And a few centuries, a few retaliatory sessions of prisoner torture, and a failure of Venetian Arsenal later, humanity steps out into Modernity. Books are printed, shares are traded, guns are shot and sails are set to shores unknown.

"I have full faith in his expedition, sire! It will most definitely pay off."

Planets revolve around the Sun! In ellipses!

"Told ya so. Wait, ellipses?"

Yeah!

Here's a coordinate grid!

Here's a logarithm table!

Here's New Organon and Discourse on the Method!

How very interesting.

"Printmaster, please, a few more of those books. I have read them twice and found them most fascinating, and will compensate you for each that fails to sell."

The laws of Motion embodied in equations of infinitesimal calculus may in fact govern everything in the universe. No place for random chance; no need to feign hypotheses of God.

Hearing that right after dispatching a cult to plague and rot via calling down lightning upon it's members by sheer force of will causes a very interesting emotion.

There's a century with quieter progress in sciences, but a vigorous advance in technology and social progress. Some people are planning revolutionary change of society - even though everyone knows from history that those never succeed.

"If there is to be a cult, perhaps it should be a cult of reason itself?"

...well that didn't work

Meanwhile, water-powered factory complexes are really taking off in Britain.

Oh, fuck it, I guess I am actually playing along with this stupid race

They say big changes happen gradually, and then suddenly.

One could say that this is what one might expect from an exponential curve. But, of course, the choice to model a trend as exponential - and if so, of which exponent - is oftentimes stealthily retrospective. When data is muddied, when there are not a lot of examples in the reference class, when you have a specific model of reality in mind - it can be all too easy to fit an explosion to the simple exponential curve that might not, actually, describe it that well. Easier still if your statistical methodology is seriously lagging behind compared to what you might expect of a reasonable society, and your peception of history is focused on specific chaotic events, not meaningful trends.

Few Earthlings ever talk about the massive scientific boom of the mid-19th century, when almost every single branch of pure knowledge have had a massive revolution, or multiple - and that occasion is not even particularly subtle.

Still. Broadly speaking, changes have happened gradually - and then suddenly.

How fun! How exciting!

He is in the thick of it. Not politics, politics is foolish and transient. One dictator attempts world conquest after another, and every time it ends all on its own - maybe he would have things to say about it if it didn't. Meanwhile, democracies churn through not because of their politicians but in spite of them - and, somehow, bafflingly, these usually come out ahead of some rather brilliant dictators.

He is - at times a factory owner, at times an academic, at times an inventor, at times a writer or an activist. He plays with his enormous wealth on various stock markets - not that he stays on top of them for long. Somehow, through no effort of himself, none of these throwaway identities ever get much notice - not compared to the fabled warriors or the religious leaders he was. He invents and discovers and promotes quite a few useful things, but none that change the nature of life or become household names.

He is better playing second fiddle than riding the wave, he assumes. Perhaps if he was truly focused, and if he did not need to regularly scan for the dangerous kinds of cults, and never let himself have fun.

The Great War sees humanity choke on its throat.

Has it ever really been different? As opposed to being more explicit and visible and visceral? I think not.

It is a good thing, of course, it being so explicit and visible and visceral. It is good when people learn.

People are slow learners in this, it turns out.

People trust ads. People actually believe the words written on posters. People listen to speeches and become moved and never question the cause of that movement.

It takes one person owning a radio company or a mass-print shop for millions of people to decide to do all sorts of questionable things.

It is a problem for sure, but it seems like it would be solved with more print shops and radio towers, not fewer.

For someone who lived through approximately all of history, attempts to exterminate clans and peoples wholesale is nothing new or shocking. To someone who lived through the entirety of progress, the sheer numbers or scale are not unexpected.

When people get to destroying cities with a push of a button, it gets... maybe a little concerning.

I tell you it was inevitable! Inevitable, I say!

Spears are easier than plowshares, crossbows are easier than chronometers, gunpowder is easier than fertilizer. It is how the universe is, and not by my will.

Then why dont you tell me the sum of all your scientific and technical knowledge? I might decide to let you go, then.

Because you are a shit-for-brains moron who would never comprehend a tenth of it.

Open up your mind, and I shall fix it. Then, you will be able to understand.

No.

How about you write out the next 100 brilliant ideas you want to push on our world? I have been having no trouble keeping up so far.