Up In Smoke Over a Misty Sthtoke (and, Stealing Is Bad, Twice Over)

A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, overlaid and mirrored on itself

When at the end of the whole Khellphire situation I shared this now-fleet-famous moment with my husband about full fleet admiral Chenggis Chulalaangkorn …

Just last month Adm. Chulalaangkorn's comment on a particular mess was 'let it burn,' and when Adm. Bodega was trying to save things, Adm Chulalaangkorn came across with, 'I need you Christians to Christian a little better – aren't you following the One about Whom it was said, "A bruised reed shall he not break and a smoking flax shall He not quench?" Even He lets it burn, so what are you doing?

… I could only tell him so much, because he is a civilian commercial captain, while I was a fleet captain.

I couldn't tell him then what has at last been declassified and forgiven, all hard feelings buried under a peace treaty, with bygones being bygones so much so that the story can now be carefully told.

That whole quote about Adm. Chulalaangkorn talking about 'let it burn' had already happened by the time I mentioned it to my husband; the high command's chiefs of staff and the majority of the fleet admirals agreed that Adm. Chulalaangkorn was right.

The creature in the picture above has not gone extinct because of that decision … Misty Sthtokes are some of the most beautiful and lethal creatures in the galaxy, but unlike their species cousins the Khellphire, they are not trying to lure steel flying bugs into their vaporizing grip. They just want to be left alone, and nowadays that fact about them is seen as leading to peace, because one of the Neutral Zones got even more neutral over some hullaballoo about Misty Sthtokes.

From the human-led consortium's side of things, the star system inhabited by the beautiful creatures above was an easy agreement item on extending a particular Neutral Zone. There was nothing in that star system humans were interested in, and it never occurred to us that our now-friends would discover rich deposits of a dietary supplement humanoids in their order of humanoid could use. But, we still didn't care all that much … it was closer to their side of the Zone, and most of us were not so petty that we would begrudge any sentient being their vitamins. They didn't ask for permission, and we didn't bother to get upset.

But what neither of our civilizations knew was that the third planet was inhabited; the upper atmosphere was the home of the Misty Sthtoke, and they rose like a mist from the atmosphere and just vaporized the ships who intended to take resources from their planet. Come to find out, that planet's ecosystem needed those minerals to stay put.

Meanwhile, the spies from our rival civilization were doing their best to steal an invention by Rear Admiral Benjamin Banneker-Jackson that was intended to keep fleet ships from going to warp in near proximity but Sol, the Sun of our own Solar System. This was to prevent time continuum violations in any other star system, while leaving room for occasional emergencies in Earth's own case. Our spies had found out our rival civilization's spies had misunderstood and wanted the technology to overcome a particular problem they had in terms of shielding and going to warp under any near starlight. They intended to weaponize it and did not understand the failsafes Adm. Banneker-Jackson had built into it. So, the high command had decided to let them steal it, and they had been working away on their misunderstanding just in time for the Misty Sthtokes to send a commercial fleet of theirs up in smoke.

My uncle, that same Benjamin Banneker-Jackson, was called into the next high command meeting to learn what was about to happen: our rival civilization had fitted out an entire grand fleet, but instead of storming over the Neutral Zone, the admirals on that side had decided to avenge their people on the Misty Sthtokes first – and that was the pretext by which they could get a fleet that big close enough to “surprise” us.

My uncle was called to the second meeting, and described to me his impressions.

“I had a little bit of an out-of-body experience, Khadijah,” he said to me. “You know how hard we worked to keep that technology from being stolen, and the high command just chose to give it away, despite the objections of some. Vlarian, Elian, and Martti did their best on that, I must say – but it was done long before anyone told me. But the second part of that out-of-body experience had to do with looking at the matter from how our rival civilization is about to experience this situation, and realizing 'vanity, vanity, all is vanity' is not just a human experience in rebellion against good and right. The whole universe and all its creatures need to be redeemed, because entropy is getting helped out far too much.”

“What do you mean, Uncle?”

“I mean going up in smoke is making entropy's work too easy, over stealing once and then stealing twice.”

It took me a few moments, but then I sat down, my head hurting because I saw what he saw. Our rival civilization, stealing resources from another civilization, had gotten caught and gotten vaporized, and because they had stolen from our civilization without understanding, they were about to head out to attempt revenge on the Misty Sthtokes with a grand fleet that was going to turn to dust the instant they went to warp that close to their home star.

The way my uncle's system worked was to determine whether the sensors of a ship were picking up the light from Sol, and how closely when going to warp. Our fleet did not use stellar gravity wells to get up to higher speed with or leaving the Solar System or any other, so that was never going to be an issue. Unfortunately, our rival civilization did that when going on the attack for show value, and although their engineers had adapted my uncle's work to tie into the shielding things they wanted, they had not accounted for how the technology had adapted itself to their systems to do just what it would do if a fleet of ours had gotten that close to their home star to go around it and mess with their past history: instantly trigger warp core breaches.

Like my husband, my uncle looked at even the peoples of rival civilizations as sentient beings with families, friends, and eternal value somewhere in the Creator's vast plans. He was a kindly scientist at heart, and had designed peaceful technology both in the fleet and in his first retirement of twenty years. His warp drive overlay was meant to keep the peace after humanity had sent pieces of starship through fifty centuries of another star system – to make sure that would never happen again. It grieved him to see his work weaponized through a cross and double-cross, but...

“The Misty Sthtokes have the right to defend themselves, and so do we,” he said. “Stealing is bad, and, the wages of sin is death, everywhere in the universe.”

Espionage was about to get set back for years in our rival civilization, in addition to fleet readiness – their high command realized that ours had figured out they wanted to steal and let them do it, so their spies' heads had to roll for not also realizing – from heroes to dishonor, just that quick, after one thousand ships had vaporized in the view of their homeworld and colonies. Obviously they had to replace those ships in a hurry, and they would, but at a cost that would ultimately lead to an opportunity for peace with honor with us – still strong, still unconquered, but in a position such that friendship with us was more advantageous than rivalry.

The Misty Sthtokes, their defense of their homeworld having essentially been the Butterfly Effect that changed the course of history, still live unmolested on their third planet. We now share resources with the civilization that is our friend, and the vitamin gap has been filled through trade.