These Synths Are Way Too Useful!

"Motherfucker! That dog developer ripped off my idea again!!" Daybreak City, industrial zone. Arms crossed, Mosquito stood with eight mechanical tentacles mounted to his back, glaring enviously at the crab engineering armor scuttling up and down a nearby construction site. His heart burned with bitter, petty resentment. How was that thing any different from the crab robot he had built earlier? Still, he had to admit that an NPC with high-tech backing really was something else. This Shelter 100 crab robot truly had real chops. Climb inside that machine, and one man could do the work of five. Especially when building on rugged terrain, the hulking contraption not only kept construction workers safe, but it also ramped up the efficiency of each man-hour. Even now, when Alliance workers still weren't fully proficient with it, construction efficiency had already jumped considerably. Mosquito had no doubt that after some time passed, its performance would be even more astonishing. Not far off, a bald synth wearing a superfluous hard hat was speaking with a construction foreman and an engineer who were also wearing hard hats, seemingly passing on tips and experience. Mosquito originally wanted to sidle over and eavesdrop to see if he could glean anything useful, but right at that moment, familiar voices called out from the side. "Mosquito? Didn't you head over to Boulder City? When'd you get back?" "Haha, how did Brother Guang persecute you this time?" The newcomers were none other than Quan Jia and Duo Ming. Seeing his two underlings approach, Mosquito didn't blush in the slightest. Looking toward the distant construction site, he let out a melancholy sigh and started spouting nonsense. "Look at that giant crab! Do you two remember? I built one before, and it's still sitting in the Dawn City warehouse! And before this version even updated, it became an NPC thing!" Quan Jia froze, taking a good moment before finally recalling what Mosquito was talking about, and burst into uncontrollable laughter. Beside him, Duo Ming gave even less face, laughing so boisterously that he hiccuped and nearly choked on his own spit. "Holy crap, how many patches ago was that?!" "Was that thing even a machin—wait, no, what you made was supposed to be a crab?!" Wasn't that junk just a bunch of crab shells slapped together? Damn it all, let alone an electronic control system, it didn't even have a battery or an electric motor! There were so many holes to poke that neither of them knew where to begin roasting him, leaving them clutching their bellies and laughing. Seeing that neither apprentice gave him an ounce of respect, Mosquito didn't get mad. He was used to it by now anyway. He simply rolled his eyes, refusing to lower himself to their level. To be fair, which great invention didn't evolve from rough to refined? Rome wasn't built in a day, right? His unpowered armor and crab robot were just temporarily imperfect. The last few soft updates had already proven that his thought process was viable—it was just lacking some polish. Mosquito was confident that given time, his bizarre creations would definitely prove useful. Besides, dammit, why weren't you laughing when I cranked out airplanes and recoilless rifles! What's the point of obsessing over this one thing?! Finally laughing his fill, Quan Jia suddenly noticed the eight mechanical arms on Mosquito's back. His convulsing grin snapped straight into shock. "Holy shit, bro, you fetched those mechanical arms back?" Mosquito chuckled. "Fetched 'em back? No way. Yours truly ordered a brand-new set." Quan Jia: "Holy shit?!" Duo Ming was stunned as well, stuck between laughter and tears. "Wait, Boss, haven't you learned your lesson?" "I knew you bastards would say that!" Mosquito sighed languidly without explaining. Manipulating a mechanical arm behind his left arm, he curved it over to grip the mechanical arm behind his right shoulder. With a backward shrug of his shoulder, right before their eyes, he yanked the mechanical arm straight off like pulling up a turnip. Watching this absurd, unbelievable spectacle, Quan Jia's eyes practically popped out of his skull. "Holy fuck?! Prosthetic implants can be detached?!" Mosquito smirked smugly. "It's not that implants can normally detach—yours truly had them make it modular." With that, the arm holding the detached limb poked to the right behind his back, clicking the mechanical arm straight back into place. Duo Ming stared blankly at him, taking a long time to squeeze out a question. "What about the spine, though? Can that be taken off too?" If he remembered correctly, extensive physical cybernetic modification required expanding the body's original hardware in addition to swapping out the modules themselves. And that so-called expansion meant replacing the spine. The structural materials were mostly titanium alloy or stainless steel, while the neural interface equipment used carbon-based polymers and molybdenum. For a cybernetic overhaul worth five hundred thousand silver coins, at least one hundred thousand or even two hundred thousand of the cost went into the spine and the spinal replacement surgery. If only the mechanical arms were detachable, every death would still incur the massive loss of an expensive bionic spine. Facing Duo Ming's question, Mosquito chuckled. "That part really can't be removed, but no big deal! Fun fact: the whole point of industrial products is that the more you make, the cheaper they get! The reason I came back from Boulder City this time is precisely to solve that problem!" Quan Jia and Duo Ming both blinked. "Solve that problem..." "What are you plotting now?" Under their bewildered stares, Mosquito gave a theatrical, loud cough and beamed with excitement. "Just yesterday! Yours truly secured an authorized contract and a long-term supply order from Ibers at Boulder Military Industries!" "From now on, Goblin Tech's technical staff will work alongside Boulder Military Industries engineers to develop assembly-line manufacturing for 'universal-interface bionic spines'! We'll replace the veteran engineers' secret heirloom recipes with standardized production lines, striving to ensure every cybernetic-build player gets a spine cheap enough to thrash around without shedding a tear!" "Simply put, I'm going to bring the price of bionic prostheses down to earth!!!" Of course, that wasn't the only reason. Deep down, he harbored a profound interest in bionics-related technology. The aviation kerosene before had already given him a taste of success. And after discovering that technologies from this game could actually be applied in reality, his ambitions had steadily grown. If he could bring even a fraction of bionic prosthesis technology into the real world... Even if he couldn't completely master these overly advanced technologies, simply porting the 'prerequisite tech'—the neural interface technology and algorithms—back to reality would physically eradicate both cervical spondylosis and high-level quadriplegia from Earth. Still, he knew the thought was a bit wild. Real-world neural interfaces and algorithms were still taking baby steps, barely allowing trained chimps to play a game of Pong or something. Yet considering that someone had already built virtual helmets, he retained a measure of confidence in his hands-on skills and learning speed. As one of the earliest players to enter the game, his Human Alliance language was already fluent enough to converse normally with the world's NPCs. All he lacked was familiarity with technical jargon and a grasp of 'overly advanced basic knowledge.' Those could all be learned over time. After hearing Mosquito's grandiose declaration, Quan Jia and Duo Ming's eyes widened in unison. "Holy crap!" "God tier!" Damn! Earlier, they had roasted brother Mosquito on the forums for constantly wasting money serving as a guinea pig for NPCs, playing the role of a total sucker. Now it seemed their own vision had been too narrow. Turned out the guy was playing the long game—grinding NPC favorability to transform straight from an exploited customer into a business partner. Contract manufacturing for a 'competitor.' Neither of them had seen that slick move coming... *** The 'powerhouse collaboration' between Goblin Tech and Boulder Military Industries was merely an unremarkable footnote amid the flood of production orders in Daybreak City's industrial zone. In this industrial hub expanding at a visibly breakneck pace, deals worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions were struck almost daily. Grain imported from Sunset Province secured the Alliance's food supply, while the mines and waste-sorting centers managed by prisoner-of-war camps supplied raw materials with virtually zero labor costs. With both daily essentials for residents and upstream raw materials remaining price-stable, the steady emergence of new inventions and industries was sufficient to absorb the endogenous inflation generated by the Alliance's active fiscal borrowing. Meanwhile, Sunset Province and Jinchuan Province, which supplied industrial raw materials, effectively absorbed portions of surplus industrial goods. Bionic prostheses were far from the only goods whose prices would tumble in the future. Unless Mosquito bragged about it while drunk, nobody in a tavern would even bother discussing such an unremarkable topic. Lately, the entire buzz in Daybreak City centered on another matter entirely. A batch of special residents had recently joined the Alliance. They were synths—a full one hundred and ten of them! The number sounded modest, but in Daybreak City with its population of one hundred twenty thousand, they accounted for nearly one in every thousand residents! A sizeable portion were experts in physics and engineering, while others possessed rich experience in project management. Because most previously excavated shelters had focused on biotechnology, the Alliance had consistently faced a severe shortage of personnel in physics and engineering. The addition of these synths tremendously boosted the Scientific Expedition's efficiency in recovering technology across those domains. Moreover, their extensive project-management experience provided immense help to many of the Alliance's haphazardly assembled construction teams. These synths were usually active around Camp 101. Some were hired by educational institutions and laboratories in Camp 101, while others guided construction crews on site in operating the 'Bie-type' engineering armor and spider robots excavated from Shelter 100. All of them were uniformly bald with dull gray skin, far easier to recognize than Frost or Eclipse, who had applied artificial skin. The local residents didn't dislike them; after all, the Alliance was a melting pot of people from everywhere. At most, the locals were baffled. These folks didn't drink, didn't smoke, never changed clothes, and slept simply by standing beside a charging post. They had zero human desires. What on earth were they working and earning money for? *** "Those synths have been an enormous help!" Shelter 101, still in that same cafe. Meeting Dr. Method once again, Chu Guang sat down and immediately showered them with praise. Objective facts considered, from an Alliance Administrator's perspective, he could not find a single flaw in these one hundred and ten newly naturalized synth residents. Not only were their professional skills the Alliance's most pressing need, but their passion for work was immense. When it came to sheer grinding, not even the players could out-grind them! Most absurd of all, such stellar employees didn't even want wages! A periodic recharge was all they needed. Even so, although Gurgel had stated they required no money, Chu Guang followed Alliance regulations by requiring their employers to pay standard wages as well as triple-hourly-rate overtime. This was for their own good. He wanted to prevent a situation where, despite doing good deeds, they walked down the street only to have bricks 'mysteriously' hurled at them by other working folk. The Alliance did not advocate free labor; it promoted the rule that labor must be compensated, or else liberating those serfs would have lost all meaning. Still, regarding the sincere request Gurgel presented on behalf of the residents, Chu Guang had given it thoughtful consideration. Under his directive, the Alliance Bank opened a dedicated custodial account for these synths. Per their wishes, surpluses from their salary cards were periodically transferred into the custodial account, and the funds were then used to invest in Daybreak City's infrastructure. In this way, those who sought to fulfill the wishes of their deceased brethren achieved spiritual redemption, while Daybreak City's residents reaped practical benefits from their donations. A true win-win! Truth be told, once Gurgel accepted the proposal, Chu Guang felt nothing but deep admiration alongside his marvel. Working tirelessly without consuming any commercial goods, asking only for the bare electricity to sustain their lives, channeling every cent earned into the Alliance's growth and future, and pouring themselves enthusiastically into the next task driven solely by spiritual satisfaction and joy... What a noble, selfless spirit! Naturally, as Administrator, he would not urge others to emulate them; that could easily plant another colossal landmine. Yet after reading Xiao Qi's observation reports on those synths, Chu Guang couldn't help daydreaming a little. If only they could produce more synths that only worked and never consumed! Seeing Dr. Method smiling without a word, Chu Guang knew the brilliant man had definitely seen through his thoughts, so he dropped the pretenses and asked straight out. "Why not produce more synths that possess their own personalities?" In fact, he had an even better idea. There was no need to burden them with such heavy pasts; just start them off in debt for a hundred million or something, and they would hustle with boundless motivation. As if anticipating Chu Guang's question, Method curled his lips and smiled. "I know what you're thinking, but I'd advise you to drop that clever trick. Memories can indeed be edited via computer tech, and personality can even be handled with algorithms. However, a synth like that will never become a human in the social sense, and all manner of problems will crop up during social production activities." Chu Guang's brows knit slightly. "What do you mean?" Method chuckled. "Literally what I said. You must have realized a bit of it yourself. For instance, a synth who takes no wages at all causes problems, so you'd rather have the money cycle through your financial system just to pay them a symbolic wage." That was a given. Puzzled, Chu Guang asked, "Is there a connection between the two?" "The connection is that personality cannot be manufactured; it is born naturally within society. A clone stepping fresh out of a cloning vat—let alone receiving modern education—performs worse on an assembly line than a trained monkey. That's not because he isn't smart enough, but because he hasn't acquired social attributes." Before Chu Guang could press for details, Method took a sip of coffee and continued in a soft voice. "Back in the early Era of Prosperity, this was debated as a very sharp social issue: namely, what actually counts as human." Chu Guang asked, "Does something like that even need debate?" Method replied as if it were obvious, "Of course. Every era has the topics of its era, and radical and conservative viewpoints always coexist. For example, in the old era, the definition of a human was the unification of natural person and social person. That was the consensus between radicals and conservatives. Even if they argued themselves red in the face over identity, race, or land, no one paid any mind to that bizarre question." "Yet during the Era of Prosperity, with breakthroughs in information technology and biotechnology, a person could easily modify themselves into an entirely different form, or even graft their thoughts onto a superior species. That originally indisputable consensus began to crack... In short, things that could once only be imagined could now actually be done." "Radicals argued that a human ought to be a social person, while whether they were a natural person wasn't so important. So long as there was an unbroken chain of evidence proving the continuity of personality, whether that personality was transplanted into a cat or a robot, that person remained a citizen of the Human Alliance." "The conservatives, however, held the traditional view, much like the racists of the old era or the monarchists of even earlier times. Their position was that only the unification of natural person and social person could be called human; otherwise, no matter how humanlike they were, they were merely 'humanoid.' Based on that view, minor cybernetic modification was acceptable, but replacing extensive parts with machinery or altering genetic information for non-medical purposes was unacceptable." Looking at Chu Guang, who had fallen into contemplation, Method continued. "Both sides had their own internal logic. But setting those debates aside, you can see that they actually shared common ground on one thing." Intrigued, Chu Guang nodded. "They both agreed that being a social person is an essential attribute of being human?" Method nodded approvingly. "Exactly." Pausing, he set down his coffee cup and adopted a serious tone. "The personality you speak of is actually a component of social attributes. A radical would never believe a vending machine deserves civil rights, no matter how long it has lived in the Human Alliance. Yet a synth whose 'AI core logic algorithms developed naturally within Human Alliance society and who can participate in social production' could be regarded by most radicals as someone's son or daughter." "If we fabricate a nonexistent identity, assign him nonexistent memories, and grant him human emotions using a sapience plugin, even if our society struggles to tell him apart from the crowd, he could only ever exist as someone's pet or dependent." "He would be like an extraneous puzzle piece. If he only performs simple, repetitive mechanical tasks, there's no issue at all—he might perform better than an ordinary human and slightly worse than a pure machine. But if he engages deeper in the workings of the social system—say, performing creative work independently, or handling public affairs—he will easily slip up and commit incomprehensible blunders in the most baffling ways." "The residents of Shelter 100 were born naturally in a real, existing society. Whether they uploaded their minds onto circuit boards or transferred them back from circuit boards into physical shells, their actions mirror those of anyone else in this society based on their cognition of self and community. That is precisely why you find them so satisfying." "To put it mystically: their souls genuinely exist, and a soul cannot simply be copied like a computer program." Chu Guang rubbed his temples, sorting through the complex concepts. "I think I get the gist... In short, only when a synth's logic algorithms are formed within Society A can they spontaneously participate in Society A's social activities." By extension, if Society A and Society B shared similarities or could accommodate each other, they could also integrate into Society B. But if placed in Society C—an environment diametrically opposed to Society A, like a mutant tribe—they would exhibit clear maladaptation and subjective resistance. In that sense, weren't they just like humans? Method smiled and nodded. "Precisely. So to answer your previous question about why not produce more: strictly in terms of material, labor hours, and production costs, synths offer far worse cost-effectiveness than clones. A clone can become an expert or scholar in a given field through education. A synth, even if you cram all knowledge into its head, can at best become a walking encyclopedia, knowing neither how to use that knowledge nor what to research next." Chu Guang sighed with feeling. "I see. I've learned something today." He hailed from another world predating the Era of Prosperity; to say he knew nothing of these concepts was an understatement—he was completely blind to them. Regarding how to handle synths and Yu, he had been crossing the river by feeling the stones, making decisions while consulting the opinions of other Alliance residents. So long as someone shared the goal of ending the Wasteland Era, let alone synths, he would even try to unite with xenoraces to see if they held similar ambitions. Seeing Chu Guang's humble, receptive expression, Method suddenly burst into laughter. Chu Guang stared at him, baffled. "What are you laughing at?" Not knowing something was just not knowing it. What was so funny about that? Stifling his laughter, Method said, "Nothing... It's just amusing to discuss things written in textbook prefaces with you. Hahaha!" Chu Guang: "...?" What on earth was amusing about that?