The victory celebration lasted for a long ti, followed by a somber funeral.
Unlike any battle in history, this one had no concept of retreat; in a conventional battle, when casualties exceeded a third, the situation was often considered a rout—
But it’s different for the cyber soldiers.
In a war, people secrete a large amount of adrenaline due to tension, making their senses sharp, but the brain becos sluggish.
Everything around is infinitely magnified; when soone dies, the sll of death is etched in the brain as fear, eventually wearing down the body and spirit, leading to collapse, and when one person flees, a second will flee, like an avalanche leading to defeat.
It’s different for cyber soldiers. The implanted gland controllers and brain-computer interfaces can directly control hormone secretion and the activity of various hormone receptors, supplented by electric shocks to maximize the delay in loss of brain control, while using targeted hormones to maintain sensory acuity.
In traditional warfare, death is a serious tric, but injuries are equally significant. After all, on the battlefield, having a leg crippled sotis makes no difference from being dead, especially for advancing the front lines.
But with Prosthetic Technology... if soone’s arm is severed, it might just be a prosthetic arm that can be detached from the brain-computer interface to isolate the pain without the risk of fatal blood loss—
With standard military prosthetics, even if an arm is lost, it can be replaced on the battlefield.
If it’s a native limb injury, a prefabricated chanical arm could even perform on-the-spot amputation and hemostasis; through the exoskeleton, simple force feedback control can be maintained. Mobility might be reduced, but it’s certainly not a death sentence.
On the cyber soldier’s battlefield, their only concern is cyber psychosis, which is the second lethal situation besides death.
And these warriors did not disappoint Lille: no one’s mind collapsed during war, nor did anyone live long enough to go insane from their prosthetics...
Lille stood in front of a tombstone, inscribing the last fallen soldier’s na: Tao Ramsey.
This was a massive obelisk, with the nas of the fallen engraved on it. Their last words were recorded in the mory within their bodies, to be stored in the managent building of the cetery... if they could be retrieved and if they had any family left.
But even if they couldn’t be recovered, it didn’t matter; many now commorate their passing.
Christopher, who had been kneeling with one knee on the ground, stood up. This young man had most of his prosthetics removed; during the recovery period, he would remain with his residual body until the prosthetics for combat were slowly reattached during the rehabilitation phase.
"This is the last one."
Despite being accustod to these scenes, Lille still sighed lightly.
No matter how noble a na it was given, he had to be responsible for the fallen, so of whom might not understand the future Lille envisioned, but they were simply willing to follow orders.
Without him, these people might have died at the hands of the Grand Duke of Latovia, perished in human experints, died of hunger, or frozen to death...
But now, their deaths were largely because of Lille, and this was a huge vicious circle:
In such monts, those stepping forward were always the ones Lille hoped to give a future to, but such people often rushed into the arms of the Death God first, falling on the path to the future.
Lille slowly turned around; relatives and friends in the cetery were mournfully listening to the latest news of the fallen.
Seeing this, Christopher could not bear it and said, "Your Majesty, can’t we replicate the consciousness for all the fallen soldiers?"
Lille replied as he walked, "You know the answer."
Consciousness replication has spread among the Iron Ride soldiers. Among the two hundred Iron Ride soldiers who fell this ti, more than half had their complete "Consciousness Black Box" recovered, and barring accidents, these Iron Ride soldiers could undergo the rebirth operation.
However, in Latovia, Iron Ride Rebirth is an operation exclusive to Iron Ride and kept secret in terms of the reincarnation list:
A reincarnated Iron Ride might rember their identity from a previous life, but in society, they will be a new person, deciding how to reintegrate into society only after discharge, rather than being directly registered as the sa person.
Whether the digital soul after rebirth counts as the prior person is a complex philosophical issue, impossible to verify—
Ultimately, what constitutes a person cannot be uniformly defined; different people have different views. Whether to continue past connections depends on their own choices.
This is different from "commoration," an action of the living; commoration satisfies the living, and the dead... the dead have no opinion.
Consciousness replication creates an awareness identical to a human’s; if it’s rely to satisfy so people’s needs by creating a reincarnated consciousness, for the person created, it might be sowhat... inhumane.
Lille remarked with slight sentint, "Death... is a unique threshold; viewed from different angles, different interpretations erge.
These warriors opened up the future with their lives, and for successors to bear their hope—isn’t that a form of transcendence?
This is an eternal topic, left to the infinite future to interpret."
Christopher had nothing to say: if Lille decided to interpret death, he believed it would beco a religious legacy in Latovia, but since Lille had no such intention, they had to interpret life and death themselves.
He nodded quietly.
Lille continued, "Dispatch the Arican reconnaissance team in three days, and have Frank imdiately undergo Iron Ride training; he will lead the first batch of reconnaissance."
"Understood, I think Frank will be eager to join this team. I will personally oversee his Iron Ride training."
The new Capital of Latovia is evolving day by day; before the war began, the national computer center was already established here. Now, to fill the vacancy of the King’s Throne, a massive military camp has been established in the city—
This camp is effectively a military factory, where all Titan component production will occur, and regular Iron Ride courses are continually increasing. In the future, it will accept qualified soldiers from across Europe and Africa for Iron Ride training.
anwhile, regular soldier training will be dispersed across allied territories to further strengthen control over both continents.
The vast orbital transport network is weaving like Spider Silk, connecting every city, farm, and mine. Industries once belonging exclusively to specific organizations and groups have been fully nationalized and integrated into the network, while the previous owners have completely retreated from the stage with the financial collapse.
In this unprecedented war, their cries were drowned out, dissipating like whispers in a storm.
Everything has broken through physical barriers and ntal divides, closely linking together. On the post-war land, a new era is rising, forming a massive unified entity even beyond what an ambitious group like Rocksen could envision—
And, sharpening its knives, preparing to advance to the final target.
anwhile, alongside societal progress, they’ve begun questioning so things:
Those incessantly chattering robots, those highly individual autonomous robots on the Middle Eastern battlefield—are they truly artificial intelligence?
People of Night City also question...
Why does that battlefield seem like the real world?
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