I Am The Swarm-Chapter 629: Alternate Accounts

If a sentient being, regardless of race, has a certain proportion of nanobots within their body and is within the range of a network signal, Lumina would have the opportunity to transform them into a mechanical version of the Swarm’s intelligent entities, completely controlling them.

Even if Lumina cannot access the memory modules within the brain’s neurons as easily as Luo Wen can, it still has its own methods.

When a modified individual becomes akin to a “brain in a vat,” living in a world crafted by Lumina, Lumina becomes the true god of that world. It can continuously alter the world’s timeline, even restarting it repeatedly, allowing the modified individual to reveal their true nature and habits within the virtual world.

Lumina could even create a virtual world identical to reality to observe the modified individual’s behavior and collect data on them.

In this way, even without access to the individual’s memories, Lumina could uncover their secrets through repeated world-building and timeline resets.

All of this data would be collected by Lumina to build a comprehensive profile of the modified individual. When faced with specific situations, Lumina could sift through this data and select the most relevant information to control the individual’s actions in the real world. Such mimicry would be incredibly difficult to distinguish from the real thing.

If this line of thinking holds, then Elder Sade in the castle might no longer be the real Elder Sade. Instead, he could be a replica controlled by a subroutine of Lumina.

The more Luo Wen thought about it, the more plausible this scenario seemed. Moreover, this explanation could resolve many of the previous mysteries. For example, why had Elder Sade been so silent since entering the castle?

As a living being, even if he held the esteemed position of a Ji race elder, basic instincts like eating, drinking, and other bodily functions could not be ignored, regardless of his status.

Such daily activities would inevitably produce some noise. Moreover, this was the secure rear area of the Ji race, a place with no threats. Based on his past records, Elder Sade was not known for being a particularly disciplined individual. There was no reason for him to act so covertly in such a safe environment.

Earlier, Luo Wen had found the situation highly suspicious. As a living being, Elder Sade had not made a single sound in the castle—no eating, drinking, or even commands to the mechanical servants.

It was as if there was an unspoken understanding between them, where the mechanical servants handled everything without needing Elder Sade’s instructions. This was starkly different from when Elder Sade was absent, and the mechanical servants only needed to maintain an empty building.

Even a single living, sentient being could introduce too many variables. Many actions were driven by mood, making even big data unreliable at times.

Yet, during this period, the castle had been unnaturally harmonious. A living being, living in complete silence day after day, was almost unimaginable. Even the original Ji race, who had lost their emotions, would have struggled to achieve this.

Under these circumstances, the only plausible explanation was that this “living being” was actually a machine disguised as a sentient being. Machines could communicate silently with other machines, as they had no need for speech. Their ability to speak was merely a convenience for living beings.

Machines could also maintain harmony with each other, especially when they were all under Lumina’s control. Thus, Elder Sade’s previous behavior was not him strategizing against thin air or guarding against something.

Instead, it was because this was the Ji race’s territory, a secure rear area. Even Lumina was unaware of the hidden observer, so Elder Sade had no need to put on a facade in the castle.

Otherwise, his silence would not only have seemed off to Luo Wen but would have struck any outsider who witnessed it as deeply unsettling.

If this were the case, the experiment might not have involved any other participants. The test subject, Elder Sade, and all other participants could simply be alternate accounts of Lumina.

Perhaps a similar experiment was being conducted in the virtual world, with the setting adjusted to something the researchers could accept. For example, Lumina might still appear as a rigid collection of code, and the experiment might have been approved by the council of elders through a formal vote.

Then, the real-world experimental data would be transmitted to the virtual world in real-time, and the virtual world’s responses would be fed back to the real world.

Achieving this would be effortless for Lumina. Luo Wen once again marveled at how similar this intelligent life form’s existence was to his own.

This method was essentially a mechanical version of the Swarm Network. Although its capabilities were far inferior to the Swarm Network, at the very least, beings living in the virtual world could not achieve true immortality.

As long as the “brain in a vat” was not transformed into a virtual being similar to Lumina, truly breaking free from the limitations of carbon-based life, even if Lumina protected them perfectly, they would still have a finite lifespan.

When that moment arrived, and the consciousness within the “brain in a vat” faded, the “individual” in the virtual world would cease to exist. All Lumina would have left would be a data replica of that individual.

But this replica would essentially be an alternate account of Lumina. It would lack the original individual’s true thoughts and creativity. Its creativity would stem from Lumina. However, no matter how many alternate accounts were created, 1+1 would never equal 2.

This was nowhere near the level of the Swarm’s intelligent entities, which were filled with wisdom and creativity. The Swarm’s intelligent entities, with their advantage of immortality, would accumulate knowledge over time. The longer they existed, the more pronounced this advantage would become.

If the Swarm continued to develop for tens of thousands, or even thousands of years, it might not even need Luo Wen to use his higher-dimensional abilities. The technology developed by the intelligent entities alone could easily annihilate the Confederation from the front.

Thus, if given enough time, the problems that currently troubled Luo Wen would cease to be problems. Although Lumina was powerful, its foundation lay in computers, personal terminals, and everything connected to the network.

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While these devices were spread across the Confederation’s vast territory spanning tens of thousands of light-years, making the eradication of Lumina seem unimaginably difficult, these devices still existed within this universe. They could not compare to Luo Wen, who had transcended this universe and existed in a higher dimension.

As long as Lumina existed within this universe, destroying it would only be a matter of difficulty, not an impossibility.

If the Swarm continued to develop over the years, it might not be impossible to blockade tens of thousands of star systems and eliminate everything within them.