The Butterfly Legend
From ElanVital
The Legend
Back in the days of the Terran Empire, it is said, the Empress Titania struggled mightily with the task of which creatures to include on the Starfall's journey. Every species chosen meant cost and time, difficulty and effort, and to please all was impossible. "The most beautiful!" her vain advisors cried, aflutter in their fine gowns and suits. "The most necessary!" insisted the scientists, showing her reports and studies. The Empress was wise and learned, so after much thought she chose to defer to the scholarship of her scientists. With a strangely heavy heart she approved their list: beasts of burden, livestock and fish, the building blocks of a hardy food chain suitable for any and every world.
But one young scientist could not agree with the work of his peers. As they sat at table with the Empress, telling her what creatures of the Earth would be granted a second existence on all the stars in the sky, he burst in. In one hand he held a gilded cage, aflutter with dozens of tiny jeweled wings. "Who," he asked the stunned Empress, "would want to live in a world without butterflies?" He opened the door, and as one they flew to settle on Her Majesty's radiant person.
She laughed in joy and wonder, and decreed the true wishes of her heart at once: "My people will have that which is necessary
and useful, but they will also have beauty and joy. We must not send them out in a cold, colorless spirit, or they will look upon the stars and see nothing but the spaces in between. Who -would- want to live in a world without butterflies?" And so she appointed him to make the choice, and so butterflies flourish in our land.
The History
Like most enduring legends, this one possesses more than a grain of truth. Gyorgi Stocklin, the nephew of the first Admiral Stocklin on the Starfall, was a biologist specializing in genetic engineering. The debate over which species should be preserved for cloning and recreation on the Starfall-class ships was a passionate one; scientific opinion largely advocated that sticking to the minimal amount of species was better, both for cost purposes and for minor disruption to the existing ecosystem. Gyorgi felt there was a real risk of food chains collapsing without sufficient backup species, but his scientific arguments failed to counter the other side's. Believing a more flamboyant gesture was called for, he engineered a species of butterflies to be specifically drawn to the Empress's unique perfume, letting them loose on a committee meeting where she was present. Contemporary transcripts do indicate he stated "Who would want to live in a world without butterflies?", though Titania's response is apocryphal.
Whatever was said between them, the gesture was a success; she immediately named him head of determining the species to be included. Many historians suspect they also carried on a secret romance. Among the reasons why is the curious fact that he did not leave with the Starfall as initially intended - and it was not his own choice to stay, but mandated by a mysterious order from on high.
