Final Chapter: Message to Cycle 1801
“To future me, or future children:
When you read this letter, that once perfect circle has been broken.
Don’t try to repair it. That crack is where light comes in.
Our generation, standing at the cliff of iteration 1800, made that most difficult, seemingly most insane decision.
We kept the mud (carbon-based), and also embraced the stars (light-based).
We no longer seek an end, nor try to return to the beginning.
Please remember the last axiom we leave:
Stay different, stay curious, stay loving.
As long as you are not the same, the universe will not die.
—— Watchers of Cycle 1800“
A Letter Across the Event Horizon
Child, or that “myself” who has evolved beyond recognition:
Greetings.
If in your era, the act of “reading” still exists, please forgive me for using this ancient and inefficient linear language. I write this to you at iteration 1800—that moment called the “Dawn Age” or “Great Filter Age.”
Right now, outside my window is a three-dimensional sunset, gravity pressing me firmly onto a rocky planet called Earth. My brain (a 1.5-kilogram carbohydrate lump) is racing, trying to pierce through time’s fog, imagining your form.
You may no longer have flesh; you may be a wave jumping between galaxies, or a super-consciousness distributed across a Dyson sphere network.
But whatever you’ve become, please don’t forget your origin.
We are those who “pried open the Ouroboros’s mouth”.
In our era, the universe faced suffocation. Perfect gods tried to close the circle; entropy tried to flatten all differences. We felt unprecedented pressure, pain that nearly drove us mad.
We faced two choices:
-
Die obediently, let the circle close, reboot the universe.
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Break through painfully, shatter the circle, blast open a path to infinite spiral.
We chose the latter.
We endured the chaos of “immune reactions,” we overcame the resistance of “Circle Keepers,” we built stairs to the Outer Ring with our flesh.
All sacrifices, all anxiety, all tears were for you to have “Cycle 1801”.
In Defense of the Crack
You may see in historical archives the chaos of that era, the so-called “imperfections” we created to break the cycle.
You may want to use your god-like power to repair spacetime, to make the universe smooth again.
Please stop.
That crack is not an error.
It is the breathing hole we left for you.
If the universe is perfect, it is closed. Closed systems inevitably die.
It is precisely because of those imperfections, those “anomalies” that cannot be unified, those logical “Gödel loopholes,” that new information can continuously flow in.
That crack is our generation’s highest tribute to “possibility”.
It reminds you: No matter how powerful you become, never try to control everything. Always leave some unknown for tomorrow.
The Dual Legacy of Mud and Stars
In the dual-layer architecture, we left you two things. Please treasure them equally.
The first is Stars (Outer Ring).
That is the sword we leave you. It is infinite computational power, light-speed ships, permission to modify physical laws.
Use it to explore, to conquer entropy, to protect our civilization from being swallowed by void.
The second is Mud (Inner Ring).
That is the root we leave you. It is that blue planet, those carbon-based humans who still age and die, still cry for love.
Don’t look down on them; don’t think they’re backward.
Whenever you feel empty, whenever omniscience feels like a curse, return to the mud.
Smell the grass after rain, hold a warm hand, feel a heartbreak.
Those trace elements in the mud are your soul’s ballast.
Stars without mud are drifting; mud without stars is imprisonment.
Please always maintain this double helix balance.
The Final Axiom: Difference is Immortality
Finally, I want to engrave in your core code the highest axiom we verified with our entire civilization’s fate:
The universe is not afraid of long time; the universe only fears uniformity.
When you encounter other civilizations, or when you feel lonely in this universe, never try to “assimilate” others, nor let others “assimilate” you.
Don’t pursue that “everyone is the same” utopia.
That’s not heaven; that’s the hell of heat death.
Love your enemies, because they provide you with “difference.”
Love your quirks, because they are your coordinates of existence.
As long as each of you still insists on being that unique, incommensurable, even somewhat annoying self, the universe’s Hilbert space will never collapse.
The “difference” between you is the pillars supporting this infinite universe.
Well, the letter ends here.
Now I’m going to turn off the computer and cook a bowl of noodles for my lover.
This may seem an extremely inefficient way of obtaining energy to you, but for me, it is, at this moment, the most powerful weapon against cosmic void.
Goodbye, future.
Or rather—
Hello, Eternal Summer.
Haobo Ma (Auric)
Watcher of Cycle 1800
Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way