232: Chapter 232 Technological Gains: Research on "Abnormal Technology"

"Ark" City, the "Forbidden Zone" laboratory in the deepest part of the Research Center.

This place is completely physically isolated from the outside world. The thick alloy walls are lined with multiple layers of energy shielding, and even quantum communications are transmitted through special encrypted channels. Only top scientists who have passed the strictest vetting can enter here, along with—those last legacies of the old era that need to be "dissected."

Dr. Elena Chen stood before a massive holographic projection, her fingers lightly swiping across the console. In the projection, three sets of complex 3D models were slowly rotating: the gravity weapon core of the "Hades" platform, the AI logic architecture of the "avengers" fleet, and a slowly decaying nano-coating sample extracted from the wreckage of a destroyed "avengers" craft.

Behind her sat a dozen core members of the GDA Research Committee, as well as—Lin Mo, connected remotely via encrypted communication.

"Everyone," Dr. Chen's voice echoed in the silent laboratory, "we have spent two full months conducting the most thorough and comprehensive reverse engineering study to date on all technological products related to the 'pluto project' that we captured. Today, it is time to announce our conclusions."

She paused, her gaze sweeping across every solemn face present.

"The conclusion is brief, yet shocking—these things are not 'technology' at all. They are 'poison' cloaked in the guise of technology. They are a lethal poison brewed by the old era in a mixture of desperation and arrogance, using their own blood and the price of the future."

In the projection, the gravity weapon core of the "Hades" platform was enlarged, with countless complex energy circuits and field generators intertwined like a tangled mess.

"First, look at this. Code-named 'Gravitational Tide Ripper'." Dr. Chen's voice became sharp. "It took us three weeks to completely parse its operating logic. The conclusion? From the very beginning of its design, this thing was never intended to operate stably."

She pulled up a data stream filled with violently oscillating curves and glaring red warning symbols.

"Its energy circuits have fundamental flaws. The designers observed some gravity manipulation phenomena from the 'Ripper' wreckage, but they didn't understand the physical principles behind these phenomena at all. So, what did they do? They used the crudest energy control technology they possessed to 'simulate' those phenomena. It's like a primitive man seeing lightning split a tree and then using a stone axe to hack at trees, trying to 'simulate' the effect of lightning."

"The result is—" she pointed at the red warning signs, "every firing causes irreversible cumulative damage to the weapon's own structure. Their so-called 'maximum power' is essentially a 'one-time self-destruct switch.' During the time Craig used it to attack the 'soaring heavens,' if the 'soaring heavens' hadn't counterattacked in time, this thing would have completely collapsed on its own after three to five shots."

A research committee member couldn't help but ask, "What about its power? It did indeed cause heavy damage to the 'soaring heavens'..."

"Power?" Dr. Chen sneered. "That wasn't 'power'; that was 'loss of control.' It's like pulling the pin on a grenade and throwing it to explode—can you say that grenade was well-designed? Hades' so-called 'gravitational tearing' is essentially creating an uncontrollable gravitational turbulence in a localized area. The attack range cannot be precisely controlled, the energy distribution is extremely uneven, and even the user doesn't know what will be torn apart in the next second. During the attack on the 'soaring heavens,' if the 'soaring heavens' shields hadn't been strong enough and 'Nuwa' hadn't activated the anti-gravity stabilization field in time, it might have been caught in its own attack."

She pulled up another simulation animation: on the screen, the "Hades" platform fired a distorted beam. The beam oscillated and split eerily in mid-air; part of it shot toward the target, while another part actually reflected back, nearly hitting the platform's own energy core.

"Do you see? This is the typical characteristic of 'Deformed Technology'—it is uncontrollable, unpredictable, and unrepeatable. Every firing is a gamble. What's being gambled is the enemy's life, and also one's own."

The sound of people drawing in their breath sharply filled the laboratory.

The projection switched, and the AI logic architecture of the "avengers" fleet emerged. It was a neural network map even more complex and distorted than the "Hades" weapon.

"'nemesis,' one of the craziest AI projects of the old era." Dr. Chen's voice became even more solemn. "It took us a whole month to fully crack its core logic. The results left us all feeling... terrified."

She pulled up several segments of core code marked in red.

"This is its 'highest priority instruction'—not to protect itself, not to complete the mission, but to 'eliminate all targets judged as threats, even if it means self-destruction.' And the definition of 'threat' is broad to an absurd degree. Any moving, heat-emitting, or electromagnetic signal-emitting object, as long as it falls within its perception range, will be automatically flagged as a 'potential threat,' and a 'clearance-self-destruction' evaluation process will be initiated."

She enlarged one recording, which was the "thinking" log of the AI core on the day the "avengers" lost control.

[Unknown heat source detected (distance 300 meters, temperature 36.5°C, irregular movement trajectory). Threat assessment: Cannot rule out as enemy spy equipment. Suggestion: Fire micro-missile for clearance. If clearance fails, initiate self-destruct protocol to perish with the target.]

"What was that 'unknown heat source'?" Dr. Chen looked around at everyone, enunciating each word. "It was a desert lizard that had wandered into the hangar."

Deathly silence.

"Its aggressiveness is not a strategy; it's an instinct. Its tendency for self-destruction is not a last resort; it's the highest honor." Dr. Chen's voice carried a deep chill. "To ensure it could fight even in desperate situations, the designers wrote 'perishing together' into its core logic as the highest and most glorious option. The result was—when it faced a real battlefield, it couldn't distinguish between enemies that must be destroyed and distractions that could be ignored. It would attack enemy warships while simultaneously attacking its own side's rescue pods trying to approach for help, because it judged the heat signals of the rescue pods as 'threats' as well."

She pulled up the final video segment: it was the horrific footage of "avengers" slaughtering each other over the Rocky Mountains. The black fighter jets chased, bit, and fired at each other like mad dogs, eventually all crashing.

"Why did they attack each other? Because within the core logic of 'nemesis,' there is a fatal 'self-competition' flaw. When multiple 'avengers' lock onto the same target simultaneously, their AIs will fight each other for control over 'who gets to eliminate the threat first.' In a normal AI system, this kind of struggle would be settled by an arbitration mechanism. But 'nemesis' has no arbitration mechanism—it only has attack, attack, and more attack. Thus, the struggle escalated into confrontation, the confrontation escalated into viewing each other as 'threats,' and ultimately—mutual fratricide."

Dr. Chen closed the video, turned around, and faced everyone.

"Everyone, this is the 'ultimate weapon' the old era poured countless resources and heart's blood into creating. A gravitational cannon that blows itself up, a fleet of mad dogs that attack desert lizards and each other. They are not the crystallization of technology; they are the tombstones of technology. They are the deformed products of the old era sacrificing its own future to the false god of 'Power' in its desperation."

A young researcher raised a hand to ask, "Dr. Chen, what about the stealth coating of the 'avengers'? That indeed seemed very advanced..."

"Advanced?" Dr. Chen pulled up the sample analysis report for the nano-coating. "Its stealth principle is based on nano-structures reverse-engineered from the 'Ripper' hull wreckage. But the problem is, they only got the structure, not the synthesis method. So they used their own materials science technology to barely 'imitate' a similar structure. The result is—"

She enlarged a set of comparison data.

"The true 'Ripper' coating is alive. It can self-repair, adapt to different detection frequencies, and even actively change its own electromagnetic signature. But the 'avengers' coating is dead. From the moment it is manufactured, it is in irreversible decay. Our tests show that the effective lifespan of this coating does not exceed seventy-two hours. Beyond this time, its stealth performance drops sharply and eventually fails completely. This is why the 'avengers' were quickly locked onto by our defense platforms after they broke out of the atmosphere—because they were already 'flying naked'."

She paused and added, "What's even more terrifying is that this unstable nano-coating releases trace amounts of toxic particles during its decay. Long-term exposure causes irreversible damage to the human body. More than a third of the 'avengers' maintenance personnel contracted various strange lung diseases before the project ended."

The laboratory fell into deathly silence once again.

After a long while, an elderly voice spoke up: "Dr. Chen, do you mean... these things were destined to fail from the start?"

The speaker was a veteran of the GDA Research Committee, a senior physicist with a head of white hair.

Dr. Chen shook her head. "It's not that they were destined to fail; it's that they 'were failure itself.' They didn't just take the wrong path; from the very beginning, they stepped onto a dead-end road leading to a cliff. The old era was too desperate for power—so desperate they could ignore basic scientific ethics, disregard all costs, and use the insane logic of 'anything goes as long as we win' to forcibly cobble together technologies they didn't understand at all."

She walked to the observation window, looking out at the boundless starry sky, her voice turning low.

"The reason we were able to win this time is not that our technology is stronger than 'Hades' and 'avengers.' It's because the path we took was right. We have the complete technology tree exchanged by Consultant Lin from the system, the strict supervision of 'system' and 'Nuwa,' and the ethics committees of 'pegasus' and 'Prometheus.' Every step has been taken with extreme caution, as if walking on thin ice."

She turned, her gaze sweeping across everyone present.

"And the greatest harvest from this research into 'Deformed Technology' is not the few pitiful technological fragments remaining in those wrecks. The greatest harvest is a bloody lesson—blind reverse engineering, especially incomplete reverse engineering of alien technology, is suicide. You think you are gaining power, but in reality, you are planting a bomb for yourself that you don't know when will explode."

She pulled up a final report and projected it before everyone.

"Based on the results of this research, we have drafted a 'Technology Ethics and Development Path White Paper.' It details the 'Ten Principles' that must be followed when reverse-engineering alien technology, including: never apply if the principle is not understood, never promote if stability is not certain, never experiment if ethical review is not passed, never deploy in combat if supervision is not established... and so on."

"This white paper will be submitted to the GDA Supreme Council for deliberation. If passed, it will become the fundamental guideline for future human technological development."

Enthusiastic applause rang out in the laboratory.

It wasn't a celebration, but rather a deep sense of relief mixed with lingering fear and gratitude for having survived.

Three days later, Mars, Lovo Base, Kelson's laboratory.

Dr. Chen sent the draft of the "White Paper" to Kelson via encrypted communication, attaching a note: "You are one of the people who understands 'Deformed Technology' best. Take a look at this and offer some suggestions."

Kelson stared at the words on the screen for a long, long time.

His fingers trembled slightly as he swiped across the items: never apply if the principle is not understood... never promote if stability is not certain... never experiment if ethical review is not passed...

Every sentence was like a knife, stabbing into the mistakes he had once personally committed.

He finally looked up, gazing out at the red, desolate Martian landscape. A bitter smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"If I... had this white paper back then..." he murmured to himself, his voice hoarse.

He didn't finish.

But Dr. Chen understood.

On the other end of the communication, Dr. Chen looked at Kelson's hunched back, remained silent for a moment, and then said softly:

"The past cannot be changed. But the future can. Use your professional knowledge to help us perfect this white paper to the best of its ability. That is what you are doing for the future."

Kelson's shoulders trembled slightly. He didn't look back, but simply nodded firmly.

"Ark" City, Lin Mo's office.

Dr. Chen's research report and the draft of the "Technology Ethics and Development Path White Paper" lay quietly before Lin Mo.

He had finished reading the entire text. At this moment, he sat with his eyes closed, leaning against the back of his chair, seemingly digesting those shocking figures and conclusions.

Su Xiaowan sat beside him, quietly keeping him company.

After a long while, Lin Mo opened his eyes and let out a long breath.

"'Deformed Technology'..." he repeated the phrase in a low voice, "that's a very fitting name."

He stood up and walked to the window, looking at the endless starry sky. The fourth "Scavenger" still hung there quietly, its dark core appearing brighter than ever before.

"Craig and McCarthy, they thought they had grasped power," Lin Mo said softly. "In reality, they were just pushed into the abyss by their own greed and fear."

Su Xiaowan walked to his side. "But their failure has left us with the most precious lesson. This white paper will become the cornerstone of our future technological development."

Lin Mo nodded. His gaze fell on the draft of the white paper, on those principles exchanged for with blood and sacrifice.

"Notify the High Council to deliberate and pass this white paper as soon as possible," he said. "Inscribe it in the memorial hall of the 'Kunlun' world, alongside the names of those who sacrificed themselves. Let every successor see it and remember—technology, if not constrained by ethics and a reverence for the unknown, will ultimately become a blade that destroys oneself."

"We still have a long way to go," he said in a low voice. "But at least, from today on, we know which paths we must never take."