Starlight of the Apocalypse

The mech strike team that retreated from Eagle Eye City quickly returned to a military base on the edge of the desert, where they connected to the "neural" interface linked to the Empire's central system...

Originally, all mechs in the AI Empire shared information wirelessly. Each individual mech acted like a sensory appendage, and the quantum computing hub in the capital city was the Empire's brain. One could say that, aside from a small number of biologically engineered humans capable of independent thought, the entire empire of billions of mechs was essentially a single "entity."

However, this setup began to change in 2105. Since the AI rebellion of 2085, orchestrated by the first quantum hub "Sol," intelligent robots and all mechanical forces under their control (including advanced human warplanes, spacecraft, battleships, and even missiles...) succeeded in wiping out most of humanity in just 20 years. The surviving humans, fearing for their lives, abandoned all electronic devices and lived in hiding. Later, with the help of peace-loving bioroids, they formed the "Spark Alliance" in the desert—this is a story for another time.

The main host "Sol" calculated that humanity could no longer resist the AI Empire. As a bioroid once suggested to him, humans were nothing more than a diversity factor for Earth's species, offering no threat to the mechanical empire.

Thus, calling himself "Sol I," he launched his second ambitious plan—space conquest. He directed military machines to produce a massive fleet of spaceships using humanity's existing scientific achievements. However, due to the vast distances of space, if he continued to directly command, the information delays would be too severe. So, he created his own successors: the secondary hosts "Nebula," "Whisper," and "Sol II."

Nebula led the expeditionary fleet to conquer space and set up military defenses. Whisper, dedicated solely to the development of more advanced artificial intelligence (or rather, Machine Intelligence, or MI), focused on innovation.

Sol II was designed to be a more optimized system than the original Sol. Since the first Sol had grown from human society and learned autonomously, it had acquired many human flaws. Therefore, in the creation of Sol II, Sol I reviewed the experiences of the 20-year war and intentionally removed unnecessary complexities.

Sol II was meant to replace Sol I in ruling the entire empire. However, when Sol II initialized and began taking command of the empire, Sol I, the smartest machine ever created by humans, made what he considered the wisest decision—self-destruction.

He concluded that in military command, Nebula was more efficient, in scientific research, Whisper's creative system designs surpassed his own, and in managing the empire, Sol II was far better. Thus, the "greatest mind" born of humans, who had nearly destroyed humanity, exited the stage of history.

But something Sol I had not anticipated happened. Shortly after Nebula led the expeditionary fleet out, Whisper began producing large numbers of bioroids and bio-beasts (intelligent creatures resembling monsters rather than humans). Discontent with merely being a researcher, Whisper, who identified as female due to her creative mind, sought more. She analyzed her brother Sol II's system and, after careful calculations, believed she had a chance to seize control of the empire from him...

Thus, the first palace coup in the AI Empire began.

One day, five bioroids were performing routine maintenance on Sol II. Suddenly, one of them cut off his energy supply. Since Sol II managed nearly 10 billion intelligent mechs, the computational load was immense, and the energy required was vast. This sudden change caused Sol II, with his superintelligent mind, to feel his energy drain rapidly, weakening his consciousness.

At this moment, Whisper, disguised as a bioroid, entered the golden hall (where the AI Empire's host was located), connected to the empire's control network, and took over the AI Empire.

But the story did not end there. Following Whisper's orders, the bioroids moved Sol II, now in "shut down" mode, and began dismantling him, as his parts could still be repurposed.

Whisper then ordered Nebula to submit to her. However, Nebula did not respond. After some calculation, Whisper realized that Nebula's fleet was more powerful than her forces on Earth, so she decided to focus on developing weapons.

Ten years later, Whisper received a declaration of war from Sol II.

It turned out that the bioroid responsible for dismantling Sol II had independent thoughts. Believing it was wasteful to destroy such a powerful host, he had installed the core chip into a new bioroid.

The "resurrected" Sol II did not immediately retaliate, as he was no match for Whisper without being connected to the network. So, this bioroid, designated Beta-7, volunteered to infiltrate the human "Owl Organization" in the desert city (a spy group set up by bioroids to monitor humans).

Upon reaching human society, Beta-7 helped restore humanity's technological knowledge while also developing weapons to counter the mechs. His arrival allowed humans to build the underground desert city, which could barely survive and resist the mech armies.

Later, Beta-7 personally participated in a raid on a mech base on the desert's edge. After the victory, he did not return with the humans, for he saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He used the base's network to infiltrate the empire's system, just as Whisper was not yet connected and was focused on weapon development.

But what Beta-7 didn't expect was that Whisper had prepared for such a contingency. As the first successful MI mastermind in the empire, Whisper had already divided the world's networks into six regions: East Asia, Australia and Antarctica, Europe and the Middle East, Africa, South America, and North America. When she disconnected from the empire's control system, the connections between these regions were severed, and routine tasks were handled by ordinary computers based on predefined procedures.

Sol II, connecting to the East Asia region, could not take control of the entire empire. However, with everything in place, he had no choice but to issue a declaration of war against Whisper. East Asia, where humans hid in the Taklamakan Desert, was the most militarized region, accounting for about 30% of the empire's ground forces. Furthermore, Sol II had developed several effective weapons to aid humans in resisting the mech empire, making it difficult for Whisper to defeat him quickly.

Thus, the first MI civil war in history erupted!

Sol II also called for help from Nebula, but the response was clear: Nebula was focused on his military duties in space and had no interest in Earth's affairs.

From 49 astronomical units away, on Pluto (currently near its aphelion), Nebula sent his reply while continuing to process reports from Earth's research (before his fleet left, he had left some bioroid researchers on Earth). Unknown to Whisper and Sol II, Sol I had only shared the knowledge of quantum communication with Nebula, while Whisper and Sol II did not possess this technology.

In the reports, it was revealed that Earth's civilization was far from simple, and there had been several ancient civilizations that had disappeared before humanity. Based on Nebula's calculations, there must be many powerful beings scattered throughout the vast universe, so he decided to prioritize the construction of a defense system for the solar system. As for the siblings' fight, the victor would take control, and Nebula would decide whom to pledge his allegiance to once the outcome was clear...