Memetwork (CivBE)

Wonders

Memetwork
Wonder in Beyond Earth
Cost	850
Maintenance	None
Requires	2 Firaxite Orbital Networks
Specialist slots	None
Effect	+5 Diplomatic Capital
Notes	Global Affinity Level prerequisites for Units, Buildings, and Wonders reduced by 1.

The Memetwork will permanently tie up 2 Firaxite resources.

Quote

"Some ideas are bad ideas. Make better ideas and you make better colonies." - Vadim Kozlov, Axioms from the Minutes of the Central Directorate

History

The origins of meme theory are truly ancient, and likely had achieved some sophistication by the Great Mistake. Dispute continues over the extent to which early memeticists had achieved systematic understanding of their field, or were simply skilled observers and intuitive memetic engineers. During the Seeding, as the powers of Old Earth refocused on practical applications of engineering, a small team of memeticists focused on the question of how best to preserve the cultural knowledge of Old Earth. It is believed that they engineered a common system for active distribution of highly favorable memes, as well as a system for preserving others.

At some point, these sophisticated meme-preservation and transference techniques may have been rediscovered and extended, becoming the basis for a highly-connected system of directed current cultural transference. Now, certain ideas, beliefs, and goals could be promoted and woven seamlessly into the social fabric of colonial culture to increase social harmony and keep undesirable meme-tracks from rooting into the colony. At first, the Memetwork was used to promote ideas of shared responsibility and safety ("Only YOU can prevent mycotoxic spore infiltration!"), but eventually came to promote more subtle aesthetic and moral judgments as well.

It is because of the efficacy of these aesthetic and moral memes that we are best able to understand the critical impact of the Memetwork. Consider the Purity Affinity meme: It was in danger of extinction prior to the creation of the Memetwork, a simple collection of aphoristic statements and i-feels loosely positioned as opposition to arguments for extending the human phenotype. The Memetwork consolidated those loosely-linked themes, and linked them with a quasireligostic transference mechanism, creating the Affinity as we understand it today.

The archive of the Memetwork's state machine is the single best resource for historiographical anthropology ever developed, and projective efforts on it give us tantalizing glimpses of the ideas of tomorrow, today.

Images

This wonder does not have an in-game 3D model.