克系世界观（版本2023.10.24）（论战专用）（加上了343号信件）(23)

And now Taggart wondered, for the first time: were the Galactics the products of a similar race? For all their vast power and intelligence, they seemed to be fundamentally robots, policing the galaxy and keeping it in order. Was this the inevitable course of evolution -- that each galaxy should eventually produce a dominant race that would expand, conquer, lose its sense of feeling, and finally replace itself with a mechanical race of superb efficiency and godlike intellect that would regulate things flawlessly according to built-in, unquestioned values? Was this why Earth had never till now been overtly contacted by any of the many intelligent races in the same galaxy? . . .