(This is what Apophysis, my “iterator” for fractal art, gave me to work with)
The Auriferian elders on Aurifer III had tracked the progress of the latest ambassador from Earth with great interest. He had not been daunted by the Auriferian Nebula, neither dazzled by its beauty nor dismayed by the slowness of traveling through it. Gold dust was so hard on the shields they were making nowadays.
He had not been daunted by the long walk to the meeting place with the elders.
They had watched him with great interest.
He had eyes, of course, and so he looked to the right and to the left.
He noticed that gold lay upon the ground as commonly as common stones in the landscape, although in a crystalline structure not often seen on earth – doubtless some uncommon alloy, but still mostly gold.
(after several transforms, nested crystalline structure seen)
However, he never so much as slowed his step.
He of course noticed the heaps of gold dust that seemed to appear along the path, like gopher holes of fortune, with the gopher gold miners apparently working busily underneath, for there was a slight swirling movement in them.
(turned here to atomize the crystalline structure – smashed it back to dust, if you will, and put a swirl in it … but it still needed some tightening up to reveal what was there … )
Yet the ambassador walked on, never so much as slowing his step.
When he arrived at the meeting place, the elders greeted him very warmly.
“The way is treacherous, and we are very grateful that you have arrived safely, Ambassador,” they said. “Welcome!”
“I actually was a little surprised,” the ambassador said. “No Earthling has ever made it safely to you; for a decade, we have heard your condolences for the loss of those who have tried to reach you for diplomacy and commerce. Yet I found the journey surprisingly pleasant, though long.”
The Auriferians all changed color in lieu of a sad smile – distinctly blue, with a little gold on top.
“Of course you did, Ambassador,” said the elder nearest to him. “You are a dutiful and disciplined man, and not greedy. All of those from your delegation that we have spoken to seemed to have a strong sense of community, and therefore no desire to violate our community. Your predecessors were not so inclined. They would have robbed us. But, come and see what befell them.”
The ambassador followed the elder back to the road, where the “gophers” still appeared to be busily working in the gold dust soil.
“May I have your staff for a moment, Ambassador?”
“Of course.”
The elder reached out his nine pink-goldish fingers and took the bottom of the staff in his hands, turning the part the ambassador held toward the road.
“I have cool quick-silver for blood, but your blood is very warm,” the elder said. “And so, had you been a greedy man ...”
He held the staff over one of the piles of gold dust –.
(The final transformation)
The ambassador jumped a foot in the air, but was careful to catch his balance lest he fall off the road on the other side into those other “piles” of supposed gold dust.
“Our climate is hospitable; our fauna are not, but we keep them from crossing the main roads by use of fine quartz sand,” the elder said. “Step off the road for gold, and this beautiful death is the Earthling's lot.”
“So, that's what happened,” the ambassador said.
“Yes, Ambassador. But, consider it this way: they got what they wanted. They all died rich. The poison of this creature contains plenty of gold – by your standard, at least 100,000 HIVE worth.”
“For all the good the attempt to steal it did them,” the ambassador said. “But, hospitality goes both ways – one shouldn't try to steal from one's hosts. Your hospitality to your thieving guests fits the crime, I suppose.”
“You Earthlings in one period of your history created a flag with a poisonous creature like this, a flag that says, 'Don't Tread On Me!' ” said the elder. “Our community of Auriferians has exactly the same demand. However, you have passed the test and represented your community well; you and those like you may consider yourselves welcome among us, from this time forward.”
I haven't stopped by your page for quite a while! How remiss of me! Now I am wondering about this fractal art, and how/why you worked it into your story. Kindly educate me!
The story behind this particular piece ... I learned while on Steemit that it is very important to show at least three steps in the creation process of visual art, and to write at least 200 words. Now that I have time (owing to shelter-in place), I am applying on Hive what I learned about how this is to be done. As I was documenting the steps of this creation, the story came to me based on the shapes and textures I was encountering.
Fractal art is based on a portion of mathematics that we see every day but don't study in regular school -- fractal geometry, which is the math underlying the ability of Creation to generate items that are similar to each other. Consider a rose bush, for example ... how the plant copies itself, every portion not looking EXACTLY alike, but how each leaf, each thorn, each joint in the stem, and each flower and each petal of each flower is similar to the other in both their appearance and in their placement. A spiderweb is another example ... how the interaction of straight lines and circles in silk produce a unique pattern that is not identical, but similar as it scales up in size This is called self-similarity, and it is everywhere... embedded in the core of all life is the ability to build itself up in all its complexity by repeating -- or, iterating and re-iterating -- a small number of basic patterns. Once you start to see it, your view of the entire universe changes.
Now, think of what a paintbrush does -- it "iterates" the drawing of a single line with its quills, thus producing a brush stroke. A single motion of making a line into a bunch of self-similar lines creates texture, texture repeated as the painter adds stroke after stroke -- as iteration builds upon iteration.
Now imagine being a painter with two very strong arms and a lot of brushes... able to iterate a simple pattern thousands, millions, and even billions of times on a canvas of various shapes and textures. Owing to the wonders of computing, this can and is done in fractal art, which I got into not long after discovering fractal geometry. It IS time consuming, so I haven't had time before the shelter in place to really get off into it, but now, for now, I do...
Not all communities require as much showing of work, so the stories are shorter ... enjoy this one ... The Needle Harpies
Wow , that was more explanation than I was expecting, but marvelous! I will have to digest all of that for a while and see if it sinks in; my brain is feeling old today. Ha ha.
It took me YEARS, so don't feel slow. The easiest way to understand it: go look for it in the way flowers are made, and ferns unfold their fronds, and spiders weave their webs, and trees shoot out their branches and bud their leaves. Once you see it, you have it!