All of these are one pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, overlaid in various ways!
The secret to doing a test of major technology in plain sight: stage it with two natural galactic phenomena that will have the eyes of everyone who does not know what else is going on.
Admiral Thomas Jefferson just casually let it slip to the public that in the midst of the great display of Tyyan's rainbow moths, the procession of the nearby Sarafeem System had its Procession of the Starry Angels, really a collection of similar creatures to the rainbow moths, but who made formations that reminded humans of the angels of religion and myth.
Of course, Aunt Almira had to call and troll me and her husband, my uncle, Admiral Benjamin Banneker-Jackson, by putting on a recording and singing along with the old song: “The angels keep watching over meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee … ” like she was Ms. Albertina Walker of old ...
Of course no such watching in space was really happening, nor could we get any closer to this collective symbiotic display of life – long-range sensors got a look at the features of one group...
... but the brightness in the visual spectrum did not compare with the gamma and X-rays the Starry Angels were putting off. A fleet ship could go in there, but it was a wasteful thing to do with one's shields, and tourist and travel vehicles certainly were not ready.
On the day the Crowned Angel appeared –
… the day for the test Uncle Benjamin and Adm. Jefferson had scrupulously been planning for arrived. For some days the Amanirenas had been putting out probes and shuttles, ostensibly to study the rainbow moths, and that was now a routine feature that tourists were used to seeing. What they did not know was that a shuttle had been fitted to take directional commands as if from the Amanirenas's main computer, and, for a fraction of time no longer than it took to complete a warp burst, this shuttle was going to show what would happen if any ship with Uncle Benjamin's warp drive updates attempted to go to warp around any star but the Sun.
“We must never allow any vessel of our fleet to go up the time vortex of any other star system again and alter any other timeline,” he said as we headed for engineering instead of for the bridge. “We shall see if Miguel Alcubierre and his peers from the 1990s were right about quantum effects and can bail us out of the jam we are going to be in if we don't get this fixed – it is just a matter of time!”
When we got off the lift, my first officer, Cmdr. Helmut Allemande, was listening attentively with Lt. Cmdr. James Doohan to Adm. Jefferson.
“It's not like it is in the shows and movies of the 20th and 21st centuries: the human and humanoid eye cannot accurately track things moving at the speed of sound at close range, much less approaching the speed of light, much less warp speed. So, what everyone else around here is about to see is an accident: one of our shuttles is about to go to pieces, and we are going to extend the Amanirenas's shields to absorb the impact of that warp core breech, and we are going to study the reason, and by tomorrow, everyone here will be back to sightseeing after saying we will not be putting forth any more shuttles until further notice.”
“As I understand it,” Cmdr. Allemande said, “we are going to have a shuttle one moment, subatomic dust the next – the instant the edge of the speed of light is contacted, quantum effects will dissolve all the matter involved.”
“Indeed,” the admiral said. “This would have always been the case had the Vulcans not given us the information to extend Miguel Alcubierre's work to the point that his drive could work. In essence, what Adm. Banneker has done is made it so that the whole system does not work outside the light of our sun – try to warp around any other star, and what was known would happen to you in 1994 will.”
“I'm just going to check again to make sure that we have the commands from here to the shuttle locked off from those coming from the bridge to the Amanirenas – I'm not trying to be dust before I even know what is going on – and yes, Commander, I know I have already checked it three times!”
“I do not chide you,” Cmdr. Allemande said. “I have an English ancestor named Hamish Harding, who on Father's Day of 2023 died so quickly he did not even have a chance to feel pain – an implosion in a submersible. I do not chide anyone all due diligence in making sure that he, and we, do not die thus.”
“The implosion of the Titan still ripples down to the 23rd century,” my uncle said gently, “which is why we do what we do today, so that our descendants in future centuries will not have such painful history to recount.
“Indeed, Admiral, sir,” Cmdr. Allemande said, and then looked at me. “Captain, all is prepared, and Lt. Cmdr. Doohan is performing one final round of checks.”
Adm. Jefferson turned to my uncle.
“Even though I am a full admiral while you are a rear admiral, this is your project, Ben,” he said. “I turn the command over to you.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” my uncle said, and the two friends shared a smile before my uncle said to the rest of us, “Positions.”
We had been drilling this for two weeks, and it came naturally; Lt. Cmdr. Doohan and I would do the actual input while Cmdr. Allemande as chief science officer would monitor the sensors and the Amanirenas's shields while Adm. Jefferson went to the navigation console by me in case the ship needed to make quick moves. Even a shuttle's warp core breech was intense, and there was no telling what the quantum effects were going to do with that.
“Initiate command of shuttle to follow engineering's command,” my uncle ordered, and Lt. Cmdr Doohan punched in the sequence.
“I surely hope the angels are watching over us, right now,” he said softly.
“Those in the vicinity are at least providing us beautiful cover,” Adm. Jefferson said.
“All systems are go,” I said. “Navigation lock confirmation complete with the shuttle.”
“Bridge commands fully insulated from said commands as well,” Adm. Jefferson said. “All normal operations.”
“Excellent,” my uncle said. “Therefore, take the shuttle to warp on the course laid in, upon my mark: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six … .”
It occurred to me just then that the future of mankind in space in the near centuries hung in the balance of what was going to happen on his mark, and my punching in the order to the shuttle – my hand shook for a moment, but then I remembered: Aunt Almira had called and trolled in song, because that was Aunt Almira, but we had also prayed. We had all been called to this moment in history, and it was time to make it happen.
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark.”
The instant I punched it in, Adm. Jefferson and Cmdr. Allemande got to work, and for good reason – the instant I punched it in, the mighty Amanirenas shook for a moment.
“But we are still here – I think we are,” my chief engineer said.
“Oh, if you can even think about it, you're still here,” Adm. Jefferson said. “You are going to have your share of shield repairs to do, and your impulse engines may not be happy with me for that light-speed hop I just did, but hey: job security!”
Cmdr. Allemande looked up with a surprised look on his face.
“You had better have a look, Admirals, Captain, and Chief Engineer.”
My uncle was not surprised, Adm. Jefferson was slightly ruffled – “Well, that certainly takes care of that!” – I took a few moments to gather myself after comprehending what I had seen and what I had not seen, which Lt. Cmdr. Doohan came right out with.
“Where's the dust?”
“There is none,” my uncle said. “Subatomic disintegration followed by matter-antimatter disassembly in a flash. There is nothing left.”
“Into thin air!” Lt. Cmdr. Doohan said.
“Negative,” I said. “There is no air in space. It is gone – conservation of matter has met its antimatter complement.”
“That is the one thing Alcubierre and his peers could not foresee,” Cmdr. Allemande said, “because they did not have the data to theorize those kinds of interactions, but they were still right. Quantum forces did cause disassembly.”
Uncle Benjamin was not surprised, and the set of his jaw … I knew it well.
Some time later, I could not sleep, and went up to the observation deck where we had a sensor array set up … the collection of beings known as the Raptor Angel had appeared to the amazement of observers, none of whom had noticed the disappearance of the shuttle as far as we could discern.
Uncle Benjamin too was awake, standing by a porthole with his face reflecting off the glass, calm and deep. I knew him well. If he said a thing must never be allowed again, it would not be, on his watch. His plan for fleet starships' warp drive updates reflected his quiet, iron-bound determination. It was as it ever had been: if you weren't planning to do anything wrong, he was of no harm to you. If you did plan to do wrong, there was no telling what might happen to you if you let him get out ahead of you. He was now out ahead of the entire fleet, and once his warp drive updates were ported to every fleet ship, there would not be a captain and crew anywhere who could flout his will.
But then again, if any man could have that kind of power, let it be Benjamin Banneker-Jackson, mature enough to use it in defense of humanity, not against it.
Thank you so much!