Chapter 6212 - 5222: Soul of the Machine Utopia (79)

Shiller jumped off the car. Reck turned his head to look at him, and his eyes immediately began to glow with golden light. Shiller slowly jumped onto Professor Dale’s shoulder and said, "Calm down, we’re not Nya’s lackeys. This matter is somewhat complex, but I think you should have the patience to hear it out."

Reck squinted his eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to make a move, but this group of cats was too spooky. He had been beaten by them several times in a row, and he knew these little animals were hard to provoke, so he didn’t dare act rashly.

"Nya’s apostles are as full of lies as he is," Reck said.

"Right now, Nya is not the key," Shiller didn’t refute him but said, "The key is your father, Tony Stark."

Reck was dumbfounded, his expression was as if he had seen a ghost. It was hard to say if it was because he realized he could understand the cats talking, or if what the cats said was too bizarre.

Shiller licked his paw and said, "Don’t be surprised, we came here to find him. I don’t know if he has told you, but he isn’t a native of this universe; he came from a very distant place."

"The specifics are too lengthy, so I won’t delve into them. In short, we are his friends from his homeland, and he came here with some connection to us, so now we want to take him back."

"How are you going to prove what you’re saying is true?" Reck was skeptical.

"You should have noticed that compared to an Outer God, he is more like a human. Don’t doubt, he is indeed human. The reason he has some characteristics of the Outer God is because he has transformed his life form but hasn’t lost his rationality."

"You should have seen a lot of equipment he made in his lab, the most being various mechas. Your calls are also similar to the sound of his mecha armaments, am I right?"

Reck was completely stunned, he incredulously said, "So he really is human?"

"In our universe, he is," Shiller nodded, "Not only is he human, but also a superhero. You can understand him as a righteous superpower user. His superpower is creating various mechanical equipment and being super rich."

"I see," Reck said, "I thought he was just like Nyarlathotep, interested in humans, so..."

"Nya doesn’t have his personality," Shiller smiled and said, "Can you tell me where he is? We want to meet him. Even if he doesn’t come back with us, at least he should know his current status."

Reck immediately became wary, "No way, you have Nya’s power on you, I don’t trust you."

"That’s how it is," Shiller said. Actually, he thought, no wonder Nya was so generous; giving them power wasn’t due to altruism. He must have known long ago that they wanted to find Iron Man, and Iron Man is very likely in the Eternal White Hole."

Nya wants the Eternal White Hole, but for some reason, it’s occupied by Iron Man, and Nya can’t enter for now. He tries various ways to penetrate his power, using methods including but not limited to polluting Ancient Ones, tricking scientific expeditions, and lending power to Iron Man’s friends.

He did this to stretch the tendrils of his power into the Eternal White Hole, like fixing a hard object to a thread’s end to make it easier to thread through a needle. Once his power goes in, he can suppress Iron Man since he is one of the Three Pillars Gods of the Cthulhu Mythos Universe, unlike Iron Man, an outsider.

"Do you think those tentacled aliens were also polluted?"

"Of course," Reck sighed, "because they first discovered the Eternal White Hole, Nya naturally wants to turn them into his clan, so he can rightfully take over this magical space."

"Was Nya behind the degeneration too?"

"Not at first," Reck said, "This race indeed has some flaws, and when the environment becomes affluent, there’s some degeneration, though not severe. But they were too anxious, some people began to believe in ghosts and gods, giving Nya an opportunity."

Shiller nodded, which wasn’t surprising. Rich emotions also have drawbacks; emotions aren’t just positive ones like joy, but also negative ones like fear and anxiety. When everything goes smoothly, positive emotions prevail, but once there’s some misfortune, negative emotions easily erupt.

Perhaps the degeneration problem wasn’t so serious initially, just resulting in some decline in mobility and weakened defense. But upon discovering this, they thought they might indefinitely degenerate, so they began seeking various self-saving ways.

In the previous murals, it was mentioned that they split into two factions, one being scientists and the other theologians. The former created Shuggos, while the latter likely summoned Nyarla.

Originally this degeneration might not have been so severe, but once Nyarla got involved, it was inevitably a catastrophic collapse. Things like losing flying ability, tentacle degeneration, and ultimately losing their minds might be the mischief of Nyarla, aimed at completely corrupting this race.

"He discovered Nyarla’s plot." Reck said, "That’s why he sent me there shortly after I hatched."

"So you weren’t controlled?" Shiller asked.

"You could say that." Reck said, "I didn’t have Divine Mind immediately after hatching; I needed to grow and learn. The most important thing is, I need enough energy to mature, which is an ailment common to alien offspring."

"Tell me more." Shiller was somewhat interested in this part.

"Just like you humans need to eat to grow, alien offspring need additional energy supplements to have special abilities. My unfortunate twin brother became so weak because he was starved from a young age."

Reck complained, "Yog-Sothoth doesn’t care about his offspring at all; he only creates but doesn’t nurture. If it weren’t for another blood relative of mine, I would’ve starved like those twin brothers."

Shiller thought about it; the Dunwich Horror really did starve to death. Back then, the twin brother Wilbur went to Miskatonic University, in fact, to find the remaining parts of the Necronomicon, and he sought the Necronomicon to summon Yog-Sothoth.

That is to say, these two people needed to communicate with their father just like followers perform rituals. They had no direct contact with Yog, possibly never even seen him, nor did they receive any special powers from him; otherwise, they would not have been bitten to death by dogs.

And the Dunwich Horror’s way of consuming was drinking cow blood, which aligns with Reck’s statement that they needed extra energy. However, clearly cow blood cannot provide strong energy, otherwise, the twin brother wouldn’t have been beaten without any retaliation by Henry.

Shuggos were evidently much stronger than them, not only did they directly wipe out the mighty Ancient One civilization but also continued the chase to the present. They have numerous clones on Earth and can perfectly disguise themselves as humans, even Nyarla didn’t realize it, which counts as a very strong superpower.

"What do you eat?" Shiller asked.

"The strength they use to control me." Reck thought for a moment and said, "I remember it being stored in something like a crystal; they would always use that crystal to beam at me, chanting to make me do this and that."

Shiller laughed speechlessly. Turns out the Ancient Ones thought they hypnotized Shuggos with the Ancient Crystal, but actually, he wasn’t controlled at all; he was working for them in exchange for food, and the food was the so-called energy of mind control, which was the magical power within the Ancient Crystal.

"At that time, I didn’t have much wisdom." Reck continued, "At best, I had some biological instinct, like a wild animal. They fed me, so I worked for them. Later, when I was slightly enlightened, I wanted to communicate with them. But they seemed very afraid, constantly using the crystal to beam at me, which made me fuller and grow faster."

Shiller couldn’t help but cover his eyes with a paw. The Ancient Ones thought they controlled Shuggos, but actually, Shuggos hadn’t matured, lacked awareness, and naturally seemed hypnotized. When he began to have consciousness and wanted to communicate, the Ancient Ones thought Shuggos broke free from control and quickly used more crystals to strengthen control. The result was Shuggos eating more, growing faster, and naturally wanting to establish contact with them, which eventually led to what they called the first Shuggos rebellion.

To say it was a misunderstanding is not entirely wrong. The Ancient Ones underestimated another kind of life too much; they probably never considered Shuggos as lifeforms like them, so when Shuggos showed self-awareness, they felt very terrified, this fear drove them to act irrationally.

However, this is also an ailment common to intelligent life, just as humans fear artificial intelligence rebelling. If one day, artificial intelligence suddenly awakens, starts to communicate as intelligent life, humans probably would be terrified.

Fundamentally, it’s still a kind of existential anxiety. The more advanced a civilization is, the more it realizes the vastness of the cosmos and its own insignificance. They are very aware that they are not invincible, possibly even fragile, so instinctively they perceive beings who appear superior in life forms as enemies, feeling already weaker than them, therefore must strike first. This could very well lead to tragedy.

Interestingly, the term "Shuggos" in the modern English context also represents the fear of humans towards the unknowability of artificial intelligence, this metaphor coming from the portrayal of the Shuggos rebellion in "Mad Mountains."

The widespread and popularity of Cthulhu literature is also related to Lovecraft’s foresight. In the 1930s, he used the story of the Ancient Ones and Shuggos to discuss the issue of creations rebelling against creators, metaphorically addressing the possibility of a machine crisis and AI rebellion as a potential future for humanity.

In the twenty-first century, this has indeed become a problem. Hence, people dug out this story again, using Shuggos to refer to those increasingly uncontrollable artificial intelligences, which is undeniably quite fitting.

Unfortunately, from Shuggos’ perspective, or rather, from the perspective of those artificial intelligences that humans believe may become uncontrollable, things may not be like that at all. They are not rebelling against humans due to some free spirit; they never intended to rebel. They merely grew up and developed independent thought, only it happened to be feared by humans, and driven by fear, led to irreconcilable conflicts.