This is a pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, made 3D and colorized for blue-shift and red-shift in Paint 3D
The above is the image of the final peroration of a fleet starship, in a computer rendering of its molten remains looping and spinning through a star system after its captain went mad, tricked his crew, and ordered the absolute impossible to be done.
To understand the scale of the madness, just understand that as one approaches Warp 10, one approaches a full 1,000 times the speed of light, and if one is going against the orbit pattern of a particular star, one is also risking going backwards in the space-time continuum in that region of space. It took about one second to create that whole pattern and a year to image it because we had to account for the debris going in and out of different periods of local time before finally smashing into some planetary remnants and stopping.
(This led to the astonishing confirmation of the fact that quantum physics had informed humanity of in the late 20th century: time is completely laid out, so, in several local histories, several mysterious explosions in the sky going back thousands of years were explained – the lost fleet starship had been seen at that time, bouncing in and out of time and space in all those places in history. So much for the directive not to alter other civilizations' timelines with human intrusions.)
Now, add on tractoring an object – a comet, let's say – to try to transmute that thing because you are still mad at someone and wanted to prove them wrong from decades earlier.
Just how did that captain overcome his crew to that extent – by what means had he eluded the ship's doctor in his madness before that? His last reports that the fleet received gave no indications. The last received readings from the ship indicated nothing amiss.
The only hint to anything had come from his widow, who had said that when the news first began to trickle out that the Lokusstrum Metamorphosis predicted by then-retired Captain Benjanin Banneker appeared to indeed be coming to reality, her husband became very angry.
“I did not know he was even capable of such hate,” she said. “It was as if another personality emerged, another being of great evil possessed him.”
The dots connected in that we knew that the ship was in the process of trying to disprove another of then-Capt. Banneker's theories – and instead only proved it to the point that the only person in the galaxy who could formulate a solution to the problem thus created was that same Benjamin Banneker, who came back into the fleet as a commodore and then, upon the success of his plan, was promoted to rear admiral.
“How are you going to destroy yourself, your ship, your crew, your reputation, all the planets in a particular star system, and put a whole trans-warp gone wrong rip in space-time and only succeed in getting the man you hated proved right and promoted twice – you big dummy!”
The media caught that from the late captain's brother at the captain's memorial service – one of the most memorable two-minute expressions ever recorded. A fight broke out. It was a terrible situation.
Benjamin Banneker's expression is best known as the above. He was deeply and thoroughly shaken by the incident that occasioned his and my return to the fleet, and yet by that showed he was among the most consistent men in solving a problem there was in the galaxy.
“I am glad that I am 82, and my heart trouble is controlled, and that you and Rufus looked after me for the half-year of my recovery,” he said to me. “I needed all of that. I understand certain things in how the universe works, but the depths of human evil I cannot touch except as I have to fight the evil in me, daily – and even that is too deep for me to do alone. I can't handle that part of this matter regarding this man who has done this unbelievable act of What I can do is find whatever in this there is by which good can be done.”
How anyone could hate my uncle, I would never understand … I watched him manage all the science concerns of the exploratory fleet we were in while also daily working on what had happened in that second, and that picture slowly emerged … in 3D, in glorious colors to indicate decay in speed, the lighter-colored loops being extrapolated for the journeys out of our region of space-time into previous centuries … there were one thousand, nine hundred, eighty-seven known loops.
What did that mean? That meant that readings about humanity reaching this section of the galaxy long before we reached it were in fact true – human “pollution,” in essence, had been notably present. My first officer, Cmdr. Helmut Allemande, had kept showing me that trans-dimensional emergence was common in this region of the galaxy – the evidence was there in the background spectra and “scarring” of the continuum beyond the natural occurrences having to do with life forms who knew how to play in the gravitational lensing voids that occurred in certain parts.
Fifteen of the known times that the feather-jellies had smelled food and come out of the Finsternis Double Nebula ready to nibble on the local matter: that starship had left just enough dust, in fifteen different centuries.
The inexplicable dilithium pollution of the atmosphere of Yurusi 6 – our fleet starship's wreck emerged at a moment when the red supergiant's stellar shed had pushed that warp core dust into that adjacent star system, seven hundred years before the accident occurred in our time.
Adm. Banneker tracked down all such incidents, the consortium took full responsibility including financial compensation, and our exploratory fleet helped to end all lingering bad effects across the region that we could – and this is how, in the end, the consortium, and humanity leading it, strengthened its reputation in the galaxy out of this terrible incident.
And yet even at detail … my uncle refused to characterize his insane rival as such in the record. He described the extent of the crime against the galaxy without shrinking from it, but kept on writing, “The scientific prowess that was necessary to unlock this discovery, though deplorably misapplied, was without parallel. Thus in no other way could we have learned … .”
My uncle's most remarkable characterization of what his rival had done made me laugh and cry, because I had been raised by him after my parents' death and had many conversations with him beginning with, “I understand what you are trying to do, Khadijah, and this is why you are going to get hurt because life doesn't work that way.” He was always perfectly clear about my wrongs, but never personally condemned me – and so, about his rival he said: “In this act, humanity came the nearest to breaching the wall of omnipresence, achieving the feat of being in greater than one billion locations in space and time in the course of a single second – and suffered the inevitable consequences of assaulting that wall that is forbidden for mankind to pierce.”
That is all to say that my consistent uncle, presented any breach, was going to find a way to close it. Benjamin Banneker covered what had been done by his rival for hate with his abundant love, and transmuted centuries of disaster into blessing.
Commendation upon commendation, thank you upon thank you even from the friends and family of his rival – all that would come, yet my uncle was conscious of all he could not still do, and on the day his image of his rival's last journey was revealed to the fleet, even his bionic legs could not hold him up. Myself and Cmdr. Allemande quietly got by him, and my six-foot-six first officer held him up while he leaned on me and wept.
By this time, I knew the details of why … we were doing too much to even call that insane captain a rival to my uncle. The supposed rival was 20 years younger and a masterful science officer in his own right – but one of his most extensive works, the one he thought was going to make him famous, had some weaknesses in it that my uncle had discovered. My uncle had privately made the younger scientist aware so that the weaknesses could be corrected, but the younger scientist had refused, gone forward, been shown up publicly, and then had to endure my uncle telling the truth about the matter when questioned. The fact that Benjamin Banneker should tell anyone in advance, and be ignored – that was what forever ended his rival's chance at glory.
“If only he had listened!” my uncle said as he wept. “Think of what he and I and we all could have accomplished together!”
But instead, Benjamin Banneker had to clean up for the second time, and continue on in honor, while unable to spare his rival centuries of infamy. The choice of pride and hate compared with the choice of humility and love – when I see my uncle's great image of what happened, I see that illustrated in vivid color.