The Way Back to Civilization

Chapter 2: Beginning Is The End

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Earth had exploded.

When Gu Fan woke up from the hibernation cabin, this had become an irreversible fact.

The once beautiful and prosperous capital planet was now only left with a few space debris that contained rich mineral resources. It was like Mai Lisu had been split into several pieces. Even the moon, which was loyal to the blue planet, had disappeared.

As for what happened in between, where did the once powerful human civilization go?

He didn’t know the answer. Even the AI in charge of daily operations in the base couldn’t answer most of his questions.

“Error 069 has occurred…”

“Error 084 occurred…”

“Requesting the administrator to intervene…”

At this moment, standing beside Gu Fan was a military AI with the appearance of a young girl. It called itself A049 and was the auxiliary intelligence of the current stellar fortress.

In fact, he was facing more problems than he had imagined.

For example, the unknown AI in front of him and the stellar fortress that revolved around the sun’s orbit under his feet. He did not even have the most basic impression of the existence of these things.

He did not understand who had moved his hibernation pod into this unfamiliar fortress. What was the purpose of this?

After a moment, the girl continued to repeat the series of wrong instructions. Seeing that Gu Fan did not react, she took a few steps forward.

“Requesting the administrator to intervene…”

Hearing the emotionless but slightly anxious voice, it was obvious that the other party really hoped to obtain the help of this human in front of him.

Unfortunately, Gu Fan was not a robot engineer. Before he entered the hibernation pod due to illness, he was just a military school student who had yet to graduate.

In order to prevent the other party from repeating those useless orders, Gu Fan had no choice but to give his first order.

“Let’s skip the current reminder.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the other party fell silent.

…

“Error status updated…”

“According to Agreement No. 3, the annihilation order has been carried out. Please take the next step…”

Gu Fan stared at the girl in front of him. Blood stained her silky grayish-white hair and splattered on her white dress.

Just now, a large group of robbers tried to break into his fortress, but fortunately, as a military AI, the girl in front of him didn’t exert much effort to chase them away.

With his permission, through the girl’s remote control, a warship stranded in the planetary belt fired light spears at the opposing fleet.

Originally, he only hoped to use this opportunity to attract the attention of that fleet so that he could recharge and calibrate the fortress’ macro cannon array. After all, the other party seemed to have a lot of people.

However, who would have thought that just a volley of light spears would easily finish them off? It seemed that they were just a group of vagrant pirates.

According to the stronghold’s detector, the heavily injured fleet was currently escaping and had urgently warped into the channel.

…

After an unknown period of time, after wolfing down a few nutrition bars he found in the fortress warehouse, Gu Fan raised more questions to the girl in front of him, trying to squeeze as much useful content out of her rusty CPU as possible.

“You mean I’ve been frozen for nearly two thousand years…”

“The answer is correct. According to the records, the exact time is 557,411 days, 17 hours, 41 minutes and 44 seconds.”

Hearing the shocking number, Gu Fan was so shocked that he could not speak for a moment. His body trembled slightly, and the remaining half of the nutrition stick in his hand fell to the ground.

He had actually slept in the medical hibernation cabin for nearly 2,000 years because of his illness. During this period, Earth had exploded and the entire civilization had disappeared.

All that was left beside him was a broken artificial AI, an unknown naval warship, and a few star fortresses that were guarding something.

“This is a nightmare opening…”

Muttering, Gu Fan bent down and picked up the nutrition bar that had rolled to the ground.

Just as he was about to get up, he saw a line of code on the inside of the other party’s calf, which seemed to remind him.

“Take this thing off. And while you’re at it, what else do you know? Like where the others really went? Did they leave you any instructions?”

As he spoke, he ordered the girl to take off her white dress. The purpose of doing so was naturally not for some dirty thoughts.

As an artificial intelligence, its body would often be marked with information related to production. From this, one could roughly deduce when the blue planet was blown up.

Without any hesitation, the girl carried out the order without hesitation. She undid the sling on her shoulder and let the white dress on her fall to her feet.

For artificial intelligence, absolute obedience to human commands is one of the three major actions of its behavioral logic.

If his brain was not damaged, Gu Fan would still remember that the three major agreements were:

1. All judgments of artificial intelligence must be based on the interests of human civilization.

2. Artificial intelligence must unconditionally obey all orders of mankind without violating principle 1.

3 Artificial intelligence has the right to protect itself if it no longer violates the first and second principles.

Towards Gu Fan’s question, the AI only shook her head slightly, indicating that there was nothing she knew.

“Error 069, the core database of the fortress has been severely damaged. The network has been lost…”

He looked at the delicate girl in front of him. Just as he had expected, this was clearly a brand new model. Compared to the old model he knew before, just from its appearance, it had almost reached the point where it could be faked.

It was even to the extent that even some embarrassing secret places were deliberately restored to be especially realistic.

This situation made Gu Fan, who was unprepared, more or less uncomfortable. He did not know where to look.

With a bashful feeling in his heart, he reluctantly scanned the girl’s body. Unexpectedly, other than the mysterious code on her calf, there was no additional labeling information on the girl’s body. Clearly, this did not meet the manufacturing requirements of artificial intelligence that he knew.

In the end, Gu Fan, who had gained nothing, could only order the other party to wear his clothes again.

No matter what, it felt too strange to have a naked AI doll in front of him.

“Then, let me confirm again. I’m really the only one left in this star field, right?”

He looked at his shattered home in the distance. In fact, he had asked this question more than once.

He had already asked at least seven or eight times since he woke up not long ago, and the girl only answered mechanically every time.

“Confirmed. According to Agreement No. 1, three stellar fortresses and a multipurpose command ship of the Queen of Glory class have been handed over to you.”

…

“Please give the order.”