Chapter 362: Funny Videos

"So many drones, a 24/7 information bombardment... isn’t that a bit excessive?"

Today, Jason was inspecting a massive control center. Rows upon rows of monitoring screens stretched across several floors, tracking the status of the various atmospheric drones. Looking closely, they were all essentially broadcasting the exact same video. The setup looked a lot like the wall of screens in an antique electronics store, bringing a wave of nostalgia over him.

"It is different, Commander. It is a fundamentally different species. We cannot measure it by human standards," an educational psychologist said, greeting Jason at the entrance of the control center.

The expert chuckled. "Humans are single-process creatures. We can only focus on one thing at a time, and multitasking leads to mistakes.

But this entity is a multi-process intelligence. It can analyze and process countless data streams simultaneously, much like a highly advanced multi-core processor."

"Based on our recent observations, we have a general understanding of how it operates. It is incredibly intelligent, like ten thousand minds merged into one.

While it can absorb massive amounts of data, this actually makes it much harder for it to form a unified self-awareness. It has to synchronize so many separate thoughts..."

Jason nodded. "So, its process of developing a true sense of self is actually very slow?"

"Exactly! We believe that constant, prolonged repetition is the only way to leave a lasting impression on it. In fact, this is exactly how human infants build their understanding of the world."

Young children love repetitive actions. If a toddler throws a toy and their mother picks it up, they will just throw it again. That single, looping action brings them endless joy.

The same principle applies to early childhood education. A toddler needs to repeatedly process the sights and sounds around them to build their core worldview. For an entity that possesses massive processing power but a blank-slate intellect, extensive repetitive training is absolutely necessary.

"That does make a lot of sense," Jason nodded thoughtfully.

"Three thousand videos playing at once is far from enough. We plan to expand the operation. Its slow cognitive growth is exactly why we have this opportunity! If it had already solidified its own ideology, changing its mind would be nearly impossible. A grown adult rarely changes their core beliefs once they are set."

As the expert spoke, he typed a few commands on his console. A stream of data popped up on the main screen. "The videos we selected are completely non-aggressive. They represent the innocence and simplicity of humanity.

They project the friendliness and kindness we want to communicate... These are the core concepts we want it to learn and imitate!"

"Look here. This specific video of a baby has been looped over a thousand times. The entity really seems to enjoy it. The concentration of marine algae in the water below the screen is rapidly increasing. It is even forming complex structures to observe the broadcast..."

"Keep broadcasting! Do not stop the feed! Our theory is working!" the expert exclaimed, excitedly pointing at the monitor.

To reach his level in his field, one had to genuinely love children and education. Nurturing this bizarre, planetary-scale organism was giving him an immense sense of accomplishment.

Curious, Jason leaned closer to the screen. Through the drone’s external cameras, he could clearly see massive clusters of algae clumping together. They formed strange, round shapes that looked like floating grapes, possibly primitive, mimicking structures acting as eyes or ears.

The audio from the broadcast was so loud that it had scared away all the local birds and fish. The only thing left in the water was this bizarre mass of algae, actively shifting around in front of the giant screen.

It was actively moving! Although the movements were subtle, they were definitely deliberate. It wasn’t just drifting with the ocean currents.

This physical reaction fascinated the biology department, but since they could only observe from a distance, they were left scratching their heads in frustrated curiosity.

Meanwhile, a funny home video of a baby playing with a cat looped endlessly on the giant hovering screen.

In the video, a fat cat was playfully swishing its fluffy tail at the baby’s face. Whenever the tail brushed the baby’s nose, she would burst into hysterical giggles. When the tail moved away, she would stop laughing and stare at the cat with wide, expectant eyes.

Then the cat would flick its tail again, and before it even touched her, she would erupt into joyous laughter.

The video was just over a minute long, looping seamlessly. Whenever the baby laughed hysterically, the algae cluster in the water reacted, shivering and shifting as if trying to physically express joy.

It repeated this reaction endlessly, as if it would never grow bored of the simple game.

Looking at the massive fleet of industrial drones the Federation had mobilized just to broadcast cat and baby videos... Jason was entirely speechless.

But the results were undeniable. The broadcast was working; the entity was finally interacting with humanity! The Federation’s cultural influence over the organism now far exceeded that of the native population, and that was exactly what they needed.

According to the psychology team, this was the foundational step of instilling "human consciousness." They had to start from infancy and couldn’t skip any developmental milestones.

Only later could they upgrade the curriculum to more complex educational programs for toddlers.

Jason sighed. As a man who had never been a father, the nuances of early childhood education were lost on him. But since they didn’t have a better plan, he was happy to let the experts do their jobs. He turned and walked toward another department’s workstation.

Time flowed on. Half a month passed in the blink of an eye. Every day brought new data and steady progress. More and more Senior Scientists were deployed to the planet’s surface, and thankfully, no major incidents occurred.

The fleet of broadcasting drones slowly expanded to over ten thousand, and the numbers kept climbing. No matter how many screens were deployed, the algae below would actively respond to every single one of them.

The entity was no longer sluggish and dormant; it was actively and closely interacting with the drone fleets. The tension between humanity and the alien consciousness gradually dissolved.

This breakthrough made the science teams incredibly eager to test the limits of Gaia’s capabilities. The more tasks it could process simultaneously, the greater its potential industrial output would be.

"I wonder what its maximum multitasking threshold is," one researcher mused. "It has to have a limit, but that ceiling must be terrifyingly high. I’d conservatively estimate it could manage fifty or sixty thousand complex operations at once."

"The data is in! We have the projections!" another analyst yelled.

"Based on the natives’ historical archives, we analyzed the peak of their global replication frenzy from over a decade ago. At the start of that crisis, the native civilization’s industrial capacity was only 0.02% of the Federation’s. But within a few months of the entity gaining self-awareness and mimicking their production, that planetary output skyrocketed to the equivalent of 57% of the Federation’s total capacity!"

"That growth rate is absurd. It’s mathematically unbelievable!" a scientist gasped.

"And that was just its raw, unguided capability while mimicking primitive technology. If we properly train and integrate it, a single biological organism could vastly outproduce our entire civilization. Its power is absolute!"

These staggering projections completely solidified the Federation’s determination to secure the Gaia entity. Everything was trending positively, and this bizarre educational curriculum was actually working! If they could successfully program it with human consciousness, it would naturally integrate into the Federation.

As the relationship warmed, Gaia seemed to grow comfortable with the human presence. Wherever the drones drifted, the algae followed or rather, since the algae were omnipresent in the global ocean, they simply "activated" in the water directly beneath the screens.

This localized activity allowed the biology teams to deeply analyze its cellular nature. A constant stream of new reports flooded into Jason’s office every day.

"Under normal conditions, the vast majority of the ocean’s algae is dormant and lacks any intelligence," one report read. "However, when a local cluster is ’activated,’ it undergoes instantaneous, cellular-level evolution to process information. This biological mechanism is highly unique!"

"This heavily implies the existence of one or more centralized command cores. If the core consciousness is physically compact, our chances of successfully capturing and transporting it increase drastically. We won’t have to flood the Noah with an entire ocean of seawater to contain it!"

A few days later, the deep-sea exploration submarine that had mysteriously lost contact finally reconnected to the network! The Gaia entity was no longer actively blocking the Federation’s exploration of the ocean depths. Was this a deliberate gesture of goodwill?

This peaceful development gradually eased the anxieties of Jason and the top military brass.

And yet, despite the good news, a deep, pounding anxiety in Jason’s chest warned him that the underlying crisis hadn’t vanished. In fact, his instincts told him the true danger was drawing closer by the minute.

If the impending disaster isn’t coming from Gaia, then what is it? Is there something else hiding on this planet?

He frowned, racking his brain, but came up empty. All he could do was order Austin and the military fleets to raise their alert levels, intensify their planetary scans, and hunt for more surviving natives in desperate hope of uncovering the missing piece of the puzzle.