Paths of Civilization II: Paths of Industrialization

[X][War] Attempt to de-escalate, let the diplomats do their work (Gives another set of diplo rolls, minimizes damage inflicted, exposes your territory to the greatest risk if things go wrong)
[X][Guns] Hung (+1 temp SoL)

Lieutenant Commander Quofron Hiimak had many thoughts upon the Gylmaryn People. He often found them arrogant, too quick to boast about accomplishments past and present, too quick to assume that others thought as highly of them as they thought of themselves. They were also among the most smugly paternalistic people Qofron had ever encountered... but at least they treated him and his people as being people. Far too many other nations saw the Mapanca as savages undeserving of their wealth, that they were not equals on the world stage. The Gylmaryn got on Qofron's nerves at times, but when he came to them to talk about something, they listened to him. Better yet, they actually fairly treated him as an officer of actual standing rather than a mere sailor, and respected the fact that he was also a gentleman and a scholar.

He'd also discovered that he could in fact make them pay even more attention to him if he framed his discussions as something relating to them.

King Hupuzchi had commanded a grand survey of the natural wonders of the Mapanca ten years ago as part of the general efforts to show the world that the Mapanca were in fact both modern, civilized people with their own value, and that they did not need to ape the accomplishments of others to do it. While the Gylmaryn had been doing their own work on the natural world of late, the officer exchange program had given mutual access to each other, and as part of the exchange Quofron had turned his prior naval work surveying the islands of his home into the core of his doctoral thesis at the University of Trelli. However, a mere catalogue could not do, for the mere act of assembling a list of all the species of just the islands of his homeland had raised questions, and along the way he had found that those questions related to a long running issue for the Gylmaryn.

Ancient texts spoke of a type of flower held sacred by early Mylthads, but somewhere in the intervening millennia the Ymaryn had somehow lost track of it, which had caused no end of headaches through the years. While the Ymaryn character with regards to religious conflict had mostly kept the various factions from each other's throats, the issue had been a very long running one. There was one group who held that from the description the flower had to be the White Star, another group that the flower had to be the Royal Churchsuckle, and a third that the flower had to be some rare wildflower that somehow combined all of the traits listed in sacred texts. A recent archaeological study had uncovered a mural within a monastery depicting a flower that seemed to fit the description from the texts, but the label was an unhelpfully ambiguous term that could translate as "Royal Star" or "Heavenly Churchsuckle". Also discovered had been a huge number of texts that were mostly dry records of plant husbandry.

Quofron had volunteered to look at the records as a naturalist, and had discovered pieces of a mystery hundreds of others were working on.

From the islands off the coast of his home he had catalogues of finches that looked remarkably similar in plumage but that had different beaks and lifestyles. He and others knew about strange bones preserved in stone that hinted at creatures that were like those known to the modern world but subtly or profoundly different, along with others that had no known analog above ground. He knew about the methods of breeders to produce new strains of domestic animals. He knew all sorts of things, and in those dry, ancient texts he had discovered something of incredible importance. Those ancient priests had kept track of the various plant breeds within their care, and for religious reasons they carefully tended to the breeding of certain flowers, interceding in the place of bees to collect pollen from one flower and apply it to another. For centuries they kept track of their results, of how they could not reliably cross a stiff petaled White Star with a brilliantly coloured Churchsuckle despite the fact that they were both the same flower.

Their reports got increasingly annoyed as they reported that the wild versions of the flowers that occasionally produced the prized version of the stiff petaled but brilliantly coloured flower were growing increasingly scarce as people tended to gather them for their churches. Of course the monks writing this out did it in their frustratingly clipped notation, which was why the scholars initially reading the records had not realized right away what the dwindling numbers with exclamation points in the margins meant.

No, no, held in the records was the truth that all three interpretations were both correct and false at the same time! Using sophisticated breeding rules those ancient priests and monks had worked out how to reliably produce the sharp points of the White Star or the magnificent colours of the Royal Churchsuckle, but the combination of the two seemed ever elusive and up to the will of the Divine, to the point where the original flowers had outright disappeared in favour of the two new cultivars. And in this Quofron beheld something profound and disturbing.

Breeds could change. The bones in the stones hinted at this, of versions of the animals of the world now gone. One line could branch into many, be they flowers or dogs... or finches.

No man had intervened there, not even in the accidental way that split the White Star and the Royal Churchsuckle, but it seemed undeniable that the generalist finches on the mainland had split into many specialist breeds upon the islands. In this the only hand there was the Divine, in Nature... but the tools of the Creator for this task were disquieting when actually considered. All knew that not all in a litter had litters of their own, with creatures in nature having crueler fates in store than the neuter's blade. And here in these dry notes Quofron could see the dry shuffling of the deck of traits each generation. When flowers produced disfavoured combinations they were plucked from their beds and discarded, never to pass those traits on. And surely a slow deer could not pass on its slowness when confronted with a fast jaguar.

Quofron knew that he was not the only one considering such mysteries of biology, but the combination of his biological and geological surveys and the notes of the priests had let him see enough of the pieces all at once to come up with a framework around which change could be hung. It was an uncomfortable framework though, a peering at the machinery of the universe and wondering if he was finding something not divine but profane. As the full weight of his findings settled in his gut, Quofron wondered if he should reject his findings.

But no, no, while those old priests had not followed the word of Karivon or knew of the wisdom of the Ancestors, the ancient Mylathads and the primordial pagans before them had one major piece of wisdom: the Divine had no need of being comfortable for Man. The Truth was the Truth, and that the Creator allowed humans to understand the machinery of the Divine was evidence of His Greatness. The heavens moved according to the same laws as the earth, and even now the chemists were showing how the matter of life was the same as the matter of stone and air and water, and how the number of elements stretched into the dozens unlike the simple half dozen or less many assumed. Across religions all could agree that Falseness and Lies were at the root of wickedness, and to turn away from the Truth was to turn away from God.

Whether he be famous or infamous here or at home, Quofron would publish his findings, would tell the world the wonders he had beheld, and what it all meant.

Industrial Machine Tools have completed, select a new project
[][Research1] Modern Idealism (38/40-50?) [Science][Open]
[][Research1] Cheap Steel (29/60) [Industrial][Open]
[][Research1] Early Telegraphy (21/35-45?) [Industrial][Communication][Open]

Mid 19th​ Century Biology has completed, select a new project for the University of Trelli (+1 Science, +1 Biology)
[][Research2] Electromagnetic Theory (16/???) [Science][Physics][Open]
[][Research2] Thermodynamics (10/???) [Science][Industrial][Open]
[][Research2] Early Scientific Paleontology (0/???) [Science][Biology][Open]


AN: Trying to build back steam, so we continue these relatively simple decision points