欧宝娱乐

On Arbre, a brilliantly realised fantasy world that's quite a lot like Earth in some ways and completely different in others, there are people who for thousands of years have been taking rational thought seriously. Of course, the majority of the population would never dream of doing anything so dumb. They spend their time playing with their smartphones, getting high, and attending a variety of fundamentalist churches. But the small clique of academics live an enclosed, monastic existence where they follow a rigid discipline, engage in Platonic dialogues, study astronomy and quantum mechanics, and, in some cases, perfect their martial arts skills. They are almost unaware that the rest of the world exists and like it that way; they know from history that very bad things tend to happen when there is too much contact, or when they get too interested in leveraging their knowledge to develop new technology. They are useful enough to the S忙cular Power that they are warily tolerated.

Sceptics may complain that this is all absurdly overidealised and that the characters do not come across as real people at all, just as sketches of various generic types. But be warned that the clever author is several jumps ahead of you...