Andrea sat back in her chair and allowed the silence to linger for a few moments after Trajan finished speaking. The woman had delivered her recommendation with the confidence of somebody who had been staring at the same departmental and institutional problem for a very long time. Andrea suspected she had fallen in love with her own solution of creating a success cult, judging by the finality of her presentation. But wasn't the only gifted mind that had a say in what direction her department went. Andrea's eyes lingered on the woman while her implants quietly fed supplementary information into the corner of her vision. Tiny changes in skin temperature. Eye movement. Breathing patterns. Nothing dramatic. Nothing a human observer would call a lie. Just the familiar signs of someone discussing a topic they cared about personally. So what if Trajan believed in this pitch? That did not mean she was right to do so.

"Let's assume your diagnosis is correct." Andrea said at last. "That the State is recovering. That criminal organisations are offering competing structures of loyalty and belonging. That employees increasingly see themselves as 'individuals with options' rather than members of an institution. Fine. I'm willing to grant all of that for the sake of argument." She folded her hands together. "What I'm less willing to grant is that a success cult is the first solution that comes to mind."

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the data displays hovering above the conference table.

"Whenever someone proposes creating fanatics, my instinct is to ask what happened to [i]all[/i] the other less dangerous options."

Because that was what bothered her. Success cults were powerful, but they were also utterly blunt instruments. They distorted information flows. They encouraged people to only report what their leadership wanted to hear. Worst of all, it rewarded plain enthusiasm over any actual semblance of expertise or accuracy. In the short term, yes, they would create momentum. But in the long term, after a few years worth of middle-management shifting and promotions and layoffs, they could create [i]entire[/i] management layers almost entirely incapable of distinguishing reality from fantasy. And if there was one thing Andrea had learned while inheriting her predecessor's office and their prioritisation of the R&D sector, it was that reality eventually collected its debts.

"You've described a loyalty problem, that's clear." She continued. "But loyalty is an output, not an input. If employees are drifting toward the State, I want to know why. If they're turning to criminal organisations, I want to know why. If morale is collapsing, I want to know [i]why[/i]. Not because I'm opposed to your solution. Rather, I want to understand the alternatives you've dismissed before we start engineering ideological movements inside the workforce." Her expression remained calm. "Give me options, Director. Not one option. Options." The corner of her mouth twitched upward slightly. "You're the Interior Director of one of the largest organisations on Earth. But if your answer to every staff enthusiasm problem costs me twenty MacroCredits and ends with a corporate [i]religion[/i], then either we're in much deeper shit than I thought, or you're taking me for a fool."