Chapter 1558 - Humanity (2/2)

As he said he turned to N-6 who was not too far away and saw N-6 having the same dumbfounded expression. It was clear that the humans did not look like this in the executor’s memory.

Vivian frowned again. “Since when did the humans become like this?”

“The mutation was happening all along without any specific starting point. Ever since the war started, or when the creators had escaped their homeworld, the Devourer’s curse was already imprinted on them.” the emotionless synthesized voice spoke. “Before creating the executors, they have already realized that they will not be able to escape the Devourer’s powers. This power was beyond comprehension and will be the end of their civilization. The birth of newborn fell, fatal disease and mutation increased. Many thousands escaped the homeland, but their population fell year on year. That’s why they had created the executors, for the executors to execute their will, to take back their home.

The Cortex Prime continued, “In the first thousand years, humans were still moving among the executors and they had taught the executors plenty of things during that period, including how to think: After that, due to mutations and deteriorating physique, human could barely maintain the societal functions and they created the Great Think Tank, and turned all human knowledge and thought process into data that can be downloaded and understood by the executors. At the same time, they created me, and have me the responsibility of protecting and guiding the society. Another thousand years later, the genetic deterioration had reached a critical point and humans could no longer live within the fortress ambient environment and they were forced to go into the support tanks.

“Another thousand years later, there were no more new births, and humans lived on with the help of the support tanks.

“After another thousand years later, they started losing their form and even lost their individuality and looked more like primitive cell clusters. In the ancient historical texts, such cells were indeed found on the homeworld, that was when the Devourer unleashed the Crimson Blood Tide, and everything that came into contact with the tide was rapidly dissolved into these cell clusters.”

“And then… it is what you see now.”

Vivian was still frowning. “…The executors outside had no idea of this?”

She turned towards N-6 and found the latter was stunned to the point of having a system shutdown. She had her answer.

“The secret was buried deep within the fortress.” the Cortex Prime answered. “The normal executors did not know what happened to the humans.”

“Because it’ll lead to their breakdown?” Lily asked.

“The executor’s task is to help humans retake the homeworld, and this is imprinted in the memory core of every executor off the production line.” the Cortex Prime answered. “Without humans, what are we?”

Hao Ren’s gaze traveled between the stunned N-6 and the container in the middle of the room, looking deep in thought.

“For so many years, the human condition was getting worse.” He looked up, talking into the void, but he knew that the Cortex Prime was looking. “After hitting the critical point a few years back, and that caused your malfunctions?”

“Humans have created me, for me to serve them, but they never told me what I should do if they were gone.” the Cortex Prime said plainly. “For the past thousands of years, my mission was what they had entrusted me to. To build the moon base, to expand the executor’s society, to create an army, to invade the homeworld. This was all because the humans needed me to do so.”

Hao Ren then let out a sigh. “And now, the ‘humans’ are disappearing.”

This was the cause of the fatal malfunction.

He had noticed that the humans had created the Cortex Prime and the Executors differently. The Executors is an extreme copy of humanity, from speech to their thought process was akin to that of a human; an intelligent unit with emotions. On the other hand, the Cortex Prime was a powerful supercomputer than lacked emotions and the ability to perform vague calculations. This setup was meant for the long term, to ensure the stability of the Executor’s society, and probably to ensure that the ultimate goal of ‘retaking the homeworld’ does not change. Regardless, the results of the design had veered far from the original plan.

The current level of technology could not prevent the extinction of humanity, and the rigid logic system of the Cortex Prime could only come to a conclusion: It could no longer complete the mission it was entrusted.

So it started malfunctioning, wrecked with confusion, it went into a self-destructive countdown.

“Do the ‘humans’ still have any thought capability? Or can they still communicate?” Hao Ren asked.

“…That was a thing in the past,” the Cortex Prime answered.

Just as Hao Ren thought, there were no more humans to fix the logical deadlock of the Cortex Prime. They perhaps had a chance once, but it was now too late.