A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09
A Sultruviam burning butterfly is one of those things I can tell not to be too interested in touching. A respectful distance of its great beauty seems in order.
“But you are my protege, Khadijah, in addition to being an excellent fleet officer in your own right,” my uncle said. “Of course you know better. Guess who doesn't?”
Some of the things that go into making planetary treaties when planets enter the consortium whose fleet I served are lists of of non-negotiable things a planet wishes to maintain as a condition of entrance. Many of these are great matters including freedom of speech, press, religion, and fair trade.
However, since humanity's ancient reputation of having driven many of Earth's own species to extinction had preceded us into the galaxy, lists of species that were held as simply “not to be touched” were a part of many planetary non-negotiables.
Rarely did an ambassador leading negotiations pay personal attention to this – usually those lists were simply accepted and filed.
“But then we get into trouble later with the inevitable outrage when some group of enterprising humans does not know what cannot be touched, and touches it,” Acting Ambassador Benjamin Banneker said. “Let's not do that on Sultruviam.”
It helped that my uncle was a high-ranking science officer in the fleet – an admiral with a 40-year fleet career followed by 20 years in private science followed by a return to the fleet in an emergency which aftermath we were going to have to get back to at some point. But for the time being, owing to a second, diplomatic emergency, he had made the lateral move to ambassador, working to negotiate Sultruviam's entry into the consortium.
Because he was a scientist at heart, he personally catalogued and entered every creature that the Sultruviamin – all three sentient races, the third of which he himself discovered – into the agreement details and announcements that would have to be made across the consortium as rules and regulations of engagement with the planet's resources.
It so happened that because Sultruviam had its sentient races at three different levels of existence – their Guardians were plasma-based, keeping their desert planet habitable at the atmospheric level, their humanoids ran the day-to-day civilization in terms of how humanity understands that, and their Piksees observed and cared for the natural resources at ground level – the lists of essential creatures they produced were extensive, so much so that one of the men representing the commercial interests for the consortium came upon my uncle as he was making the Burning Butterfly entries and said, “We can't really exploit any animal here at all!”
“That's correct,” the acting ambassador said. “The web of life on Sultruviam is delicate. The bad news for you is that other planets may also realize what it took humanity nearly destroying the web of life on Earth to learn, and do a little better on insisting that we respect their ecosystems. The good news for you is that you and the people you represent will live longer, because what you see above you is more akin to a man-of-war jellyfish in terms of what it can do to you, and also big enough to kill you and any 20 men you might think to have net it.”
The Sultruviamin Burning Butterfly is among its homeworld's most beautiful creatures, and most necessary, floating by on the desert winds and generally sifting its sands for its prey. This beautiful and relentless predator can also snatch up large animals as well, and often does at mating season – and thus, keeps a delicate balance of things using water and the relatively sparse greenery that is available planet-wide. Of course, its beauty alone meant it needed protection …
The same pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, in a different palette
“But in function, Ambassador Banneker, if we lose even ten percent of the population to poaching, growing crops on the planet will become increasingly difficult,” Ambassador Srrortay of the Sultruviam said to my uncle.
“Understood, which is why I am entering that information manually,” Uncle Benjamin said. “It makes my work day longer, but I'm still a science officer at heart, and I recognize the importance of planetary ecosystems.”
“Sir,” his diplomatic counterpart said, “this is why we would not work with anyone else. You are a Guardian, at heart.”
This was the largest compliment a Sultruviamin might give anyone, and Uncle Benjamin instantly rose and bowed deeply … and then was simply embraced … such was the love Sultruviam's sentient races felt for the man who manually entered all the things in its flora and fauna that had to be left alone by all other consortium members, and so was indeed an honorary Guardian of Sultruviam as the world and its beings moved into their next phase of cooperative interplanetary existence.