Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1725 The Spear of Dionysus
Forging a divine weapon is the most convenient way to solve the current problem; the best solution is to directly forge the Spear of Dionysus.

In this way, Rome's power could be consolidated into one entity—without needing to consult with anyone.

Because Victoria, the mastermind behind all of this, has authorized Shangluo to handle everything. And Shangluo has already gathered all the necessary materials to accomplish this.

Now everything is ready, except for one-third of the material itself, namely the Dionysian Spear.

Once all three are collected, they can be forged into the [Three Golden Staffs]. According to Victoria, this is a powerful artifact that can grant its wielder immortality. Although immortality is no longer extremely attractive to Shang Luo, since he has already partially achieved it—but since it can grant immortality, its power must be more than just that. He must possess other divine powers.

Even if we take a step back and consider that it has gathered so many powerful weapons, including the Spear of the Sun God, it should at least be a powerful weapon.

After all, the Spear of the Sun is already very difficult to strike; it is almost indestructible. And the three-in-one scepter must also be a useful weapon.

Even putting everything else aside, just getting one weapon would be a win for him—as for the rest, he'd gain as much as he could.

“Well then, Your Majesty, this is not the place to talk. Please return home first, and I will visit you later. Should I bring you something with me?”

"Give me some bread, you know what I like to eat." Shangluo quite liked their bread—eating bread made the chef happier and more loyal, so it was a win-win situation.

With his basic motivation satisfied, the chef could not hide his excitement: "I'll do it myself right away, please rest assured."

At home, Shangluo had just sat down inside the house.

Victoria waited there the whole time. Hearing that the chef was coming, she went upstairs without a word. After all, the chef was a complete traitor to her; the Automata he represented should have been part of the Roman Empire. Her willingness to hand over what she had to Shangluo didn't mean she could tolerate the chef's betrayal.

However, now that Shangluo trusts him, Victoria doesn't intend to say anything. But she still doesn't want to see a traitor roaming around in front of her.

"Speaking of which, there's something that's been bothering me."

【What's up? 】

"Are the chef and the Colombian Automaton truly one and the same?"

Obviously not.

"Then, how do you know?"

[The fact that you asked this question shows that you've also realized—the chef's sense of self hasn't disappeared.] "Yes," Shang Luo nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly.

The chef's words just now illustrate this point. He said, "I'll do it myself."

This means that the chef's ego is not actually eliminated within all the automata; his ego is very clear and transcends all the automata.

He is the master of this Gestalt consciousness, but he is clearly leading the Gestalt with an independent consciousness, rather than being immersed in it.

I think this was the chef's intentional result.

"From a perspective of interests, this is reasonable."

In nature, among organisms exhibiting Gestalt characteristics, a true "hive consciousness" does not actually exist. Within the entire hive, all individuals are equal in consciousness because their brains are fundamentally the same and incapable of generating higher levels of consciousness. Even the queen bee is merely the reproductive organ of the hive as an "individual." Although the queen bee is protected and properly fed, this is no different from the extra protection an organism provides for its reproductive organs. The queen bee herself does not command the hive to do anything like a monarch.

In rare cases, the queen bee's behavior may influence other colonies. For example, when a new queen emerges and the bees swarm, many bees will follow her. However, this doesn't mean the queen is giving them any strategic instructions; these bees are simply following their instincts to do what's best for the colony.

The fundamental reason for the evolution of all these behaviors lies in the genetic similarity between the queen bee and worker bees. Continuing the queen's genes means continuing the genes of the entire hive. Therefore, genetically speaking, only one queen bee needs to reproduce in the hive to achieve an effect similar to "all worker bees reproducing." Once this behavior is ingrained in their genes, this behavioral pattern will emerge generation after generation in the bee colony, making the entire hive cooperate like different cells or organs of the same living organism.

However, this order is relatively stable only in insects—insects like ants and bees have existed for hundreds of millions of years, dating back to the Cretaceous period, the age of dinosaurs. Eusocial organisms, on the other hand, have existed since the Jurassic period, over two hundred million years ago. This order has remained stable throughout these hundreds of millions of years because the brains of insects are unlikely to undergo significant changes.

However, the situation is quite different among more advanced organisms like mammals. Take the naked mole-rat, for example. While they are eusocial creatures, their social order is unstable. Mammals have much more complex minds, and the naked mole-rats that become "workers" will eventually start to feel they are being taken advantage of by working for the queen—even though genetically they aren't. Mammals tend to judge situations more by their current circumstances than by instinct. When the naked mole-rats feel they are being taken advantage of, they will begin to rebel. The queen then needs to suppress them with pheromones in normal times and resort to force to quell any rebellion at crucial moments.

The structure of naked mole-rats is unlikely to be as stable as that of insects. After all, even from a human perspective, these naked mole-rats occasionally experience unsolvable bugs that allow worker rats to overcome the pheromone suppression and rise to power.

However, if placed on an automaton, the situation becomes even more peculiar.

Automata are intelligent; all automata are. They do not naturally submit to any one individual—they are indeed programmed with a "serving a master" underlying code, but they do possess full consciousness.

These automata have been quite restless in the past, just like people.

However, on the other hand, it's not necessarily true that people can't be slaves. While the relationship of personal dependence has its drawbacks as an economic system, it must be treated on a case-by-case basis when it comes to the specific interactions between individuals.

(End of this chapter)