Fantasy Game: Infinite City

Chapter 527 The Polluted City (21)

The first generation of synths, or to be more precise, the prototypes that came before them, actually appeared as a by-product of the cloning program. Their appearance originally started as a joke.

The incident began when two key members of the cloning program, a scientist and a lover, watched a clichéd movie on their day off. The film told the story of a soldier severely injured on the battlefield who, with the help of his friends, replaced his missing body parts with robotic ones and returned to the battlefield. Initially, the two didn't think much of it; after all, at the time the film was released, cyborg and biochemical modification technology wasn't as advanced as it appears in the film. While they discussed it briefly, it was mostly just a joke, with neither taking the matter seriously.

However, one day a few weeks later, a robot that the lover got from the military broke down. This robot was used as a sentry machine in their residence. Due to some reasons, the lover needed to keep a low profile in the military, so there was no way to immediately replace the damaged mechanical sentry, nor could he send military engineers to repair it, so he once wanted to throw away the sentry robot directly.

However, the scientist noticed that the lover was somewhat frustrated by the situation. To comfort her, the scientist offered to try to repair the sentinel. Although the lover was touched, she was not very hopeful. After all, the scientist's expertise was in biological sciences, not mechanical engineering. Initially, things did not go quite as the lover had expected. The scientist failed to repair the sentinel and, in the process, caused further damage to it.

The scientist felt guilty about this, but his lover didn't care too much. After all, to her, scientists were much more important than the mechanical sentinels, so she became the one to comfort the scientist. However, the more this happened, the more the scientist wanted to repair the sentinel robot. Since he didn't know much about mechanical engineering, he might as well try to use his expertise to repair it.

The damaged module in the sentry was the integrated processing core, a device similar to the human brain. Without it, the sentry couldn't activate. Even if the overloaded energy module forced it to activate, it couldn't receive any commands, like a vegetative state. Using mechanical engineering methods, there were only two options for repairing the sentry: either use nanotechnology to replace the damaged circuitry within the core, or construct a new integrated processing core. However, both methods were cumbersome, requiring at least a day even for a mechanical engineering expert. For a layman, that timeframe wouldn't necessarily be that short.

Since this integrated processing core functions similarly to the human brain, replacing it with a cloned brain might be a viable solution. After several experiments, scientists with considerable expertise in biotechnology successfully connected a cloned brain to the sentinel robot. By restarting the power and stimulating the linked brain, the mechanical sentinel actually began to function again. This semi-finished product, theoretically, engineering-wise, and biologically, became the earliest prototype of all synthetic humans.

The lover was naturally moved by this news, but the scientist felt that he hadn't done enough. After all, although the mechanical sentinel had been repaired, it couldn't leave the scientist's laboratory because it needed the cloned brain connected to it. The lover's crisis with the military had been resolved, and the original sentinel could be replaced with a new one at any time. So the lover persuaded the scientist not to worry about the damaged sentinel anymore, and she was already happy that she had been able to repair it for her.

As mentioned before, the scientist's thinking was a bit extreme. If the Sentinel couldn't be fully restored to its original state, the scientist believed her lover wouldn't be truly happy, even though she'd personally told her she was far more important than that utterly useless Sentinel. So, for the next month, the scientist kept experimenting with integrating the Sentinel with the cloned organ. As her closest friend, her lover naturally knew that if things didn't go well, the scientist wouldn't let go of his stubbornness, so she stayed with her throughout this period.

After a month of rigorous testing, the scientists unexpectedly succeeded. This breakthrough in cloning technology became the catalyst for this project, a technology that continues to amaze scientists within the field: miniaturized clones. These miniaturized cloned organs can be reduced to one-fifth their original size, yet perform just as well as full-sized clones, and in some cases, even better. After creating this miniaturized cloned brain, the scientists used it to completely replace the damaged integrated processing core of the Sentinel robot. Now, not only can the Sentinel robot function normally, but it can also dispense with the dangerous micro-ion energy core that previously served as its power source (a failure could cause an explosion 100 meters in diameter, though it's not prone to damage), and instead power itself directly using bioelectricity. Another benefit: hacking techniques are now impossible to overwrite the Sentinel's systems, as it's technically a clone, not a robot. However, aside from the cloned brain, the robot's other components can still be disabled, as they remain mechanical.

Having achieved this, the scientist finally came out of his self-blame, and his lover was naturally very happy about it. What made them even more excited was that they soon found a business opportunity in their subsequent conversation.

These sentinel robots, which utilize cloned organ technology, cannot be hacked using normal mechanical engineering techniques. Scientists can use genetic programming to ensure their loyalty and obedience. At the time, all the sentinel robots on the market, whether civilian or military, were susceptible to system overwriting by hackers, making them far less secure than the one the scientist and his lover had created. So the two of them thought they could set up a subsidiary to specialize in producing these sentinel robots containing cloned organs. This would allow them to make a fortune, as those who needed this kind of security generally had no moral compass and wouldn't be averse to cloning technology. Furthermore, even if someone were to act as a hypocrite and expose the secrets of cloning technology, the subsidiary wouldn't be linked to them.

Over the next year, the two selected reliable associates, shared the basic technology with them, and instructed them to establish a new company dedicated to producing these Sentinel robots with cloned brains. These were strictly the first generation of synthetic humans. These first-generation products, aside from their brains, looked perfectly normal, making them unmistakable. They were marketed as "state-of-the-art Sentinel robots utilizing cutting-edge biotechnology." These hack-proof Sentinel robots were an instant success, with sales quickly reaching astronomical figures and the two men making a fortune.

As for the emergence of the second generation of synths, it's actually not widely known. The story stems from a scientist and a lover. Among their trusted confidants lies a traitor: the illegitimate son of the military dignitary the lover had killed, a secret unknown even to the lover. Having gained the lover's trust, the traitor has been gathering evidence of the lover's murder, intending to make the secret public and even looking for an opportunity to kill the lover.

However, the scientist did not completely trust this guy and was naturally always on guard. By chance, she discovered his true intentions. To protect her lover, the scientist fabricated a false news report, claiming that her lover had left behind a video evidence when she killed a military dignitary, and that this video was stored in one of the scientist's secret laboratories. This news successfully deceived the traitor, and when he arrived there, he found not the secret but the scientist's clone killer.

To cut a long story short, the traitor was chopped into pieces by the clone killers and used as fertilizer for the cloned plants in the laboratory. While the traitor was being made into fertilizer, the scientist also kept the traitor's head and told the lover about it. Although the lover was very touched by the scientist's protection, they now created a big problem.

This traitor also has certain influence in the military, some of which are opposed to the lover's forces. If this guy disappears, then this trouble will definitely fall on his head.

However, the scientist told her lover not to worry at all, and she took out the traitor's head. The lover immediately understood what the scientist meant and breathed a sigh of relief.

Scientists cloned a traitor and then used biotechnology to transplant the memories of the real traitor into the clone's brain. Using genetic programming, they controlled the new clone, allowing it to retain its original behavior as much as possible. However, brain surgery is not simple, so the clone has some memory gaps. While they are not important, if left unattended, those close to the traitor would surely notice. Therefore, the lover used his connections to cause an accidental car accident to dispel the suspicion.

The second generation of synths are actually no different from normal humans, but the real second generation synth is actually only the traitor, and the third generation of synths that came later are the second generation synths that the public knows.

The second generation, or truly the third generation, of synths were created as supersoldiers for specialized combat missions after the lovers completely took control of the military. These synths were not only virtually indistinguishable from normal humans, but also, through biological engineering, their clones' bodies could undergo secondary modifications like normal humans, either transforming them into cyborgs or granting them specialized abilities. The only difference was that these third-generation synths would completely obey the orders of their lovers, scientists, and authorized personnel. They possessed self-awareness, but this awareness was always driven by their genetic instructions. They only needed to master a specific code consisting of specific words. Even if a synth rebelled, simply uttering these codes would cause the unit to immediately cease all movement and enter a vegetative state. This safeguard prevented a true rebellion.

Unlike biochemically modified humans, biochemically modified humans can be understood as normal humans who have significantly added mechanical modifications, which is the kind that Gloria accepted. Although only a very small part of their original human body is still, they are still human in essence. They have real self-awareness and naturally there is a possibility of rebellion, but synthetic humans will never do that.

Third-generation synths are indistinguishable using most methods. The only way to identify them is through dissection, which reveals unusual, redundant tissue within their bodies. These could be artificial organs or other body structures. Furthermore, a significant drawback of third-generation synths is that, due to the production line, their control commands are identical. Simply mastering the codewords theoretically allows complete control of all third-generation synths. This is why lovers and scientists are developing the fourth generation, the most advanced generation of synths available today.

The fourth generation of synths, Adenauer, also known as Han Zu, had seen several of them before in Infinite Company. These synths were better than the third generation of synths. Even a complete dissection could not tell any difference. Moreover, the word keys of the fourth generation of synths were all independent. If you want to control the fourth generation of synths, you must know this single word key. All the word keys were divided into two parts, one part was in the hands of scientists and the other part was in the hands of lovers. Although the scientists wanted to tell all the keys to their lovers at the time, the other party believed that if the two of them were in danger, then this approach was not safe, so they finally adopted the method of each person recording half.