The only pure fractal here, made in Apophysis 2.09 ... the first of three palettes and four aspects
I had observed as a child visiting my uncle, who was already a commander when I was born; even on leave, he was never on leave unless he turned off each and every communication device except the ones for fleet emergencies (which, given how big the galaxy is, don't happen that often). Benjamin Banneker was (and is) much beloved, a warm soul in a large, uncaring galaxy.
By the time he came back to the fleet as a commodore and then rear admiral at age 81, that also meant that there were few generations willing to put a photon torpedo through your nose if you said something that they felt was insulting to him. In his retirement years, he had founded Sable Captains and Commanders, and that meant there were even more people, with even more specific reasons, who found him a wise, caring mentor and therefore had more ears to the ground and would be willing to break some stuff up when he was spoken against.
We knew before anything was official that someone tired of hearing about my uncle was proposing testing his new system for preventing going to warp around any star but the sun while Uncle Benjamin and I were on six weeks of leave. The fact that it was proposed and the fact that Admirals Jefferson and Kirk had squashed it reached us even before both admirals called my uncle to explain.
Naturally, some members of Sable Captains and Commanders were triggered by this incident – they had their own stories to tell about having projects taken from them because somebody was tired of them being good at what they did, and they were ferociously protective of my uncle.
I sometimes came up for angry calls because, as the niece to the great man, it was thought that I should be the lead defense, but, as I reminded people all the time, “That is not Uncle Benjamin's way. He has always taught me: 'Good work heralds and defends the worker, better than anything else.' ”
Something else Uncle Benjamin still says that is more pointed: “When people try to take credit for what they didn't build, that's a concession: they don't know how to build anything, and they feel inferior to the builder. Meanwhile, I'm a builder. If you take project X, that's OK, because maybe you can push the idea of the need for it further to more people than I can. Yet I know how what I built actually works, and you don't, so, you're going to have to hand it back to me anyway tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll also be building something new – but you won't. Who wins that contest you invited me to without thinking?”
“Yeah – no – been there, done that, and even if were weren't reconciled there is no way,” Adm. Jefferson said when he called. “We don't stake the future of humanity in space on making up things to do with starships for somebody getting tired of seeing your name and face, Benjamin – and since Admiral Kirk isn't a Virginian gentleman, he said it to the party in question a far sight rougher than that. Nobody is doing anything with your new tech until you get back, Benjamin.”
What Admiral Kirk had actually said had gotten cheers from the membership at Sable Captains and Commanders, because he was just about as mad as they were and came with receipts about the last time a Banneker test was tried without him allowed to run it.
However, that was said to me, and not to Uncle Benjamin. Everyone knew he did not talk about the Theigreh Incident, the tragedy he had made ready to prevent, but then was not allowed to.
A century before Admiral Kirk pulled the receipt, a strong, violent species had invaded the Theigreh system, and the native Theigrehians had fought them literally to the death of their own civilization but had won, and confined the defeated beings as best they could – state of the art technology for the pre-Warp 5 era. The Theigrehians had caged their enemies using the flux of energy at the heliopause between the radiation coming from their sun and the interstellar medium, thus preventing their enemies' escape into any other star system.
The brave stand and heroic act of the Theigrehians reached Earth quite early in humanity's long-range space exploration days, and at last the time came when the Earth-led consortium reached out to the surviving Theigrehians to see if assistance to rebuild was wanted. This was met with great rejoicing that was soon tempered because starship captains of the time loved flying up to new star systems at Warp 5 and above. Warp 7 was still exotic when my uncle came into the fleet at about this same time.
The problem with warp field waves – one might say that long before the trans-warp wave related incident that restarted my uncle's career, these kinds of problems had put their mark on him – was that they had a tremendous amount of energy abnormal to interstellar space even when decayed almost back to light speed. That energy was not quite entropy; it could be harvested and used, and the enemies of the Theigrehians, still very much alive and enraged, used it to power up and strain at the bonds of their confinement. It is not as obvious here, with the first fleet reading –
– but the danger is better seen as the whole creature can be seen, visible once again. This is the fifth fleet reading, and was recorded by a starship that came right up to the edge of the system at Warp 6.
Uncle Benjamin at that time was a science officer at the rank of lieutenant, and his captain assigned him to look into the readings and work out what was happening from the data the Theigrehians were offering. Captain John Jenkins knew that there were only five ships based close enough to the Theigreh System to make a below-Warp 5 run there to present the formal invitation to the Theigrehians to join the consortium, and his was one of them, so, he wanted to be prepared.
Lieutenant Banneker worked out not only a safe distance to drop out of warp, but the top frequencies in warp engines that the enemies of the Theigrehians were using to power themselves up – he had noted it from the spectra of their attempts to break their energy bonds that it was not just the amount of power, but certain combinations of frequencies that gave them extra strength.
The lieutenant and the captain passed this up the chain of command as they were supposed to so the nearest five ships could safely do the job – only to hear that a particular admiral wanted to steam out to do the presentation, and had brushed aside Lieutenant Banneker's findings. That admiral's response to Captain Jenkins's inquiry accidentally revealed the crux of the matter; the sable captain and lieutenant had been doing a bit too much and were not going to be allowed to be the chief face of the consortium and its idea of civilization.
Captain Jenkins had found his lieutenant and explained some things.
“Among my ancestors one of the few United States Colored Troops who survived the Battle of the Crater in the Civil War. Those troops had been trained to do a particular job by General Burnside and were ready, but General Meade did not want to see them get the glory of that almost-certain Union victory. General Grant sided with General Meade, and so untrained white troops were assigned the job and flubbed it. Then the colored troops were sent in to rescue them, but no rescue was possible. It turned into a Confederate turkey shoot and victory, and that war had to go another nine months.”
Captain Jenkins had paused, and then added, “We're about to be invited to be in a turkey shoot by an admiral with just as much acknowledgment of all the humanness of humanity as regards skin color as old Meade, along with these other four ships. I need you, Lieutenant, to look at your data again, and get us some frequencies that we can re-tune all of our weapons to in order to have a chance.”
Lieutenant Banneker had obeyed orders, and gotten that tactical re-tuning done, and then the captain had passed the word along to the nearest four ships. But, half of them had followed the admiral's mindset on those things, so, the changes were not implemented.
Captain Jenkins had briefed his crew, and worked with the other two captains who were listening, but still called his young science officer.
“It has been an honor to serve with you, Lieutenant. What is about to happen here is not your fault. You have done all you could, and if we both survive somehow, I will have you put up for a commendation. If I don't survive, just know that I'm proud of you. The admiral in question is a minority in the fleet, but a loud one. The good thing is, that minority is going to be smaller, the day after tomorrow. That is something you and your generation can look forward to. Someday, for all those who make it, things will be made right.”
Said admiral brought his ship up at Warp 7.5, a risque speed for those days under all circumstances, and was greeted by the enemies of the Theigrehians, pushing their way out of their 40-year confinement.
The same pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, colored all around with the interior colors of the fractal in Paint 3D
The tragedy, however, did not initially go in the direction Captain Jenkins expected, because the confined beings only wanted revenge on those who had confined them. The Theigrehians who were left, however, had already evacuated … they had been quietly informed by Lt. Banneker, at Captain Jenkins' directive, that the ship coming from Earth “is not yet fitted to avoid adverse outcomes.” So, when the mortal enemies of the Theigrehians arrived to the habitable zone, they were even more enraged to find the planet they hated empty, and so destroyed it and all the nearby ones.
What did the admiral – who did not know the Theigrehians had evacuated – say about this?
“Well, they are not actually part of the consortium yet – they should have gotten their application done sooner.”
Notorious last words, because they were overheard – the whole idea that any other species would think of interfering with their revenge with their little toy ships was even more enraging to the planet-wreckers, who smashed that starship like an angry child with a paper plane. There had scarcely been time to get a distress signal off before the Theigrehians' problem had become the galaxy's problem once again.
Yet by this time, another admiral, Adm. S.D. Ramanujan, had seen my uncle's work, realized he was right, and thrown together a whole flotilla with warp signatures and tactical arrays fully tuned to my uncle's specs – he was only six hours behind the doomed ship, and arrived just in time to back up the five ships (with only three properly prepared) who were fighting the mortal enemies of the Theigrehians to the death.
“I had never seen such tactics as I had seen from Jenkins' ship – using not only phasers and photon torpedoes properly tuned, but also short warp bursts properly tuned to inflict massive damage on the enemy. He only, of all five commanders there, fully understood what to do. We followed his lead and prevailed. He lived long enough afterward to know that, for which I was very glad, and with almost his last breath, he commended Lt. Benjamin Banneker as the author of our success. He and his ship were lost along with four other ships and 1,145 crew and the home of the Theigrehians – but the scourge of Theigreh is no more. We utterly destroyed them all.”
My uncle does not speak of the Theigreh Incident, although he is the hero of it. The wounds are still too deep, not least because Capt. Jenkins was his first mentor. Uncle Benjamin founded Sable Captains and Commanders in Capt. Jenkins's memory, but otherwise made no reference to the matter for sixty years except in prayer, and perhaps to a fleet counselor or two.
However, when Admiral Kirk pulled that receipt and made it public, sixty years later, Uncle Benjamin called him.
“James,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Any time, Benjamin – it was the least that I could do to prevent another tragedy you've already given the fleet the means to prevent. I talked with Captain Spock about the thing, too, and he said the chances of anyone who doesn't understand it successfully testing your system are one billion, seven hundred fifty-two million, six hundred sixty-eight thousand, seven hundred seventy-seven point 5 to one.”
“Got to get that point 5 in there,” Uncle Benjamin said. “Did you ask him if he himself, presently the fleet's finest science officer turned captain, could pull it off?”
“I did, and he said that while the possibility certainly exists, it would be illogical for him to do so with your return a mere five weeks away now, and also because 'blatant disrespect of a proven scientist of Adm. Banneker's stature for mere personal self-aggrandizement would be the epitome of illogical behavior.' ”
My uncle fell out laughing.
“That's Captain Spock all right – that thorough and elegant rebuke of all the foolery around this!”
“That's all it ever was, Ben. Enjoy your leave. Tell the good people in Sable Captains and Commanders that most of the rest of the fleet is not having this disrespect of you either – we've got this, and we've got you, Ben.”
“I'll tell them, and again, James, thank you … thank you on behalf of everyone all the way back to the Theigreh Incident, especially the Theigrehians themselves, and the loved ones of the fleet officers lost.”
“I'm going to take some heat for that, Benjamin, because the Theigrehians are now reminding the consortium that the compensation offered was never completely paid out, and that they now need an additional planet terra-formed for them – but it's not coming out of my check or pension, or yours either!”
“Let the truth do all of what it does, James – Capt. Jenkins said things would be made right someday, so let them all be made right!”
“Captain John Jenkins,” the admiral said. “Your commander there … it is very late, Benjamin, but I am not even sixty-one years old, so can't help it, but, my condolences to you on his loss. That was a great man, just too far ahead of his time.”
“Not really, James. We've been having the same arguments about the value of all humanity since the Greeks and Romans made that a thing – but I rejoice to say, you've always been on the right side of it.”
“Look, Benjamin – I'm not trying to get into the afterlife and have both Father Ulysses S. Grant and Father Augustus Kirk drop-kicking me to the gates of hell. Our families already settled where we stand on this in the 19th century, and we stand with your family! Everybody else needs to catch up – it's the 23rd century looking at the 24th already! What did the kids say in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to those ridiculously behind – get with the program!”