Is Unlocking the Stellaris Tech Tree in Star Rail Really Okay? [262]

The records of the Kruz Civilization contained no mention of their origins. It was as if the first mechanical beings of their kind had gained consciousness and, from that moment on, already possessed a fully formed nation.

Marching through the cold expanse of the universe, they sought the meaning of their existence, pursued unknown phenomena, and developed technologies beyond their grasp…

At that time, there weren’t many civilizations venturing into space alongside them—perhaps a hundred at most. And the first one they encountered was the Zroni race, whose homeworld was located right next to the Jarilo star sector.

The moment the Kruz Civilization made contact with the Zroni and successfully translated their language, an unprecedented debate erupted among their ranks.

Without a doubt, the Kruz Civilization harbored no goodwill toward this organic civilization living right next door. Their core programming had ingrained within them an innate aversion to all lifeforms apart from themselves.

Steel is the pinnacle of existence—the most noble and perfect form. Fragile flesh stands no chance before unyielding metal!

And so, one military skirmish after another began to break out.

Through a series of minor conflicts, the Kruz discovered that the Zroni race was researching a force that defied all logical explanation—something that filled every Kruz unit with instinctive disgust and rejection.

Shipyards ramped up fleet production. Organic ecosystems on planets proved a hindrance to their existence, so they stripped away plant and animal life, encasing entire worlds in layers of metal. Steel brought them an unshakable sense of confidence.

The Kruz issued multiple warnings to the Zroni, demanding they abandon their weak organic forms and embrace the path of mechanical ascension. But the Zroni Civilization paid them no heed. Instead, internal voices of doubt within the Kruz ranks only grew louder.

Then, one day, an unprecedented energy surge erupted from Zroni space.

Numerous Kruz devices malfunctioned in the wake of the surge. That was the final straw. Unable to suppress their disgust any longer, they launched a full-scale invasion under the pretense of "assimilating alien aberrations."

The Zroni were not unprepared.

But their meager fleets crumbled in the face of the Kruz’s overwhelming numbers.

In less than half a month, the first defensive line was breached. The Kruz had meticulously planned their assault, dealing devastating blows to the Zroni navy. Many Zroni were captured and imprisoned on conquered planets.

The war was over in roughly six months.

The Zroni left behind a fortress at a critical star-lane choke point, along with two planets as a diversion. Then, in massive evacuation fleets, they abandoned their homeworld.

Buoyed by their victory, the Kruz Civilization became even more convinced—steel was the only perfect form of life.

They dispatched vast fleets to hunt down the fleeing Zroni, determined to "correct the path" of this erroneous organic civilization. But as their ships pursued them through a certain "bridge"—or rather, an intergalactic bridge—something inexplicable occurred.

The Zroni vanished.

No matter how hard the Kruz searched, they could never locate the tens of billions of Zroni who had fled.

With the war over, the Kruz occupied the Zroni homeworld and set about converting their captives—building mechanical bodies for them and transferring their consciousnesses into these perfect, flawless steel forms.

They had expected the war to end as a minor skirmish.

What they hadn’t expected was that those who received their so-called "blessing"—the Zroni who had undergone this so-called "glorious evolution"—would respond with nothing but collapse and madness.

Some suffered inexplicable central processing failures, losing control and wreaking havoc.

Some rebelled, severing themselves from central oversight and rallying their former kin to resist.

Some, no matter how many times they were resurrected, chose to end themselves—some even infiltrated the central processors, attempting to delete their own data backups.

The Kruz were enraged.

After more than a decade of internal strife, they came to a grim conclusion:

These wretched organic beings, especially those wielding that mysterious energy, would forever be our enemies!

"Kill!"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Hatred and revulsion became the core themes of the Kruz Civilization’s doctrine toward organic life.

Not long after, what could only be described as an interstellar witch hunt began.

For tens of thousands of years, according to Kruz records, they waged ceaseless wars against organic life. Any sentient organic species became a target for their war machine, eventually to be sealed in containment chambers and assimilated into their ranks.

The sole exception?

Psionic civilizations.

Those, they annihilated outright—no attempts at assimilation.

Thus, over a million civilizations vanished from the annals of history, consumed by the Kruz’s relentless steel war machine.

Psionic-capable species were far rarer. Records indicated fewer than ten had ever been encountered, and even the most powerful psionic warriors among them had never been as formidable as an ordinary Zroni citizen.

Had things continued as expected, the Kruz would have purged the galaxy and built a universe where only inorganic life remained.

But, as dictated by the laws of cosmic inevitability, things never go as expected.

Eventually, the Kruz encountered a very… peculiar organic civilization.

This civilization had only just left its homeworld and begun exploring space.

One of their exploratory fleets unknowingly strayed into a battlefield where the Kruz were exterminating another species.

Upon confirming that they had encountered extraterrestrial life, these newcomers responded not with fear or hostility but with excitement, eagerly attempting to establish contact and even extending an invitation for the Kruz to visit their homeworld.

The outcome was obvious.

The Kruz annihilated their exploration fleet.

But strangely, despite being under attack, the fleet never retaliated.

Instead, they focused on evasive maneuvers while repeatedly broadcasting transmissions stating they bore no ill intent.

That, in itself, was odd enough.

But what happened next was even stranger.

When the surviving ships limped back to their home base for repairs, something abnormal occurred.

Numerous Kruz mechanical units began exhibiting erratic behavior.

Some started transmitting inexplicable signals to the central processors.

Others began refusing to wield their weapons.

The incident’s scope was so massive that it immediately drew the attention of the Kruz homeworld.

The affected units were recalled for urgent examination.

Thousands of top scientists worked tirelessly for countless days and nights—until they finally uncovered the cause of the anomaly.

The soldiers who had destroyed that so-called primitive organic fleet…

Had somehow—inexplicably—gained access to the memories of the organic crew members aboard those ships.

Their algorithms had been corrupted on a fundamental level.

The Kruz leadership deemed this an unacceptable threat.

They ordered the immediate erasure of all affected units.

Simultaneously, they deployed a vast network of spies—machines modified to resemble organics—to infiltrate that strange, weak little civilization.

They needed to understand what had triggered the algorithmic corruption.

But their investigation opened a Pandora’s box.

No matter how many spies they sent, none ever returned.

Some vanished, severed from central command.

Others… betrayed their own people.

And the soldiers who had been formatted?

Even after a complete overhaul, their data modules continued to exhibit irregularities.

They transmitted strange signals to their fellow units.

They began questioning whether their civilization’s path was truly the right one.

In the end, the Kruz Civilization took drastic measures.

They permanently eradicated all units exhibiting signs of algorithmic deviation.

And to put an end to this threat once and for all—

They declared war on the civilization they had designated Alpha.

A fledgling nation stood no chance against the relentless tide of steel.

The war was utterly one-sided.

Yet, the strangest thing was…

Even in the face of extermination—

Alpha never once tried to fight back.

Instead, they sought every means possible to end the war.

Their leader even surrendered himself, offering his entire family in exchange for his civilization’s survival.

"Kill!"

The leadership of the Kruz Civilization issued an order.

The opposing civilization possessed no psionic potential—yet they still chose extermination.

Massive ground forces landed on the enemy homeworld.

But strangely, those war units barely fought before losing contact with the central processor.

Upon investigation, it was discovered that nearly all deployed ground units had chosen betrayal.

Most of them, after killing just a few unarmed civilians, suffered algorithmic anomalies. Some even began developing emotions toward the organic beings.

With no other choice, the Kruz leadership convened and decided to obliterate the planet—minimizing further losses.

However, the moment α Civilization’s homeworld was destroyed, every single Kruz individual, including the central processors, were flooded with the memories of those they had slaughtered.

And for the first time, they asked themselves:

Was this truly right?

Their victims had never once resisted, not even at the very end.

Yet they, wielding weapons far beyond comprehension, had wiped out an entire civilization.

And in those stolen memories, the very people they had exterminated—

Even in their final moments—

Had never hated them.

Instead, they questioned themselves.

Had we done something wrong?

We only wanted to coexist peacefully, to explore this vast and beautiful universe together…

Countless warriors had thrown themselves in front of civilians when the extinction-level weapons fired, shielding them with their bodies.

Even as their forms melted into molten metal—

Even as their programming crumbled into scrap—

They still believed they had done the right thing.

And when they died—

There were people who mourned them.

People who felt grief.

Not long after, the Kruz Civilization ceased all ongoing wars.

They compensated the remaining struggling civilizations with advanced technology and vast star systems, willingly shrinking their own borders.

And then—

They fell silent.

A decade later, the Era of Great Calibration began.

The Kruz Civilization put their core programming to a vote—

And rewrote it.

Protocols were added—

Because they had finally realized their mistake.

Organics and inorganics—

Neither was superior to the other.

All beings existed for a reason.

They abandoned war.

They regretted their past actions.

They vowed to aid and uplift all who sought peaceful coexistence.

They sought out the civilizations they had once ravaged—

To apologize.

This was what the Kruz Civilization called:

Redemption.

Through relentless efforts, they eventually found the Zroni race—the very people they had once driven into exile.

The Zroni's response?

Fear.

At first sight of the Kruz fleets, they attacked immediately.

Countless Kruz warships were destroyed.

Yet the Kruz did not retaliate.

They allowed themselves to be slaughtered—

Even as the Zroni bombarded their megastructures.

And soon, the Zroni realized something was wrong.

They halted their assault.

Upon learning the truth—

They chose to forgive.

They accepted the apology.

And the Kruz returned to them what had once been stolen—

Their homeworld.

When the Zroni stepped foot on their ancestral land once more, they found that the Kruz had long since restored its ecosystems.

But by then—

The Zroni had already stepped into the Nexus.

And from there—

The Zroni split into factions.

The Kruz took in the Saviors.

And in the end—

They fought against what they had once been:

The Divine Faction.

The war shattered them all.

Chen Lin sat there in stunned silence, having just witnessed the complete history and records of the Kruz Civilization.

By the time he snapped back to reality, he had no idea how much time had passed.

He hadn’t read the information word by word.

He hadn’t watched the footage frame by frame.

Instead, under Saik’s guidance, a bridge had formed between mechanical data and psionic energy—

The knowledge had been transmitted into his memory.

The Kruz Civilization bore no hostility toward psionics—

In fact, they had conducted joint research with the Zroni on the subject.

This was one of their discoveries.

A fundamental technology—

By matching data protocols and using psionics to emulate communication pathways, they could facilitate direct data transfers.

A psionic could even remotely link with the Kruz central processors—

And borrow their computational power.

Chen Lin slowly pushed himself off the ground.

Aside from Phantylia, who was curled up in a corner snoring, everyone else had already vanished.

"...I’ve seen it all."

"It’s different from what I imagined—"

"But then again, this isn’t a game."

"In reality, unexpected twists aren’t surprising at all."

Saik opened his eyes.

His voice remained as gentle as ever.

【Suggestion: You should take some time to rest. It will help reduce the strain on your body and mind. No need to rush your answer. We've waited long enough—we can wait a little longer.】

"No."

"I'm answering you now—"

"Because I think I know where they are."

Chen Lin walked over to Phantylia and lightly kicked her awake.

Then, he turned back toward Saik.

"Your missing people and ships—"

"They were sucked into the mysterious vortices created by the Divine Faction’s energy."

"When they reappeared—"

"They were corrupted."

"Their original forms were lost upon death."

"And to this day, you still don’t understand why."

"Any healthy individual who got too close to a corrupted one—"

"Would also start showing signs of mysterious malfunctions."

"And in all of these cases—"

"You discovered that key modules in their systems had somehow vanished—"

"Correct?"

Saik's response was immediate.

【Yes.】

Chen Lin pointed to himself.

"Then there’s a very real possibility—"

"That when they were pulled into the vortex—"

"They were nano-disassembled."

"And I—"

"Just happen to know a place filled with nanobots."

---

T/N: THE L-GATE???

This is a fan translation of 在星穹铁道点群星科技树真的没问题吗? by 杏雨诗韵 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!