Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 173 The Feedback of Hive Mind Cluster Consciousness

When Chen Ming saw that the blood of the Zerg race could affect the mechanical race.

I subconsciously wondered if insects had evolved the ability to restrain the mechanical race?

But this idea was immediately dismissed by Chen Ming as it was too exaggerated.

Even if it is said that the bugs on the space station teleported here from the moment Chen Ming left the space station, they fought with the mechanical tribe, began to adapt to the mechanical tribe's abilities, and evolved to restrain their blood.

The entire time has only passed more than half a year.

For more than half a year, he evolved the ability to target the combat weapons left behind by a civilization.

Probably not.

But in this case, the problem in this gray-green blood seems to be even bigger.

Just when Chen Ming was thinking.

The fighting continues on the edge of the city.

Although the blood of the Zerg has a considerable restraint effect on the mechanical race, the situation on the battlefield at this time is still one-sided by the mechanical race.

As the cyst bugs among the incoming bugs fell in large numbers, the bugs charging ahead lost their fire support and were gradually suppressed by the mechanical clan.

Relying on a killing speed that was faster than the forward speed of the bugs, the bugs were forced back to the vicinity of the holes they dug.

But even if these bugs don't see any chance of winning, they still continue to maintain their madness, struggling desperately with the seemingly endless number of bug swarms.

But just when the Zerg were forced back by the firepower of the Machine Clan to a certain distance outside the city.

Chen Ming suddenly heard the roar of cannons from near the center of the city.

Along with the roaring sound of cannons, dozens of red streams of light instantly rose into the sky.

If Chen Ming remembered correctly, he had just seen a large warehouse near the tower. The icon on the map of the city he saw used a sharp weapon-like icon.

The red stream of light that was suddenly emitted was most likely the weapon there, or it was emitted by a special type of machine.

These streamers fell from the sky again within seconds of being launched.

The fire hit the insect swarm accurately, hitting the tunnel dug by the insect swarm, and dozens of miniature mushroom clouds erupted.

All things related to insects were covered under this artillery fire.

The firelight and mushroom cloud had not had time to dissipate.

The hot and anxious atmosphere has spread outside the city.

The remaining bugs crawled out from under the completely charred corpses of their companions, and used their last strength to pounce on the machines.

Even if they die, they will at least spray their blood on their enemies.

However, their outcome is doomed to failure.

The insect swarm had no room to struggle under this pure firepower, and the number of surviving insects was only less than half of what it was at the beginning.

It will no longer be a climate, nor can it threaten the city of the mechanical race.

As the last bug fell to the gun of the mechanical clan, the battle that lasted for nearly an hour finally ended.

And at the moment the battle ended.

Many of the mechanical tribes that were still active just now fell down in an instant, and entered dormancy again as before.

But at the same time, there were also many fallen machines whose electrical signals were completely cut off, and they fell completely into death.

The death of some mechanical bodies did not have any impact.

Soon, many mechanical tribes came out of the city and came here to clean up and clean the battlefield.

But when it came to cleaning, these machines only extinguished the flames and recovered the bodies of the dead machines.

There is no mechanical clan to care about the corpses of bugs lying outside.

And when it comes to recycling, there are many mechanical tribes who come to recover the corpses of the mechanical tribes and fall down halfway. Like these mechanical tribes to be recovered, they are completely dead.

This scene made Chen Ming, who had been observing all this, feel an indescribable feeling of regret and sadness.

It is the regret for the demise of civilization, and the desolation that the remaining remnants of this civilization will soon die along with the civilization.

Of course, Chen Ming was not swayed by his emotions.

He just felt a little emotional when he saw this scene.

He has not forgotten that the mechanical race is almost everywhere in the entire universe, at least they are not uncommon on the way to the expansion of the empire.

Chen Ming only wants to figure out one thing now.

How did these bugs get here?

The only place that can figure this out and get clues is this mechanical city.

But Chen Ming has already taken control of the tower, and he can be sure that there are no relevant records in the database inside the tower.

However, such a large city is not the only place with a central database in tall towers.

There are also many independent small databases distributed in different places in the city.

Data from different areas of the city will first be concentrated in these small databases. Through classification and analysis, valuable data and information will be integrated into the database of the tower in the core area.

The Zerg information is certainly not worthless information.

But there are still some places in the city that are beyond the control of the tower.

That's why he just needed his robot to help observe the situation on the battlefield.

There may be relevant records for places that are beyond the control of the tower.

It's not that Chen Ming can't repair and connect the areas, it's just that a city is much more difficult to deal with than a cruiser, and his mental strength is simply not enough.

He didn't know where the area would store this part of the information, and it was too inefficient to reconnect those separated areas back to the tower through spiritual energy.

It is better to determine the location of different small databases and let his robot go there for himself.

Chen Ming didn't waste time.

While the mechanical clan was still dealing with the battlefield, he let his robot take the core and start running to the area in the city that the tower could not affect.

The entire city was divided into a total of thirty-six areas on the map Chen Ming found, of which twenty-three were still under control.

There are still thirteen areas, which should be enough to visit them all within today.

The impact of the battle between the Machine Tribe and the Thorn Zerg Tribe completely subsided after three hours.

Chen Ming also controlled the robot to search nine areas and finally found some clues in the tenth area.

Because Chen Ming arranges the action route based on the position of the robot.

So he has not come to this area relatively close to the center of the city until now.

Then he discovered that the database in the control center here was still running.

Although the database here is also damaged, the undamaged area happens to store all the videos from the past six months.

And it happened to be in the video of a night five months ago.

Chen Ming saw a bright fire suddenly appear in the dim sky at night, and something was entering the atmosphere.

Although due to the dim surroundings and the fire caused by friction on things entering the atmosphere, Chen Ming was not sure of its specific appearance and could not confirm what it was.

But the moment this thing enters the atmosphere.

Chen Ming saw in the video that the entire mechanical city came alive and they were preparing for battle.

Although no actual battle broke out until the thing landed.

But after seeing the Zerg attack just now, the reaction of the Machine Tribe.

Chen Ming has every reason to believe that those who enter the planet's atmosphere from space are Zerg.

If he wanted to find out what was going on with the Zerg, he had to investigate the location of the Zerg and the trajectory of the thing when it entered the atmosphere.

Everything is easy to do with video.

Chen Ming first determined the flight trajectory after entering the atmosphere based on the video. A simple calculation can confirm the trajectory of the thing before entering the atmosphere.

Then use the highest point to conduct high-power scanning to determine the positions and trajectories of all asteroids and other stars in orbit around the star.

Finally, based on calculations, the trajectories of these asteroids were pushed back five months, accurate to the day recorded in the video.

In this way, in addition to the trajectory of the thing that entered the atmosphere, the environment of the star in the orbit around the star at that time can also be accurately known.

At most, there is no way to determine the stars that have been added or disappeared in these five months.

But that's enough.

Because on the day that thing landed, its trajectory calculated by Chen Ming happened to coincide with several relatively large asteroids that were gathered together.

Even if Chen Ming may have some calculation errors, the results he calculated cannot completely deviate from the positions of these asteroids.

These bugs must have come from those asteroids.

At this moment, Chen Ming suddenly wondered if he had thought wrong.

First of all, he can confirm that the Thorn Zerg is indeed a kind of bug that often haunts asteroids.

Does this mean that the Zerg here also grew from asteroids, just like the space station?

And did these vesicles really evolve on their own?

Several questions quickly flashed through Chen Ming's mind, but this kind of thing still has to be seen to be believed.

Chen Ming quickly confirmed the current positions of the asteroids he suspected and quickly locked them.

He immediately moved the Supreme Point closer, intending to scan the asteroid.

But when he went over, he realized that it didn't seem necessary.

Because there are very obvious gaps on those asteroids, with a full side missing, revealing that the interior is completely hollow and filled with all kinds of disgusting growths.

This does not mean that Chen Ming's conjecture just now is correct.

On the contrary, it made him even more sure that the bug must be from outside.

Because Chen Ming asked Supreme Point to do a simple scan.

It can be determined that the gap in the asteroid was not broken from the inside out, but was broken from the outside using extremely violent means.

It was the bugs that invaded this asteroid that might be valuable to them, and after a while traveled to the planet below.

After confirming that there were no signs of life on the asteroid, Chen Ming sent a shuttle boat carrying several robots into the asteroid that was about two to three hundred meters in diameter.

However, after some searching, the robot found nothing of value. It could only extract some growths and a little bit of residue of green gelatinous objects and returned to the spacecraft.

Their names are [Thorne Zerg Solidified Secretion] and [Thorne Zerg Shellac], and it is unclear what their uses are.

But at this time, Chen Ming finally found a very detailed research report on the Thorn Zerg on different research websites.

It was written decades ago by several big names in biology whose names Chen Ming has heard of.

This paper wrote down the specific situation of the entire Thorn Zerg tribe in extremely detail, which was much more detailed than Chen Ming knew.

In fact, the Thorn Zerg itself is not a rare creature, but is very common, so common that it is somewhat widespread.

It is now quite rare due to man-made reasons. The reason for this situation is that when the Empire discovered the Thorn Zerg, a species that was found everywhere, it happened to be the period when the Empire was expanding externally.

During this period, the empire often encountered many creatures that were harmful to humans.

In the face of the almost endless benefits brought by development and the benefits that can make anyone and any force jealous, any creature that blocks the pace of human development must die.

Then the Thrawn Zerg were basically wiped out during the empire's pioneering period.

Only later did someone realize that something was wrong, so they deliberately left some Thorn Zerg for research.

There should still be individuals being cultivated in the empire.

There must be others out there, maybe squatting in some asteroid.

The spread and harm of the Thorn Zerg are still very obvious, and now they have a rare feature.

Previously, it would be used by people from the sector military to build space stations.

But judging from this paper, these bugs are irrelevant.

perhaps.

After reading this paper, Chen Ming still felt that something was wrong.

Because according to the records in the paper, these bugs did show certain evolutionary capabilities in the past.

However, the empire soon almost perished due to the deliberate extermination of this dangerous creature that affected the development, and could not evolve at all.

But the basic unit of speed in the paper is years, because the pioneering era lasted for hundreds of years, and the empire was always affected by bugs.

It only took two days for the bugs Chen Ming encountered to evolve the ability to spit acid from the most primitive ordinary bugs, those stratopods.

After another two or three months, he disappeared from the space station and appeared here. It doesn't look like his evolutionary ability is not strong.

In the past, it may have been because all the internal conflicts in the entire empire were washed away by the benefits brought about by development. The entire empire worked together to deal with the troubles on the road to development, resulting in the insects being unable to exert their evolutionary capabilities no matter how strong they were.

But times are different now. Chen Ming is really worried about the problems hidden behind these bugs.

And his problem has not been solved yet.

How did these bugs get here? Why are they raiding the city because of him or because the machine race is crazy again?

Couldn’t it be said that it’s because they have the same hive mind as the mechanical race, and then if one of them evolves, the others can also evolve, causing the bugs here to evolve into vesicle bugs like those on the space station?

No, it's impossible.

Chen Ming denied his thoughts again.

Unless there are psychic beings in them, this is absolutely impossible.

Separated by hundreds of light years, what kind of hive mind can be separated by hundreds of light years and still be able to maintain it?

If they really had such perverted abilities, it would have been impossible for the Zerg race to be easily killed by humans to the point of near-extinction during the pioneering era.

Is it possible... that the Zerg on the space station really evolved the ability to fly in space and even the ability to fly in hyperspace lanes?

Chen Ming is still not 100% sure, he still lacks evidence.

But one thing he was sure of was that these bugs could be a big threat.

He had to find a way to take away some insect corpses and send them to the empire, either to the boss or to Baiquan.

What he said should be enough for them to take it seriously.

To avoid the situation that once plagued by insects.

The empire is not that cohesive now.

Chen Ming once again sent several landing craft to land near the mechanical city, and found the opportunity to take away the body without any obstruction.

There are four kinds of bugs here.

Chen Ming had seen the [Thorne Zerg·Strider] and [Thorne Zerg·Vestozoa] before.

The largest [Thorne Zerg·Giant Spider], and the beetle-like [Thorne Zerg·Scale Bug].

In fact, there is another kind of bug that Chen Ming has seen but is not found in the corpses here, [Thorne Zerg Larvae].

It is impossible for the Zerg to be without larvae, which is why Chen Ming is worried.

It is possible that the Thrawn zerg still thrive deep underground on this planet.

After all the corpses of these bugs were sent to the Defiant, they were frozen and preserved.

Chen Ming also let his robot try to contact the mechanical tribe a little rudely.

In the battle just now, Chen Ming saw a lot of robots who obviously had good individual combat capabilities.

Moreover, there are also machines behind them that can fire special artillery, which obviously has considerable advantages in ground combat.

It would definitely not hurt to find a way to take one away and study it against the blueprint in his hand.

Chen Ming's robot secretly carried the dead mechanical race and was not discovered by other mechanical races.

He did successfully obtain the corpses of several mechanical clans.

In addition to the [Mechanical Family Standard Mechanical Body·Jing Mantis] and [Mechanical Family Small Mechanical Body·Worker Bee] that Chen Ming already has.

There are also the [Machine Tribe Standard Mechanical Body·Flying Mantis] as a melee unit with high-speed combat capabilities, and the huge frontal combat unit [Mechanical Tribe Small Mechanical Body·Digging Insect].

Although Chen Ming didn't know why this big guy with a height of several meters was a small mechanical body, it didn't matter. The name did not affect its capabilities.

In addition, Chen Ming was very greedy. Several of the [Mechanical Tribe Medium-sized Machinery Blazing Silkworms] that could fire artillery were completely dead in the area where they were usually stationed. After being controlled by Chen Ming, they were successfully taken away from the city.

Then, Chen Ming couldn't help but reach out to the still alive and dormant mechanical bodies.

Then he was surprised to find that these dormant mechanical bodies seemed not to be affected by external things, even if his robot had come into contact with the shell of the mechanical family.

These dormant machines seem to be only triggered by battle.

Of course, Chen Ming did not risk his own life by exposing his robot directly to the streets of the city, or in front of the robots who were still active.

He just wants to take away a few machines that are still alive, and wants to make sure that the one he controlled before is an exception.

Chen Ming took away several dormant machines as easily as he took away the corpses of other machines, and transported them directly to the highest point.

There are many devices inside the Supreme Point that can interfere with the normal operation of the machinery, and Chen Ming does not need to worry about the sudden explosion of the mechanical body.

When the mechanical tribe was transported to the highest point.

The robot sent by Chen Ming to confirm the landing location of the bug in the video is still on the way.

So he simply came directly to the warehouse and came to these dormant mechanical tribes.

In order not to damage these dormant machines, Chen Ming chose to directly control these machines himself and kept an eye on their panels.

Just like the somewhat damaged mechanical body before.

The consciousness column on their panels has also changed from [Individual consciousness: sub-individual (dormant)] to [Individual consciousness: sub-individual (abnormal)].

This is both a good thing and a bad thing for Chen Ming.

The good thing is that he doesn't need to worry about the mechanical clan he controls being affected by the "queen bee" of the mechanical clan in the future.

The downside is that after losing the consciousness assistance of the group, the mechanical bodies he controls become a little bit stupider in behavior.

and many more.

Chen Ming suddenly felt that something was wrong.

As the number of abnormal sub-individuals of the mechanical race under his control increases.

These anomalous individuals seem to have built a hive cluster of thinking networks.

They are sharing their computing power with each other.

And then Chen Ming discovered another special place.

Even when he controlled these mechanical races as abnormal sub-individuals, his mental power did not seem to be consumed.

Chen Ming's psychic power can control many things.

But for him to control everything, anything, anything, he must continue to consume his mental power.

Even if it was a spaceship that Yu Hui helped control, he would have to muster at least a little bit of mental power to control it.

Although the ongoing consumption is very small, this consumption is necessary.

However, the machines he controls now have changed from normal consciousness to abnormal machines.

Except for the small amount of mental energy consumed to control them at the beginning, there is no subsequent continuous consumption of mental energy.

But Chen Ming can still give them orders normally.

This doesn't seem quite right.

Chen Ming temporarily put aside his attention to other things, focused his mental energy on himself and several mechanical clans, and observed carefully.

Chen Ming just gathered his consciousness.

The next moment, his eyes suddenly widened.

Because these mechanical tribes not only did not consume Chen Ming's mental power.

Even feeding him back.

After these mechanical races transformed into anomalous sub-individuals, their weak abnormal individual consciousness fed back to Chen Ming to control the consumption of their mental power.

"Is this... the influence of the hive mind?"

Chen Ming understood.

After he controlled these mechanical races, they turned into abnormal sub-individuals.

With him as the core consciousness, these mechanical tribes built a new cluster of hive consciousness.

He is the "Queen Bee".

Chen Ming immediately began to check his own consciousness, and there was no change except that his mental strength was fed back by these anomalous individuals.

But Chen Ming still wondered whether these mechanical tribes would affect his consciousness in turn.

But he soon realized he didn't need to worry about that.

His psychic instinct will help him eliminate all dangers.

If there was really a problem, he would definitely know about it in advance and directly disconnect from the machine race, or directly kill the consciousness of those weak anomaly individuals.

But if that's okay...

Chen Ming swallowed subconsciously.

It is self-evident what it means that the consciousness of the machine race can feed back his spiritual power.

Chen Ming had a panoramic view of the entire decaying city through the surveillance tower, and once again he couldn't help but swallow his saliva.

He wants this city.

This planet must be cleansed of the Thrawn.

(End of this chapter)