#1007 - Constantly changing

The victory celebration lasted a long time, followed by a funeral that felt heavy.

Unlike all battles in history, this battle had no concept of retreat. A casualty rate exceeding one-third in conventional battles basically meant a state of collapse --

But it was different for cyborg warriors.

In war, people secrete large amounts of adrenaline under stress, which sharpens the senses, but dulls the brain.

Everything around them is infinitely magnified. When a person dies, the scent of death is etched into the brain as fear, eventually overwhelming them along with physical and mental fatigue. And when one person runs away, a second person will run away, causing a rout like an avalanche.

Cyborg warriors are different. Implanted gland controllers and brain-computer interfaces can directly control hormone secretion and the activity of various hormone receptors, while electric shocks are used to maximize the time before the brain loses control, and targeted hormones are used to maintain sensory acuity.

In traditional warfare, death is a very serious indicator, but so are injuries. After all, on the battlefield, a person with a limp is sometimes no different from a dead person, especially for advancing the front line.

But with cybernetic technology, if a person's arm is broken, it may be a prosthetic arm that is broken. As long as the brain-computer interface is advanced enough, the connection to the prosthetic can be directly severed to isolate the pain, without the blood loss that could lead to death --

For standardized military prosthetics, a broken arm can even be replaced directly on the battlefield.

If it is a congenital limb disability, a prefabricated mechanical arm can even complete amputation and hemostasis on the spot, and simple force feedback control can be performed through an exoskeleton. Mobility may be reduced, but it is definitely not a death sentence.

On the battlefield of cyborg warriors, the only thing they need to worry about is cyberpsychosis, which is the second most fatal situation besides death.

And these warriors did not disappoint Leal: no one's mind broke down in the war, or they didn't last until the prosthetics drove them crazy.

Leal stood in front of a tombstone and engraved the name of the last fallen soldier: Tao Ramsey.

This was a huge obelisk, with the names of the fallen engraved on it. Their last words would be recorded in the memory inside their bodies and placed in the building that manages the cemetery, if they could be recovered and if they had family.

But even if they can't be recovered, it doesn't matter. Now many people will commemorate their passing.

Christopher, who had been kneeling on one knee, stood up. Most of the prosthetics on this young man had been removed. During the recovery period, the remaining limbs would be kept until the rehabilitation period, when the prosthetics used for combat would be slowly reattached.

That's the last one.

Even though he was used to these scenes, Leal still sighed softly.

No matter how noble the name, he was responsible for the fallen. Some of them may not have understood what kind of future Leal wanted, but they were just willing to obey orders.

Without him, these people might have died at the hands of the Duke of Latveria, in human experiments, in hunger, or in the cold wind.

But now their deaths were largely due to Leal, and this was a huge vicious circle:

Those who step forward in such times are always the people Leal hopes to give a future to, but these people often embrace death the earliest, dying on the road to the future.

Leal slowly turned around. Relatives and friends in the cemetery were sadly listening to the last messages of the fallen.

Christopher couldn't bear to see this and said, "Your Majesty, can't we perform consciousness replication for all the fallen soldiers?"

Leal replied as he walked, "You know the answer."

Consciousness replication has already been promoted among the Titan pilots. More than half of the two hundred Titan pilots who died this time had their complete "consciousness black boxes" recovered. These Titan pilots can all undergo reincarnation operations without any accidents.

However, in Latveria, Titan pilot reincarnation is an operation only for Titan pilots, and the reincarnation list is kept secret:

The reincarnated Titan pilots may remember their previous identities, but in society, they will be new people. How they reintegrate into society will be re-selected after they retire, rather than directly registered as the same person.

Whether the digital soul after reincarnation is the previous person is a complex philosophical question that cannot be verified --

In the end, there is no unified definition of what a person is. Different people have different views. This is not a law of physics. Whether to continue the relationship depends on their own choices.

This is different from "commemoration," which is an action of the living. The living are satisfied, but the dead... the dead have no opinion.

Consciousness replication creates a consciousness identical to a human being. If a reincarnated consciousness is created only to satisfy the needs of certain people, it is somewhat... inhumane to the created person.

Leal said with a bit of emotion, "Death... is a unique threshold. Looking at it from different angles can lead to different understandings.

Latveria's new capital is changing with each passing day. Before the war began, the National Computer Center had been established here. Now, to fill the vacancy of the King's Seat, a huge military barracks has been built in the city --

This barracks is actually a military factory. All Titan parts will be produced here. Regular courses for Titan pilots are also constantly increasing. In the future, it will accept soldiers from all over Europe and Africa who are qualified to become Titan pilots for training.

The training of regular soldiers will be distributed to the territories of all allies to further strengthen control over the two continents.

A vast orbital transport network is being woven like a spider web, connecting every city, every farmland, every mine. Those industries that once belonged only to certain organizations and groups have been completely confiscated and connected to the network, and those old owners have completely lost the stage with the financial collapse.

In this unprecedented war, their shouts were drowned out, like whispers in the wind disappearing into the air.

Everything has broken through physical barriers and mental barriers, and is closely connected. In the post-war land, a new era is rising, a huge unified entity that even ambitious groups like Roxxon cannot imagine is forming --

Moreover, it is sharpening its knives, preparing to advance towards the final goal.

At the same time, while society is progressing, they are beginning to question some things:

Those chattering robots, those highly personalized robots that act autonomously on the Middle East battlefield, are they really artificial intelligence?

The people of Night City also have to ask questions.

Why is that battlefield like a real world?