readers."
"Well... if our strengths are about the same, we can at least communicate, right?"
“It still won’t work. I’ve said it before, the total amount of matter in the universe remains constant. The moment I knew you existed, we were already mortal enemies. It’s true that those who work in the same trade are bound to be enemies,” Luo Ji said.
"Since silence and communication are both ineffective... it seems I only have one path left to take: report your book until it's taken down..." Luo Congmin said in disbelief.
Luo Ji nodded slightly.
“But that’s not right. If everyone did that, wouldn’t there be no books left in the world?” Luo Congmin asked again.
"Yes, that's because different types of books have different reader groups. It's like two civilizations living in different dimensions. The Dark Forest Theory only applies to the same dimension. Once two civilizations are not in the same dimension, the rule becomes invalid because the substances they need to survive are not the same."
"Moreover, I only made a hypothetical model. After all, the number of readers of novels is not a group of people that will remain unchanged forever, but the total amount of the universe will not increase. This is a battle royale. We and other civilizations living in the three-dimensional world are civilizations with resource conflicts. Once discovered, we will be attacked by the dark forest."
Luo Congmin nodded slightly.
"Dad, I understand your theory, but I still feel that your analogy is not quite appropriate. After all, when we write novels, we are already aware of the existence of similar novels. Wouldn't that mean that everyone would be constantly engaging in a dark forest attack on each other?"
"So what do you think would happen if you kept reporting everyone?"
"He'll probably get beaten up by a mob. After all, something so despicable would definitely get him beaten to death," Luo Congmin said.
So, do you understand now?
Upon hearing this, Luo Congmin's eyes lit up!
"I understand. Dark Forest Strike will definitely follow two principles: randomness and economy. Each strike will consume a lot of energy, but if... I mean if, there are as many civilizations in the universe as there are novel authors on the market, then if they want to carry out Dark Forest Strike on others, they will definitely use the most time-saving and labor-saving method."
"Therefore, their targets must be those most likely to pose a threat to them; in terms of civilizations, these are the civilizations that have the greatest potential for development."
"After all, there are so many civilizations in the universe and so many authors in the world. It would be unwise to report everyone. It would be like launching a Dark Forest attack on an empty star, a waste of resources."
"Therefore, we must confirm that there is indeed a civilization on this planet, and that it has developed to a certain level, before we attack it."
"It's like when you publish your novel's achievements, you'll immediately be reported by envious authors."
"Dad, the so-called curse you released before was actually just a disguise for 187J3X1 Star, using your novel's success to attract other novelists to attack 187J3X1 Star. Am I right?"
"Yes, that's right," Luo Ji said with a smile.
"Then why not just unleash a curse on the Trisolaran civilization from the beginning?" Wang Miao asked, puzzled.
"Because I can't be sure if this theory is valid," Luo Ji said.
"There's another reason, I guess. My dad probably thinks the Trisolaran civilization is too close to our Earth and would be easy to detect. It's like when you criticize a novel, the recommendation system will recommend similar novels to you. If two books with very similar themes are criticized, the other one will also be criticized."
“But it’s too late now. The sun is locked, and you can no longer cast curses,” Ding Yi said helplessly.
"Actually... it's not too late."
At that moment, Radiaz suddenly spoke slowly.
“A while ago, right after PDC was destroyed, I wasn’t going to be executed, but I did have the idea of destroying all of humanity. So, to avoid suspicion, Lin Xuan gave me a mission to go out and lay low for a while.”
"I didn't understand its purpose before. I thought it was just a simple way to build dust clouds to monitor the movements of the Trisolaran fleet, but now I guess what it's for."
"What mission?" Luo Congmin was taken aback. She knew nothing about this, which meant that the mission had been underway before she took office.
"He had me deploy thousands of stellar-class hydrogen bombs on the dust cloud, saying that these things would be useless in the future and were to be destroyed collectively. Incidentally, the dust cloud could be spread out and used as a 'snowfield' to detect the Trisolaran fleet's tracks. This mission is called—Project Snowfield!"