Admiral Benjamin Banneker-Jackson heaved a large sigh when he heard about an upcoming scientific presentation involving a collective egg of the ancient Affiryor civilization.
“Almira,” he said to his wife, “I see why we have lived so long, and why things have happened so that I am on leave with all this court-martial business I have to testify for. I'm going to do tomorrow's deposition, and then we need to get out to the Fortmyror System before this whole thing goes down."
“It would be more entertaining if we wait, though,” she teased. “That's going to be some kind of presentation where you need to imitate the bandwidth of an entire star immersively to make things work.”
“Listen, Captain 'Action' Jackson,” he said, “do you want to come out of semi-retirement with me to track this thing down if it goes wrong?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” she said. “are we getting ahead of this admiralty style, or incognito?”
“We're starting incognito just not to start a fuss. The matter is sensitive on the merits, because we want the Fortmyrori to come into the consortium, so brute force won't work as a first course of action. And of course George Russ would blow that approach up even more by saying I'm coming to steal his spotlight and we military star fleet people are always raining on the civilian parade and they never should have let me moonlight as a civilian scientist after my first retirement.”
“Moonlight?” Capt. Banneker-Jackson said. “Like, who put him in charge of the galaxy's civilian scientist ranks? What is this level of delusion?”
“Almira,” he said, “you would be scandalized to know how many people who were good scientists in my cohort in high school who were just waiting for me to get old and retire, but then that happened, and it made no difference because my predictions from my youth are now coming true. Now, some wish that I would die so they can finally get their moment in the sun without me coming along to say, 'Well, actually... .'”
Capt. Banneker-Jackson sighed.
“Civilians don't appreciate how much we do behind the scenes out here,” she said. “Everything not on Earth is generally set up to kill us, but they don't know because we've done a really good job.”
“You would think in a case like this – but no,” Adm. Banneker-Jackson said. “When you don't know what you don't know, you can't gauge the danger of things like this. The only person who George knows that he would listen to on this is me, because I have the stature as both a fleet science officer and a civilian scientist after that, and even though he is jealous, he knows I'm honest. So, that gives us some room to work with. It's an admiral's job on the finesse side, and I certainly do need you, Captain, to help me save a lot of lives.”
Capt. Banneker-Jackson looked at her husband … in essence, the Undying Admiral … lost both legs in accident, but saved his crew … lost the next two bionic legs, but successfully led the evacuation of a planet … survived a massive heart attack because a whole different civilization sent him the cure through his future nephew-in-law, on the spot. No one would hate him if he went and just let life go by … but no. He was now getting his money's worth from his third pair of bionic legs, making sure other people were not making life and star-system ending mistakes. That was Benjamin Banneker, at the core, and Almira “Action” Jackson had loved him and done the Banneker-Jackson thing for it.
“Well, how about fast incognito, Ben? My great-nephew is loving his Warp Core Corvette, and he can run us out there!”
“There is nothing incognito about a Warp Core Corvette.”
“It will be because no one will expect us to arrive in it – that's the beauty of it!”
“Well, when you are in your eighties and that's how you arrive instead of the Warp Core Rocking Chair equivalent – I see your point, Almira.”
“Oh, hey, Aunt Almira, I'll be glad to come get y'all!” nephew Alvin Jackson said when he was asked. “This is the coolest thing ever – my friends are going to be so jealous that I'm flying the coolest old people in the galaxy around in the Corvette!”
Adm. Banneker-Jackson shook his head, but was smiling.
“The undying traits of human nature. The things we do to make someone else feel some kind of way!”
“Everybody hasn't had a chance to grow out of stuff like we have,” Capt. Banneker-Jackson said with a laugh. “We have to help these young people!”
Adm. Banneker-Jackson had not had a chance to get to know Alvin as well as he knew his wife's children and grandchildren, so this was actually a treat for him, all the way to the Fortmyror System. Talking to Alvin also gave him an opportunity to realize how to approach George … just checking back in with the fundamentals of human nature in a young man gave him some insight.
“Because some people don't grow up – they just grow old,” he said to his wife, “and there but for the grace of God go I.”
This was George Russ's moment, a moment he had been chasing since he was Alvin's age – a discovery that Adm. Banneker-Jackson's fleet colleagues missed in a relatively recent supernova. The Fortmyror System and its civilizations had records still of what had happened next door – the Affiryor civilization had gone back into a collective egg state and survived the supernova of their star system. This was known because in Fortmyror, there were records of how the Affiryor had colonized that star system after their original one had been destroyed … in ancient days, civilizations in those two systems had communicated with each other telepathically.
The Fortmyrori civilizations had known their neighbors had survived all the while, but could not resettle them in their star system because their star was not strong enough in radiation to support the Affiryor life cycle. So when humans and their wide-ranging consortium had at last gotten out that far, the Fortmyrori had reached out. But they didn't know the difference between the official exploratory fleet and the different private scientific expeditions – so George Russ was in the right place at the right time.
The challenge about private expeditions: they needed money to keep going, so George had set up a great demonstration of what he thought was the necessary environment to bring an ancient Affiryor collective egg out of its undying state.
“Recent supernova is relative,” Adm. Banneker-Jackson said as he was reviewing the expedition data. “The Affiry Nebula is at least 1,500 years old – so those eggs have been coming from there for at least that long.”
“That's absolutely amazing,” Capt. Banneker-Jackson said.
“George has actually done a great job getting all this together,” he said, “but … .”
Fleet resources were already being moved based on the data at hand, even though it might all be for naught, just because of the nature of the problem.
“George, this is quite possibly the greatest scientific workup of a civilization new to humans I've ever seen,” Adm. Banneker-Jackson said when he met with his old high school classmate. “You know I always have a fine-toothed comb to look at these things, and there's just no fault in it!”
“Really, Ben – I didn't expect you would say that!” George said. “You know I've been chasing you for years in getting these things right!”
“I know, and this is amazing work. I just have one question, because you know fleet officers are paranoid. So, this collective egg and its companions survived a supernova and its aftermath for 1,500 years drifting toward Fortmyror, but we know Fortmyr is not a strong enough star to bring them out of this amazing stasis they are in. It's amazing the plan you have to imitate old Affiry in its spectral glory – just amazing!”
“Isn't it, Ben? We just feed it the right frequency at a broad enough bandwidth and voila!”
“The array you have put together is absolutely amazing, George. I mean it is fantastic work! Only one question: given that they are hardy enough to survive an entire supernova, what's the plan for if they wake up, get scared, and start wrecking shop? You haven't looped the fleet in, so … .”
George turned as white as a sheet during the twenty silent seconds before he could find a word.
“Ben … I hadn't even thought about that … gee whiz … how many photon torpedeos does it take to be more powerful than a supernova to put them back to sleep, to say nothing of killing them – the Affiry Supernova was one of the most powerful in the galaxy, and if that didn't kill them... I mean, what are we even looking at?”
“Oh, we're going to need a hundred or so planet-wreckers to even get close to that level – forget photon torpedoes,” Adm. Banneker-Jackson said. “You don't want to have your investors seeing all that.”
“Ben … I've promised them a show … if this doesn't work out, I'm done!”
“I have an idea – let's replace the radiation generators with some 7D projectors, and then … .”
The show must go on, so George Russ presented a fantastic re-enaction of the Affiryors' transformation, the destruction of their star system and creation of the Affiry Nebula, and the long, long journey the Affiryor had been taking in their collective eggs, going toward their future home, 400 light years away.
“I love putting together these kinds of educational shows, George!” Capt. Banneker-Jackson said. “I know tons of good civilian crews too for science jobs like this – let me recommend a few to you!”
Then the fleet helped out some more, picking up all the surviving collective eggs and carrying them the 400 light years to the next uninhabited star system so that they could settle in and wake up.
“And now I'm actually going to live to see it!” George said. “This is great, Ben and Almira – thank you!”
“And at last he has something to do beside waiting on you to die to get into the spotlight, Ben,” Capt. Banneker-Jackson said.
“Now he gets to try to be 'undying,'” Adm. Banneker-Jackson said, “and that will be enough to do since he still didn't read the part about it may take as much as a century under natural conditions for the Affiryor to come out of their collective egg state. The fun is in the details of Fortmyrori's definite time articles in their grammar!”
“But like you said, Ben, sometimes we just don't know where to look because we don't even know what we don't know – but you know what I also found out?”
“What?”
“Alvin and I have been busy – we had a new coating put on the Warp Core Corvette, and I've also gone shopping and got us some fits so we can be more hip than ever – these Fortmyrori stores have it going on and I'm telling you Jupiter Station needs to catch up!”
“Almira, for real?” the admiral said, but laughed right along with her as she handed him all the receipts and then handed him the notice that the Fortmyrori civilizations, seeing how humanity had answered their call and cared for their neighbors the undying Affiryor, had decided to join the consortium.
“We're all in the right place at the right time, my also-undying, darling admiral,” she said.
“Now you know we cannot wear any of these clothes to the ceremonies,” he said. “Woman, did you really buy me a Ghelatum Satin suit – just blowing the admiralty money and the captaincy money at the same time?”
“Yeah, because afterwards we gotta hit the 'humans, humanoids, and others' dancing scene on the fifth continent of Fortmyror 4 – what are bionic legs and collagen supplements really for, Ben?”
He rolled laughing, and then embraced his wife.
“See, I never have to worry about finding the spotlight or the party – it is an undying privilege to be with you and therefore wherever the action is, Action Jackson. Let's do it!”
My Process as Artist:
Just about every week in Alien Art Hive I write a story out of the M.A. Kirk (cousin to the J.T. Kirk we know from Star Trek) Universe, and Benjamin Banneker has been a character for a long time, since before he came out of retirement, with Capt. Almira Jackson a bit more recent -- so, I chose to give a view of their golden years romance -- undying love -- as a sidelight to this golden-hued art!
About the art -- that began its life as a fractal I made in Apophysis 2.09...
... but I wanted a brighter palette, and settled on the second version here:
Now, the thing about a fractal ... they tend to have multiple similar types of shapes and structures within them, and sometimes a kind of near-symmetry of their own. A daisy, or a fern, or a rose utilize fractal geometry; each part is similar and every one of the same kind is similar to each other, but never is any part exactly alike, and thus it is hard for a fractal to be perfectly symmetric -- but if as an artist one copies and puts them in symmetrical situations, it is amazing what can be revealed. The first thing I did was put the golden fractal on a black background so its details could be seen more easily, and then copied it and started working the copies around each other at 90-degree angles until the collective egg of the Affiryor appeared! I added a few eyes in Paint 3D, but something fun to do -- go back up and count the number of faces that you see in it! Fractal geometry also is responsible for the uniqueness of every face, and so fractals made in Apophysis 2.09 often will yield multiple face-like figures when mirrored and brought together! There are many more in the figure than I dropped eyes into!
