Arknights, but the sickly pretty girl starts

The Preserver Project, the Deep Blue Tree Project, the Originium Project, and the Heaven's Fulcrum Project. According to Noah's understanding, these four projects should have been launched at the same time, and were carried out with almost all the resources of mankind at that time. However, it was beyond her expectation that they were led by a single company.

Noah glanced up and caught a glimpse of a line of numbers on the elevator display screen.

Star calendar year 40114-11-24.

This should refer to the present time. Even the time is so precise. It is almost impossible for this subconscious space to be generated randomly... So, what happened? Logically speaking, I dived into my own subconscious, so there shouldn't be so many [interference items] appearing.

——Year 40114 of the Star Calendar, a full 40,000 years of history. No wonder the technology of the ancient civilization has reached an unimaginable level.

Give a pig 40,000 years and it will be able to fly into the sky.

The administrator was still distracted, but Precious couldn't hold it in any longer and suddenly turned around and asked, "Speaking of which...Administrator."

"Ok?"

"What have you been doing these days? You haven't returned to the company, and when I contacted you, you said you were busy, but you refused to tell me what. You didn't leave us here to work overtime and go out to slack off, did you?" Precious looked at Noah in front of her suspiciously. Noah twitched the corner of her mouth, thinking, how would I know this? But in order to get away with it, she could only explain for this [Administrator].

"I'm sorry, I ignored your feelings. I won't do that again," Noah said casually. "Isn't the focus now on the situation between the Doctor and Luo? Regarding the Deep Blue Tree, do you and [Hai Si] have any disagreements?"

"What Haisi?" Precious was stunned. "You mean... a derivative of the Deep Blue Tree?"

"Ahem...right." Noah had actually forgotten that the name Haisi wasn't a product of this era. She nodded quickly. "I gave the derivative a name, Haisi, as a personal name for me to easily distinguish it. After all, think about it... Deep Blue Tree derivative, that's a long name to say."

"I see..." Precious nodded. "Haisi, the descendants of the ocean, is indeed a very good abbreviation."

Noah breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that her explanation was recognized. However, her breath of relief did not last long. The moment the elevator door opened, Noah's heart immediately rose to her throat again.

Because the person coming towards him was a doctor he was very familiar with, and a short, blue-haired beautiful girl wearing glasses. The two were tit-for-tat, and neither of them was willing to give in. After seeing the administrator coming to the scene, the pressure on the two was instantly transferred to Noah. Noah looked at the two of them, silently retracted his steps to walk out of the elevator, and under the gaze of the two, pressed the button to close the elevator.

"Sorry, wrong floor."

"You can't leave—" How could Precious let Noah escape at this moment? If the administrator wasn't here, wouldn't he be the only one to suffer here? "We're already here, why are you running away!"

"I don't think it's the right time to get involved between them. I think we should wait until they finish arguing." Noah had no intention of hiding the fact that she was a coward. At that moment, she felt that these two people were about to eat her up with their eyes.

But Precious clearly wasn't going to let him get away with it. After Precious pressed the button, Noah was carried between the two men. At this point, Noah could only push up the black mask on his face and speak. "...Are you...hungry? How about going to eat first? You can't think of good ideas on an empty stomach, right?"

"……administrator--"

"Administrator Senior..."

Dr. Luo and the other staff clearly didn't mind the administrator's behavior; rather, they were used to it. Perhaps the administrator was indeed quite careless, but they weren't about to let up. When the person in charge arrived, they immediately pointed at each other and shouted.

"I request to transfer Luo out of my research group!"

"I'm applying to leave the doctor's research group!"

"..." Noah blinked, "...So...are we going to have a farewell dinner?"

Chapter 12: Sympathy

Maybe it was because of Noah's farewell dinner, but the Doctor and Luo fell silent almost simultaneously. Ultimately, they only had a disagreement about direction, not a serious disagreement that would escalate to the point of breaking up. People are compromising. If you say you want to open a window, there will definitely be opposition, but if you say you want to rip the roof off, then people will agree. The Doctor and Luo were actually closer than anyone else in Eden; otherwise, they wouldn't have been assigned to the same plan.

It's just that as the doctor's junior, it's normal for Luo to have his own ideas. It's rare for a genius to have no temper.

After Luo joined the Deep Blue Tree Project, the transformation progress of the behemoth was like adding a double-speed buff. From all aspects, Luo's joining was beneficial. The doctor was just a little dissatisfied with Luo's laissez-faire attitude.

In Luo's opinion, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and the various restrictions of the Deep Blue Tree Project should be lifted as much as possible to prevent it from affecting the progress. However, the doctor's opinion is completely the opposite. It is precisely because this is an extraordinary time that she emphasizes that the Deep Blue Tree Project cannot get out of control. The base of the Deep Blue Tree is the behemoth. On Terra, the behemoth itself is a monster with the ability to influence a certain conceptual level. They can indeed grasp [authority]. It is precisely because of this that the Deep Blue Tree Project based on the behemoth is very dangerous.

If we are not careful, the entire Terra may even be destroyed. This is not the Earth, and the behemoths are not just monsters with super powers. Terra is the last bastion of mankind, and we cannot act arbitrarily.

After carefully listening to their opinions, Noah sighed silently. Indeed, judging by subsequent developments, Luo had finally lifted the restrictions on Haisi, causing Haisi to react directly to the Agol expansion, deviating from its original evolutionary path and becoming a biological disaster. However, Noah had to admit that, given the current situation, Luo's reasons for wanting to lift the restrictions were perfectly reasonable. Progress was paramount. If the Deep Blue Tree Project's research speed was restricted, it would likely fail to achieve its intended effectiveness before the arrival of its true enemy—the Lumberjacks.

Noah had no idea how the administrator had resolved the dispute, but she still did it her own way. She dragged the two of them to the staff cafeteria. Now that things had come to this - let's eat first.

In the past, when Noah counseled his company's employees, he would do so during meals. At the dinner table, any conflicts seemed to be slowly eased. How to say it... It's like when you and your parents have a quarrel or a cold war, the conflict is often resolved with your parents saying, "Come and have dinner." The dinner table seems to really have this kind of magic. Sure enough, as soon as they arrived at the dinner table, the tense atmosphere between the two was slightly weakened.

Noah also took the opportunity to flip through the [Recent Report on the Deep Blue Tree Project] that Prisseth gave him. After all, judging by the situation, the administrator had not returned to the company for a long time. This was a good opportunity for Noah to understand the whole picture of the Deep Blue Tree Project. When he saw the information about the transformation of behemoths, derivative evaluation, and even DNA rewriting, memory inheritance, etc., Noah began to sweat.

If Luo's plan is followed, the new sea creatures will be almost completely ultimate creatures with almost no weaknesses. Knowledge can be passed on through reproduction, consciousness can be connected through nodes, and all derivatives will share a common network. The transformed behemoths can complete the process of cleaning up and rebuilding the biosphere in a short period of time. Transforming planets is also within the plan. As a follow-up to the Deep Blue Tree Plan, Luo even submitted a - [Gaia Planet Transformation Plan].

The so-called Gaia planet is a plan in the Luo plan to transform a planet with scarce resources, bad climate and unsuitable for human survival into a planet suitable for human habitation for subsequent expansion.

In fact, the previous civilization already had the technology to transform planets, but according to Luo's idea, it only needed to invest a main body of the Deep Blue Tree plan to transform a planet filled with poisonous gas, thin oxygen, high temperature, high pressure, no atmosphere, or with an overly severe greenhouse effect. It could become vibrant in a short period of time. The environmental transformation ability of the Deep Blue Tree derivatives was quite exaggerated. Their survival ability ensured that they could reproduce and survive in extreme environments. As long as there was water, and it didn't even need to be liquid water, they could adapt - and then reproduce and grow wildly on the surface, and finally directly cover the entire planet, absorb carbon dioxide, exhale oxygen, transform the atmosphere, absorb methane and other gases into the body, produce chemical fuels, and transform the terrain. If necessary, it could even directly cover the crust completely, grow vegetation-type derivatives, and complete global transformation. Even under ideal conditions, it would only take one or two months to complete.

——The plan is indeed amazing, Noah has to give his evaluation.

But she wanted to directly let the Sea Si cover Terra... Noya's scalp tingled just thinking about it. As for the doctor's reason for opposing the lifting of the Sea Si restrictions, it was also very simple.

Although Haisi is designed not to attack humans, the problem is that this judgment itself is very vague, just like the famous Three Laws of Robotics:

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, by inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

"Second Law": A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

"Third Law": A robot may protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

These laws seem to be closely linked, but in fact they have huge implementation loopholes. In history, there have been cases of robots getting out of control and even AI rebellions. Although humans eventually solved these problems, it is enough to make the doctor alert.

Although the derivatives of the Deep Blue Tree are not robots, the principle is the same.

Her idea is to write the ability of ethical and moral judgment into the underlying DNA of the Deep Blue Tree derivatives, and through training and algorithm optimization, allow these derivatives to independently judge what is right and wrong. In other words, she wants to educate these derivatives subtly in this way. If Luo regards these derivatives as tools, then the doctor is like teaching a group of real new races.

If Noah were to judge... she would definitely stand on the Doctor's side, but that would be under normal circumstances.

Luo was right. In an emergency, we had to act decisively. Although the doctor's idea was correct, after all, there was not enough time for Hai Si to learn these things slowly. After putting himself in the position of the administrator, Noah gave the solution.

"Then why not do it together?"

"?"

"?"

Now, not only the doctor, but even Luo had a question mark in his head. The two of them had completely different concepts and approaches, but Noah said that they should do it together? Although Luo respected the administrator very much, he couldn't help but blurt out at this moment.

"How is that possible!"

"Why not?" Noah tilted her head. "Doctor, your idea is correct, but you're looking too far ahead. You've forgotten that these derivatives haven't yet truly developed intelligence and rationality comparable to humans. In other words, they're still just [animals], not [humans]. Talking about ethics at this stage is meaningless. So I think Luo's idea is correct."

"……Can……"

"But that doesn't prevent us from changing them through education. Like the doctor said, incorporating moral judgments and ethical cognition into the underlying logic isn't so much a limitation as it is a baseline for them until they understand it," Noah explained. At the end of her explanation, she added, "Theoretically, both of your ideas could be realized. You're both geniuses. Just blend your ideas. Is there any need to argue?"

The Doctor and Luo looked at each other and fell silent. True, both were geniuses, but precisely because of this, they tended to go to extremes on things that ordinary people could understand. Noah had offered them both an acceptable option, thus defusing the argument. With the matter resolved, Noah breathed a sigh of relief, but she hadn't forgotten her original plan. She turned around and was about to leave when Precious, standing beside her, grabbed her shoulder.

"Wait a minute, you're not going to disappear for a few months again, are you?" Precious held Noah's shoulder, her eyes fixed on Noah as he tried to escape, making her feel a little guilty. She coughed twice, "Isn't this already solved?... You can't ask me to work overtime, right?"

"How dare you say that? When everyone was working overtime, I don't know where you went. What's the matter? Your problem is a problem, but ours is not. What are you doing? You'd better tell the truth. Are you forcing yourself again?" Prisseth's words also attracted the attention of the doctor and Luo on the side. They nodded, especially the doctor, who made a special complaint.

"Although I'm the second-in-command, I'm basically the one handling all the affairs in Eden Garden right now. That's not what you said when you brought me in."

"That's right, it was obviously you who told me that we could work together that I came to Eden to help." Luo also agreed, as if the conflict between the two of them just now did not exist. Noah couldn't help but sweat profusely. What on earth had the administrator done in the past? The resentment between these two people was so great. Noah, who replaced the identity of the administrator, began to panic at this time. On the one hand, she knew that she was in the subconscious space, and these were all false, or logical memory deductions. If she was tied down by the memory, it would not be a good thing.

Besides - if she was questioned like this, how would she know what the administrator had done?

Noah was really in a dilemma, but it seemed that these people would not let him leave unless he said something.

Fortunately, at this time, Noah's luck seemed to have finally taken effect. Two people walked into the cafeteria: a tall man with blond hair parted in the middle, who looked righteous and awe-inspiring, and a middle-aged man with a beard. After seeing the administrator, the two immediately came to the side of the others. The blond man sat to Noah's left and said with a smile, "Are you bullying the administrator again, Miss?"

"Ed, shut up!" Precious said with a sullen expression, "She's going to have to give an answer. No matter how much you protect her, you can't just disappear like this."

"I have no intention of shielding Miss Administrator. I'm just here to report on the work of [Heaven's Fulcrum]." Ed crossed his legs and snapped his fingers casually. Immediately, a halo suddenly appeared above his head, and broken wings of light appeared behind him. Noah's expression changed. This posture... was very similar to the Sakota in her impression. She opened her mouth and asked.

"……This is?"

"The latest achievement," Ed boasted arrogantly, "I am now the man closest to God! I am Lucifer! I will lead half the stars into hell and become its king!"

"—You're just a hammer." Precious, standing beside him, put his hands on his hips and grumbled, "What's the point of your exaggerated special effects? Holographic projection?"

"You don't understand, Precious. A child of the Universal Century like you can never understand someone like me from the Earth Federation. This halo symbolizes my direct connection to the Heavenly Fulcrum. Through the Heavenly Fulcrum, I can reduce the cost of human understanding to a minimum. We will share emotions and communicate unimpeded. I call this the [Light of the Soul]. Through the connection of the Heavenly Fulcrum, humanity will be completely united - and this is only the initial stage." Ed waved his hand. "Believe me, the old beliefs of the Earth Federation will provide the best answer for us to defeat our enemies!"

"...Your answer is to be a charlatan? Then I should thank God that I was born in the universe." Of course, Precious did not understand Ed who was born on Earth. This is one of the reasons why there is often a generation gap between people living in the universe and people living on Earth. In history, there was even a war between humans in the universe and humans on Earth, just to fight for what is "orthodoxy", but that is already the dust of history.

Precious is a pure cosmic human, while Ed is an Earth human. In this organization, Precious and Luo are the representatives of cosmic humans, while the Doctor, Ed, and Trevor Friston are the representatives of Earth humans. As for the administrator... she never talks about her origins, and she always maintains a mysterious attitude.

"Empathy... the light of the soul..." Noya muttered to herself. She knew the Sakota had empathy, but she hadn't imagined it was the result of technology from a previous civilization. If, as Ed had said, all Sakota were connected to the so-called "Heavenly Fulcrum," hence their halos and wings... Had Lateran been born from this product of a previous civilization? Noya suddenly realized she'd touched upon a fragment of real history.

But she also became more confused about this memory space - this really didn't seem like her own memory... It was more like...

Miss Administrator's memory?

Chapter 13: Barrier

In the Garden of Eden, apart from the Doctor, Luo and others, Ed is the most special member.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a complaint about Ed being a charlatan. According to him, he is essentially a scientist, not a theologian. His obsession with faith is more reflected in his obsession with the old Earth culture, which can be regarded as a family tradition. Ed is not only a pure Earthling, but his family also has a long history and has a considerable number of precious ancient books, one of which is the Bible, Tao Te Ching, and Agama Sutra. Ed's research on these three books is very in-depth, and it can even be said that he is obsessed with these three books from ancient historical documents.

He divides human civilization into the Age of Faith and the Age of Science.

Most people who grew up in the scientific age scoffed at the ignorant beliefs of the past, but Ed picked these things up again, sorted them out, and summarized a set of academic theoretical systems from them.

This was also the project that Ed was researching before joining Eden: the philosophical speculation and potential connections between ancient beliefs and modern civilization.

Before joining the Garden of Eden, he'd been spreading his teachings throughout the universe. Of course, if that were all he'd done, he wouldn't have joined an organization like the Garden of Eden. While Ed was obsessed with ancient beliefs, more importantly, he was also universally recognized as one of the finest physicists in human civilization. While the core members of the Garden of Eden all held various titles, Ed clearly stood out among this group of geniuses and eccentrics.

Because - the Paradise Fulcrum Plan he implemented was, in essence, a weapon so powerful that even contemporary civilization was afraid of it.

That's right, compared to other plans, the Heaven's Fulcrum Plan is more inclined to directly confront the unknown destruction. Although Ed, who has ancient beliefs, is the first person to take the initiative to draw his sword against the lumberjack who is like a god.

And what Ed said is that in the conflict between ancient beliefs and science, he came to a conclusion.

Gods shouldn't be an obstacle to human progress. If a god truly intends to destroy us, we must destroy him beforehand. I call this efficiency.

Anyway, after Noah finished reading the initial calculations and construction plans of the Heaven's Fulcrum, as well as a series of data that made her head swell, it was already evening. Time in this subconscious space seemed to be flowing normally. Noah sat in the administrator's office and silently put down the report in her hand.

The Heaven's Fulcrum Project... The Deep Blue Tree Project... The Originium Project... The Preserver Project...

At this moment, they are now neatly arranged in front of him, and this organization called Eden will take on the responsibility of saving the world in the near future.

But for Noah now, the information itself was more important. These plans were born from the fundamental fear and madness of humanity. According to records, the administrator issued a prophecy to all members of the Garden of Eden. She predicted that civilization would collapse, the stars would fall, the stars would return to a dead silence, and humanity would face extinction. If it were just these words, they could be completely dismissed as the ravings of a madman.

But the Administrator proved the accuracy of her predictions—she accurately predicted the destruction of a civilization.

When no one took her words seriously, people observed that a long-eared civilization that had friendly relations with the Federation of Universal Civilizations suddenly fell. There was no sign, no call for help, and not even resistance. They had almost the same psychic technology as humans, and could travel through the subspace independently. They even had super-powered people called [Psychics]. Although they were few in number and had no ambition to expand, the powerful psychics among them could even accomplish such feats as extinguishing stars alone, traveling through the universe in their physical bodies, and crossing the subspace with their consciousness.

However, this group of powerful psychic races disappeared without a trace. Humans initially thought it was just a communication problem, but as the scientific research spacecraft that went to explore lost contact one after another, people realized that something was wrong. When humans focused their attention on the Long-Eared tribe's star region, they fell into fear - everything was wiped out, traces of civilization, traces of psychic power, and even the Long-Eared tribe's home planet and its affiliated mega-cities.

At this time, people realized that something was destroying civilization with a terrifying unknown force.

And this thing is called "Lumberjack" by humans.

In short, judging from the description and performance alone, the horror of the lumberjacks almost made Noah shudder, and what was even more terrifying was... the previous civilization did not successfully continue, which meant that the lumberjacks still existed, which meant that the Terra civilization must also face this problem.

To face the Lumberjacks? Relying on the technological reserves of Terran civilization?

Noah's brain was working at a rapid speed. She didn't know why she came here. She was just entering her own subconscious, but came to a memory space similar to that of the administrator. The reason for her coming here was unknown, but the information was detailed and accurate, without any sense of falsehood. This self-consistent memory should have been intentionally preserved, like... a piece of amber, a complete memory fragment that was specially preserved.

Noah knew that her ability could preserve memories and consciousness, including that Herhunzollon was materialized by her. So that means that before Noah realized it, she had also preserved the consciousness of the administrator?

Noah could only make this guess, and this was the only possibility...

"Although it is an unexpected gain...but what should I do next? How can I leave this subconscious world?" Noah couldn't help but feel puzzled. If it was her own subconscious, she could still grasp some clues. After all, she had the deepest understanding of herself, and it would be much easier to get out of it. But this was the memory space of the administrator, which was completely different. She was obviously not the administrator, and she didn't know the mechanism of this subconscious space.

Now she felt like she had strayed into a game space, but she didn't understand the rules. She could only grope her way forward bit by bit, like a blind person...

Just when Noah was in trouble, there was a knock on her door. This time it was the Doctor who came here. Compared to the Doctor Noah knew, the current Doctor seemed to be much stronger and healthier. Perhaps the long-term hibernation caused his physical fitness to decline a lot. However, the current Doctor did not look weak at all. In comparison, she might be even weaker. It was hard to imagine... The administrator's body was really frighteningly weak.

"Did I disturb your rest?" The doctor walked into the office, picked up the document on the desk and flipped through it before speaking.

"No, I'm just thinking about...some things." Noah shook her head. She still had to pretend to be the administrator to answer these questions. After all, in their eyes, she was the administrator, and this was a very important collective cognition.

Identity and cognition are very important things in the subconscious space. Only when the subconscious space recognizes that you are a part of this memory can you act freely. Otherwise, you can only be a bystander and cannot influence any variables in the memory, just like watching a movie.

If she revealed her identity now, Noya would have no idea how to investigate the mechanism of this memory space. So she had to pretend to be more convincing...

"That's perfect. Like Ed and Luo, I have something I want to show you." The doctor breathed a sigh of relief and placed the Originium Project folder in front of Noah. "You should have seen the Originium Project a long time ago, right?"

"Yeah. This is also the plan I'm most...troubled about." Noya naturally knew the horror of the Originium Project itself. She had personally suffered from oripathy and knew how terrifying it would become in the future. "Originium, Sea of ​​Solaris, Internalized Universe—"

Noya muttered these terms. She had read the report very carefully, but she had to say, "In order to avoid the loggers, they plan to turn civilization into... amber, and survive in this way... Honestly, I don't think this is a good idea."

"But you still nodded in approval of the plan—" The doctor did not refute Noah's statement, "What did you think at the time?"

"...I..." Noah couldn't possibly know what the administrator was thinking back then, so he could only prevaricate, "This matter is over. Since I agreed to the plan, I will naturally provide sufficient resources... I'm just a little worried about the dangers of the Originium Project's product, the Originium."

"A little bit—" The Doctor shook his head. "You and I both understand that the Originium Project appears to have the highest success rate, but in reality, it's the plan Ed hates the most, because it represents complete surrender to the loggers. It's a self-imposed change, a self-destructive way to avoid destruction."

"..." Noah paused, as if he understood something, "So, even you, Doctor, think this plan..."

"My stance has been clear from the beginning. I'm most optimistic about the Deep Blue Tree Project." The doctor shrugged. "The Deep Blue Tree Project is the most likely plan I know of to overcome this crisis."

Noah looked at the Heaven's Fulcrum and the Preserver Plan on the table, and suddenly felt a sense of absurdity.

"So, Doctor, why are you here?"