Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 855: Nieto
"Can you see me?!" Ke Lan felt the hairs on his back stand up and he subconsciously took a defensive posture.
But soon, he realized that the one who was talking to him was not the little black girl with only the upper body that he saw, but... the rotten meat in the real world.
However, under Ze Luo's "sense of vision", his perception of the surrounding environment has changed... In his eyes, the "lump of rotten meat" mentioned by Sanshisan is the little girl who calls herself "Nietto".
"You are the first humans to enter the hive city after the Age of Disaster," Neto said.
"Age of Disaster... Wait, you said it was 'humans'! Do you mean that before the Age of Disaster, there were other 'humans' who came here? Or, it was 'humans' who built this nest city?" Ke Lan asked hurriedly.
“I can’t answer your question,” Nieto said.
"Why? Is it because my authority level is not high enough?" Ke Lan tried to calm herself down as much as possible... Since this administrator named Nieto was willing to communicate with her, it meant that he (she?) might not regard her as an intruder. Ke Lan did not want to cause the negotiation to break down because of saying something wrong... Even if that happened, she had to at least get enough information before that.
"No, it's just that the information is too dangerous and may cause the advent of the Age of Disaster again." Neto said calmly, "That is something the person who created me does not want to see."
"Does that information refer to 'forbidden knowledge'? The Age of Disaster... Could it be that the level of erosion of the people living in this hive has exceeded the critical point?" Ke Lan cautiously tested.
"You are trying to touch something extremely dangerous." Nieto warned, "Stop immediately, otherwise, according to my underlying logic program, I will force you to undergo memory erasure and expel you from the hive."
"Okay, okay... let's not talk about this." Ke Lan compromised quickly, "Then let's talk about something else... Are we two really the first 'humans' to come here after the 'Age of Disaster'?"
"That's right." Nieto answered simply.
She is a bit like Ze Luo. During the conversation, she did not show any emotion from beginning to end. She was like a computer program with a beautiful girl sticker... Of course, from Sanshisan's perspective, the sticker of the beautiful girl with long black hair had to be replaced with a piece of wriggling rotten meat.
"In the past few decades, there should be at least one group of 'humans' who have come to this place." Ke Lan said, "They should be the first 'humans' to come here after the Age of Disaster, right?"
Ke Lan did not know whether Heruni and others had entered the hive city, but the eroded corpse that Thirty-three encountered on the "Genoa" must have entered the "hive city". It mentioned the word "hive city" more than once, and also mentioned "the things inside the hive city."
Logically speaking, the survivors on the two crashed warships should be the “first batch”.
"There is no record." Nieto's answer was brief and cold.
"There is no record... Is it because you were in hibernation at that time? Or were the related memories deleted?"
"I haven't been in hibernation since I resumed functioning in the 1065th year of the Silent Era, and my memory has never been deleted or modified." Neto explained... It seemed that as long as it didn't involve those "forbidden knowledge", she would tell Ke Lan everything... This was good news for Ke Lan. As long as he didn't step on the landmines, he could ask a lot of things he wanted to know from this "Neto" who was highly suspected to be a biological computer.
"The Quiet Era? Then what era and year is it now?" Ke Lan asked again.
"It is now the 547,661st year of the Silent Era."
Even if some things cannot be asked directly, we can still get some fragments of information through indirect inquiry, and then piece these fragments of information together to restore the truth of what happened that year... Although the center of the puzzle is most likely to be blank, the corners are there, and the missing content can be guessed.
According to the information currently available, this hive city has gone through at least three periods - the "Ice Age" when it existed as a refuge, the "Age of Disaster" when over-erosion or some other disaster broke out on a large scale, and the "Age of Tranquility" after the "Age of Disaster".
Obviously, all the people who once lived in this hive city either died in the "Age of Disaster" or left this place. The manager in front of him, "Neto", should have changed from a beautiful girl with long black hair to the heap of rotten meat he is now in the "Age of Disaster", and he also dormant for a long time, and did not wake up until the 1065th year of the Silent Era.
etc?
If she had fallen into a coma during the Era of Disaster, then why did she know that the time she "woke up" was the "1065th year of the Era of Tranquility"?
In the "Silent Era", those who created her and this hive city obviously no longer exist. So who came up with the name "Silent Era"?
Could there be other intelligent creatures here? "Neto" just claimed that he was the manager of the second layer of the hive, so there should be similar intelligent biological computers as managers in the other layers of the hive, right? Did those guys tell her?
But no matter what, at least one very important piece of information was in Ke Lan's hands, that is, it has been more than 547,000 years since the end of the Age of Disaster... This age is even longer than the time estimated by the experts at the research institute that the Alpha civilization disappeared from this planet.
In other words, the construction time of this hive city is most likely earlier than the remains of the Alpha civilization on the surface... I just don’t know whether the Alpha civilization already existed during the Ice Age, or whether the civilization with the same name as this planet is actually the "latecomer"?
Ke Lan really wanted to ask "Neto" this question directly, but he also knew that these questions would most likely touch upon the other party's minefields... If Neto lost his patience in the conversation, it would be a waste of time.
Ke Lan thought of trying again from another direction.
"There was once a man called Heruni. Has he ever been here?"
"Hruni... He did come here and took away some important things." Neto replied, "But he and his companions did not enter the second floor. They only stayed on the first floor for three days and then left."
"Then why do you say that we are the first humans to enter the 'Hive City' after the Age of Disaster? Isn't the 'first layer' of the Hive City counted within the scope ?" Ke Lan asked.
The slums on the Ark, no matter how dilapidated or how poor the infrastructure, are still numbered and recorded parts of the Ark. Even the uninhabited blocks located in the corners, filled with toxic gases and waste, and not suitable for human habitation, have corresponding block names of "direction + serial number". Only the transfer stations and various bases built in the wilderness are counted as areas outside the Ark.
But the first floor of the "Nest City" that the lifting platform just passed by obviously belongs to the former.
Structurally, they are also completely integrated.
"The first level of the hive city certainly belongs to the hive city," said Neto, "but when they enter the hive city, they are no longer 'human'."
"..." This answer was a little beyond Ke Lan's expectations. He originally thought that only individuals whose erosion degree exceeded the critical value and turned into eroded corpses were not considered human. He did not expect that in the eyes of the managers of the nest city, just suffering from erosion would be expelled from the "human race"... But the problem is, his degree of erosion should be much deeper than that of Heruni and others. Why does Neto still regard himself as a "human"?
The group of Heruni, at least they maintained their human appearance and rationality for a long time after returning to the "Shaojiang Reform"... If they were not considered human at that time, then Ke Lan was even less so.
What exactly is Nieto's definition of "human"?
"Before the Age of Disaster, how many people lived in this hive city...humans?"
"One hundred and twenty million in total," Nieto replied.
One hundred and twenty million? It seemed that the crowding of the Hive City was more serious than Ke Lan and Sanshi San had imagined. Unless there were many more floors below, it would be impossible to fit one hundred and twenty million people in the space of only the first and second floors.
But this will create another problem.
It is known that there is a very strict class system within the hive, and people without sufficient authority cannot enter a higher class... But any social structure, as long as there are classes, must be a triangle - the top of the triangle symbolizes the people with the highest rank and the greatest authority in this social structure, and the number of this group of people is the smallest; and at the bottom of the triangle, the number of the lower-level population must be the largest... This is a rule that cannot be violated, even among the Zerg.
The number of rulers can never be greater than the ruled.
Even if there are third, fourth, fifth or even more floors, and even if the space on these floors is larger than the first and second floors, the number of people living on these floors cannot be more than that on the first and second floors.
Ke Lan's knowledge of sociology only came from some e-books he read when he was bored, but these simple truths are understandable to everyone... The vast majority of wealth and power in a society will only be in the hands of a small group of people at the top, unless this society has achieved true G (anti-harmony) C (those who understand will understand) doctrine.
But hive society is clearly not.
It is not even as good as the Earth in the old era.
Without saying too much, these one or two layers account for at least more than half of the total population.
It was hard for Ke Lan to imagine what it would be like to cram 60 million people into these two layers of hive cities... At this moment, he suddenly felt that the illegal buildings in the first layer of hive cities that were growing like cancer cells were not an exaggeration at all.
Not only is it not an exaggeration, it’s even a little... not enough.
"Then in the late stage of the Age of Disaster... no, I mean in the middle stage of the Age of Disaster, how many people are left in the hive city?" Ke Lan asked another question.
This question is very sensitive, and it is likely to be testing the edge of Neto's "minefield", but as long as Neto is willing to answer this question, the gains will be worth it for Ke Lan to take this chance.
"Zero," Nieto said.
Although he was mentally prepared, Ke Lan couldn't help but gasp.
One hundred and twenty million people, all died in the early stage of the Age of Disaster?
During the rest of the Age of Disaster, a group of monsters would struggle to survive in the hive... or would they fight each other?
"The Age of Disaster...how many years are there?"
"Four years and nine months."
It was much shorter than Ke Lan had expected.
If a large-scale outbreak of "supercorrosion" really occurred in the hive city and spread in a similar way to memetic contagion, this time would not be short - you know, most people are not very resistant to erosion. They may be "infected" just by seeing the mutated "compatriots" or even just knowing about this from news reports. Then, after the eroded individuals see others being "infected" by themselves, they will in turn deepen their own erosion... just like the medical term "cross infection"...
Judging from the population density of the first and second layers of the hive, if something like this breaks out, the situation will most likely get completely out of control before the administrators even know about it.
Not to mention blocking the news and isolating them, even if we directly executed the infected individuals, it would be too late.
The entire nest is like a large sponge that is full of water, and the erosion meme is a drop of highly concentrated ink. When this drop of ink falls on the sponge, the black color that symbolizes infection will instantly spread to every corner of the sponge...
Unless, the managers of the hive city can choose to take drastic measures at the first moment of the incident, just like the undead crew destroyed the East 9th District module, and directly "erase" the first and second layers of the hive city, then perhaps they can save the "powerful people" living in higher-level classes.
But judging from the fact that the first and second layers were preserved intact, either they did not issue such an order, or the meme had already spread to the higher-ups in the hive before it was issued.
It took only a little over a year for Heruni and his companions to be corroded and turned into corpses. Excluding Heruni, the other crew members only lasted a few months.
The fact that this nest has lasted for four years and nine months is a miracle in itself.
"In the early days of the Age of Disaster, how did the last 'humans' in the Hive disappear? Did they turn into monsters, or did they escape from here?" Ke Lan continued to push the question forward, constantly testing Neto's bottom line.
"No one could leave the hive during the Age of Disaster," said Neto. "The managers of every level, including me, were out of control by then."
"Why did it happen..." Ke Lan wanted to ask why he lost control, but then he changed his mind and realized that this question would definitely step into a minefield, so he could only swallow the second half of the sentence, "Then can you tell me about what happened before the Age of Disaster? That information shouldn't be dangerous, right?"
