"Our 'anchor' is absolute honesty toward the 'cognitive self'! Including honestly acknowledging that cognition needs others!" Mirrorheart's mind-image began to grow exploratory tendrils.
The three civilizations withstood the tide's targeted escalation. Under the pressure, their mind-images instead became more solid and resilient. The intensity of the Awareness Fields they radiated greatly increased, helping more surrounding civilizations steady themselves.
However, the threat posed by those Distorted Mind-Images was imminent.
They spread from the dark zones, their forms twisted: extremely xenophobic "truth-monopolizing types"; "meaning-plundering" parasites; "nihilistic detonation" destroyers reveling in chaos.
Order's Dawn tried to communicate, but received only chaotic hostility and distorted logic in return.
"Communication is impossible. Their thought structures have already solidified into pathological forms."
Lin Ye observed in silence for a moment, then suddenly said, "They are failed variants of Anchor and Sail as well. Their anchors have twisted into obsession, their sails torn into rags. Yet they are still trying to 'sail.'"
"Destroying them would be easy, but that is what the tide wants—to drag us into confrontation and drain our forces of awareness."
"Let's try another method."
Lin Ye sank his consciousness deeper, no longer focusing on the surface hostility. Instead, he sensed through them the vast Meaning Tide to which they were connected.
He wanted to find the specific deep currents within the tide that had spawned them.
Under intensely focused perception, Lin Ye "saw" them.
The Meaning Tide was not uniform. In the ocean's depths lay countless minute Meaning-Orientation Currents—inclined toward absolute order, chaotic revelry, isolationist exclusion, self-destruction... When these deep currents resonated with the thoughts of civilizations sharing those tendencies, they catalyzed distortions.
The tide was unconsciously conducting "selection" and "catalysis"!
So that was it. Lin Ye understood. *The tide is a Compiler. It compiles and amplifies civilizations' latent tendencies into overt forms