There are several questions you’ve posed in your stories I would argue are much easier answered, if or when we notice science seems averse to questioning the foundations of its knowledge, or funding, which seem interrelated.

Of course it would not be very clever for you to publish a story on either of those subjects.

It was something of a revelation to me, to realise at PhD candidate level, research information is something closely guarded, even between different projects within the same university, regardless of how much work might be saved by sharing data.

That is just one of many instances of capitalisation of information we start to notice, different projects, funded by different sources.

Then we might realise that what we’ve considered as progress, in knowledge progression has actually only been made in spite of the financial forces working against it.

Further, we start to understand the reason why most scientists probably would not like to think there could be superior intelligence not only out there, but even amongst us.

Your story makes perfect sense to me, from that point of view.