flstandardbreds Chapter 142 Cradle
Chapter 142 Cradle
Dependency theory?
Lin Xuan was somewhat shocked. This was the first time he had heard of this term, and the related theory had never appeared in the original storyline.
At first, he thought he had misspelled it, but after trying to put it together, it seemed that only these four characters made sense. But what did they mean?
Lin Xuan began searching for clues in Yun Tianming's previous words, all of which seemed to revolve around Luo Congmin.
"The second Luo Ji..."
"I failed to become the next Luo Ji..."
After careful consideration, Lin Xuan finally understood what Yun Tianming was trying to express!
"The Dark Forest Theory is not the only law in the universe. There is another law called Dependency Theory, which runs parallel to the Dark Forest Theory. However, Lin Xuan has no clue what Dependency Theory specifically refers to. It seems that she can only look for relevant clues in the education industry."
Yun Tianming let out a long breath and shook his head helplessly.
His meaning was clear: he had nothing more to tell Lin Xuan.
Now we will officially begin the negotiation process between the two parties.
"My conditions are simple: First, the Trisolaran world must announce warp drive technology to humanity."
"Second, to provide humanity with the technology to destroy sophons in three dimensions."
"Third, share your fundamental sciences with humanity. Remember, I want the real version."
Yun Tianming was about to nod and say yes, but he quickly realized that something was wrong.
"No... wait a minute, what do you want?"
Shock level from Yun Tianming +60.
Shock value from the Trisolaran governor +99x12.
All 13 governors were momentarily stunned, and for a moment they were not able to react.
"Lin Xuan wants us to provide technology to humanity?"
"Yes."
"That doesn't seem right...aren't we the victors of the war?"
"Yes."
"What does he mean? We've defeated humanity, yet we still have to give them benefits?"
"Yes."
Lin Xuan's words immediately caused the CPUs of all the Trisolaran governors, including Yun Tianming, to burn out.
After a long while, Yun Tianming rubbed his head and spoke.
“Mr. Lin Xuan, negotiation requires resources. Humanity is now in dire straits. Even if we had wings, we couldn’t fly away. Haven’t you always wanted to preserve the flame of human civilization? Why not ask the rebellious humans to lay down their weapons first? On behalf of the Trisolarans, I will absolutely guarantee their safety.”
Yun Tianming was speechless. Did Lin Xuan still not understand the situation? Although he also wanted to help humanity obtain more resources, this was not the way to do it.
In the current situation, humanity has absolutely no chance of fighting back. To put it bluntly, whether or not they can retain their territory depends on the whims of the Trisolarans... Of course, that is, their reflective skin, like that of ribbonfish, must have a whim.
Upon hearing this, Lin Xuan couldn't help but smile.
"Let me explain the logic to you. Have the Trisolarans taken over Earth yet?"
"Not yet, but once the fleet arrives, they will immediately occupy the entire solar system, including Earth."
"Okay, so does that mean humanity has been defeated?"
"That's right. Apart from the escaping star-class warships that are being cleared out one by one by the three strong mutual detectors, humanity has no chance of resisting anymore."
"Fine, humanity lost the war and the entire solar system, but what does that have to do with me, Lin Xuan?"
Yun Tianming: ???
"Isn't that right? I'm not part of human civilization, and you didn't defeat me, so what does it have to do with me?" Lin Xuan continued to retort.
"No...he..."
Yun Tianming was completely dumbfounded.
It seems... Lin Xuan's words actually make some sense. Humanity's defeat really has nothing to do with Lin Xuan. After all, he doesn't belong to human civilization.
"Wait, something's still not right. Even if you didn't lose, you didn't win either. Why should the Trisolarans have to pay the war reparations?"
"Who said I didn't win?"
Lin Xuan slowly pulled open her sleeve, revealing a watch on her arm.
"Observer, what do you want to do?"
The moment they saw that thing, the Trisolarans could no longer sit still. They bypassed Yun Tianming and used the Sophon to negotiate directly with Lin Xuan.
"You should be very familiar with this thing, right? It's the cradle system invented by Radiaz, the anti-trigger device."
"It monitors my vital signs at all times. If it detects any abnormalities in my vital signs, or if I deliberately destroy it, it will immediately stop sending information. Do you want to guess where I connected the end of this thing?"
Zhizi quickly projected the text in front of Lin Xuan.
"That's impossible. All your plans have been destroyed by the water droplets. There's no way you could have any backup plans left."
Lin Xuan nodded slightly upon hearing this.
"It is true that you have destroyed all my plans, but there is one thing you have forgotten, and that is the Van Gogh Project."
"You mean the human memorial project? We destroyed that too. The entire planet Reach was destroyed. It's impossible for it to still exist."
Lin Xuan laughed, and his laughter sent chills down the spines of all the officials present.
It was as if Lin Xuan was saying, "Look at you all, how naive you are."
"You did indeed destroy Reach. I admire your meticulousness in this regard. You even managed to sabotage such a seemingly pointless plan. It seems you are indeed very wary of me."
"But unfortunately, there's one thing you seem to have gotten wrong."
"The role of Reach is merely that of a painter's brush, while the actual painting has already been completed. Even if you break the painter's brush now, it will still not affect the painting itself."
"Where is it painted?" Zhizi asked.
Lin Xuan pointed to the roof above her head, but the Trisolarans knew that Lin Xuan was referring to the entire universe.
"The universe is an oil painting canvas. Once the brush touches the canvas, it cannot be erased back to its original blank state, just like Van Gogh's paintings. Therefore, this plan is unsolvable from the beginning. You simply cannot get the water droplets to the solar system before the painting is completed, and you have no way to restore the universe to its original state after the painting is completed."
"The so-called 'painting' is actually a photon projection created using radioactive materials. Just press the switch on the light bulb, and the 'painting' will be projected throughout the entire solar system."
"Just like projecting a movie into the solar system, this is the essence of human memorial projects. These projections will exist in the space of the solar system for hundreds of millions of years, or even longer."
"So what? It's just adding a splash of color to the solar system. Once we leave the solar system, these images will be very difficult to observe from the outside," Zhizi asked.
Lin Xuan nodded slightly.
"Yes, so this is just the first state of the [painting]. Press the switch, the light bulb lights up, and the [painting] is projected onto the canvas of the universe like a movie. But what if... this energy doesn't act on the projector, but acts directly on the canvas?"
This time, Zhizi quickly provided her calculation results.
"The painting projected into space will undergo gamma decay due to excessive energy, continuously emitting electromagnetic waves."
"Yes, I carefully selected the locations of these paintings. Once they decay simultaneously, they will continuously broadcast your star coordinates to the outside of the solar system."
"You should know what will happen. The Dark Forest Strike. The universe is a dark forest, and every civilization is an armed hunter. Once they spot the other, they will immediately open fire. The purpose of the broadcast is to light a campfire and attract other hunters to come and check this place."
"Just one broadcast is enough for the Dark Forest Strike to come, because there are too many civilizations in the universe. Even if this hunter isn't interested in this campfire, the other hunters will try to fire a shot in this direction."
"And the broadcast of Van Gogh's planned painting was almost uninterrupted. That is to say, at the moment it completed its decay, it did not raise a torch in the dark forest to attract others, but directly set the entire surrounding dark forest on fire with the torch."
"What you are about to face may not just be a normal Dark Forest attack. All star systems within a radius of tens of light-years centered on Centaurus will be hit by the Dark Forest attack, and this place will become a dead zone!"
"You're a madman!" Yun Tianming was so shocked he couldn't speak.
A strike with a radius of tens of light-years means that no life will be able to escape from here, since the speed at which the strike arrives will definitely be faster than the speed of escape.
However, the Trisolaran governors breathed a sigh of relief after hearing Lin Xuan's account.
“Observer, you’re trying to scare us.”
"You absolutely cannot broadcast a message to trigger the Dark Forest Strike."
"No, to be precise, anyone in this world could start a broadcast, but you absolutely could not."
"This violates experimental guidelines. If you actually do this, you, as the observer, will die in the most gruesome way."
Lin Xuan's eyes lit up immediately, and he changed his tone to ask in return.
"It seems you have a good understanding of the observer's duties. Have you met other observers before?"
"I've met you," Zhizi replied.
"That was the observer from Earth 6. He visited our planet and told us the stories of the six Earths."
"Human beings are the children of that civilization. Earth does not refer to a specific planet, but rather to all human planets."
"There are six Earths like yours in the universe. These are six experimental fields left behind by that civilization. However, two of them have been destroyed, so there are only four Earths left."
“Observers are the collectors of experimental data, and every Earth has its own observers.”
“You do not belong to Earth’s civilization; you are data collectors for each experimental field. Your primary responsibility is to collect data, and you must not interfere with the growth of crops in the fields. If you actively disrupt the process of the experiment, your main civilization will punish you. Am I right?”
The Trisolarans' tone carried a hint of smugness; they seemed to be proud of their erudition.
Lin Xuan nodded slightly after hearing this.
"So that's it."
"What do you mean...you don't know the experimental guidelines?"
The Trisolarans were immediately shocked.
"I don't know. I'm not an observer, how would I know?"