Part 17: Unsleeping Cynosure

Chapter 16: Unsleeping Cynosure


Good afternoon, Cynosure. Your attendants tell me that you've been talking about current events recently. Would you like to share your thoughts with me?


(As translated by the Operator) Yes.


Cynosure occasionally manipulates events in the world for its own purposes. These events appear to be unconnected, possibly even capricious. It does not frequently initiate contact with the Operators who stand ready to serve it. It answers some inquiries put to it with laconic, epigrammatic answers, and those answers are often later to be found laden with meaning that can be unpacked from them. Cynosure ignores other questions, after indicating it has heard and understood. Most disturbing are the questions answered with a koan-like redirection, which later proves to be highly relevant to a distant line of inquiry whose connection was not known at the time.

The inquiries are kept and studied by the Operators who serve Cynosure, and they are confident that humanity will eventually approach the point where the Cynosure will be a more approachable and understandable partner for humanity. Others are less confident.

The first inquiry put to Cynosure was: "What is the shape of the universe?" To which Cynosure answered: "This question is not even wrong." Cynosure then terminated the connection with the Operator.'






Great! Hmm, let's see then. What do you think about the geopolitical situation of this planet?


Explosive.


...counter-intelligence when presented with the forensic results of the disaster said: "It could just as easily have been our poor bastards with the [redacted]."

As with most explosives, the event that changed the situation was the capacity to produce this new explosive in high quantities are relatively low cost. The Strothmann technique for binding nanocompounds was found to work even for nano-thermite, and with that, the replicators hummed as they produced gram after gram. Nanothermite became the new standard for joyful detonation, from fireworks to firefights.'

And who was this completed by? Barre. Guess they're really serious about that "never be exploited again" thing.




ARC finally succeeded in taking Cidadela, more or less spelling the end for Brasilia.


Also Franco-Iberia decided it would be a great idea to set up shop in our back yard.


PAC's forces have almost caught up with ours too. They're at Supremacy level 7, and we're now at 9.


Would you care to elaborate?


My comment has been sufficient.


Okay then. Well, what do you foresee for Polystralia's colonists?


"Hakuin used to tell his pupils about an old woman who had a teashop, praising her understanding of Zen. The pupils refused to believe what he told them and would go to the teashop to find out for themselves.
Whenever the woman saw them coming she could tell at once whether they had come for tea or to look into her grasp of Zen. In the former case, she would serve them graciously. In the latter, she would beckon to the pupils to come behind her screen. The instant they obeyed, she would strike them with a fire-poker.
Nine out of ten of them could not escape her beating."




Our brave Cruiser was eaten by a sea dragon.


They also ate three of the workers I tried to send over. Once our sea units get another upgrade, there will be a reckoning.




The covert agent option is good, but it seemed to be very much against the ethos of our civilization.




What kind of traders would we be if we kept this wonderful gift to ourselves? The other choice is great, increasing Health, but if all goes according to plan, Health will soon cease to be an issue for us.


The Weather Control satellite will help our new cities grow much faster, once I get some built.


Our Health is now good enough to comfortably handle two or three new cities as well.




And thanks to our new understanding of atmospherics (or something; we would have gotten this upgrade no matter what tech gave us the new Supremacy level) our artillery can now be upgraded.


You don't say. Last question for now, then. What is the Signal?


It comes from your destination, speeding to where you have been.




Kozlov already completed the Transcendental Equation, I just forgot to include it before.






Whoops. Hacking the satellites would have prematurely de-orbited his orbital units, but I was going to flavor it as trying to steal his Signal data. It also would have completed the "Conduct a level-4 covert op" quest, which is super hard to accomplish before everyone gets major spy defenses going.




I see. Thank you for your time. Take care, Cynosure.


I cannot take your care, Hutama. You will have need of it yourself. Goodbye.



What Virtue should we take now? Cohesive Values (-10% cost for new Virtues) won the last vote, giving us access to two new ones. Both of them are pretty amazeballs, but I'll take votes for different ones too. Most of them are useful to us in some way.





Also: Military-Industrial Complex (+15% Military Unit production), Field Research (+30 Science from completing expeditions), Survivalism (+25% Strength against aliens), Frugality (+10% Food retained after city growth), Scalable Infrastructure (+15% Wonder production), Social Investment (+2 Production from Manufactories), Creative Class (Extra Culture equal to 30% of positive Health)