This is the sequel to Judgement – Judgement: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798267858489: Books
The idea of this sequel came to me in a dream! It poured out in a continuous stream. I had to keep up. It was compulsive. I wanted to know how it ended!
This is a work in progress. I have completed the first draft and am now editing.
I thought I’d share it with you. Any comments??
Foreword
The Federation was enormous, a relentless cosmic snowball gathering more and more intelligent species as it progressed. What had started on one single planet had now expanded to incorporate thousands of disparate civilisations throughout the galaxy.
The key was energy. The secrets of quantum energy provided cheap, clean, limitless power. The development of quantum drive had opened up hyperspace travel which had enabled H-craft to ride the folds of hyperspace over 100,000 light years from one side of the galaxy to the other. The Milky Way galaxy’s 400 billion star systems were open for exploration and exploitation. Over time the Federation had become an amalgamation of thousands of species from planets scattered the entire breadth of the galaxy. These species interacted in harmony on an equal footing despite their great variation in morphology and evolution.
Nobody spoke of the thousands of embryonic civilisations weeded out in the process. That was just how things had to be. Once the rot entered through the skin it quickly spread until the whole fruit was rotten. UFOR – the United Federation of Races – was that protective skin.
As the Federation expanded more and more civilisations were discovered and had to be thoroughly processed and vetted. UFOR was kept busy.
UFOR was crucially important, if not the main instrument of the Federation. Its tendrils were the mesh that held the extensive family of greatly different galactic races together. Its gatekeeping ensured that only intelligent races that were worthy were allowed entry into this partnership. UFOR protected the alliance by ensuring that no races with belligerent or other antisocial characteristics were admitted, thus maintaining the unwieldy coalition as a stable entity.
The darker side of UFOR’s operations involved the complete eradication of any intelligent species possessing traits described as ‘dangerous’ in the UFOR handbook – ‘the sacrifice of the few for the good of the many’. ‘Dangerous’ was a term that was open to interpretation even though ensuing pages of detailed description attempted to nail down the concept. ‘Dangerous’ simply meant any trait that might undermine the ethics of the Federation and threaten its stability.
Few people questioned the morality of a programme that had kept this alliance of motley races safe for millennia. The assessment and judgement process was a necessary evil entrenched in the collective psyche of all members of the Federation. The elimination procedures were deemed uncomfortable necessities and conveniently pushed to the back of minds.
As the Federation expanded and encountered more civilised cultures the specialised teams of assessors carried out their work. New species were incorporated, others eradicated on a regular basis as UFOR carried out its essential work.
Because of UFOR the Federation grew and prospered. Violent and destructive species were never allowed to become part of the extensive family, they were simply eliminated. The purity of the association was maintained. The system worked.
UFOR was centred on the planet Gestor which had assumed its position as a hub for the entire Federation. The committee performed a role that was considered crucial – by being responsible for the expansion of the Federation and incorporation of new intelligent races they ensured the peace and prosperity of the entire system. Beheggakegri, as chair of the committee, wielded great power, though, for some considerable time he had neglected his duties and largely left the running to his second in command the Solarian Sang. Even a role so crucial could, after time, begin to feel mundane. Applying the same procedures every time became mechanical and boring. Beheggakegri had lost interest.
The committee of UFOR clearly illustrated the multicultural nature of the Federation consisting of representative from many systems clearly displaying their evolutionary history. Evolution appears to be a universal standard. While creatures develop with different morphologies the move towards intelligence, with its corresponding development of sensory apparatus, appears consistent throughout the galaxy. The xenobiologists call it convergent evolution. No matter what physical form the intelligent creatures might resemble their mental abilities were consistent. Thus species obviously evolved from reptiles, amphibians, birds or mammals had evolved similar levels of intelligence and could interact on an equal footing. The UFOR committee was a melting pot.
Beheggakegri rarely interfered in the operations of the committee, leaving that to Sang. He merely performed a cursory role, chairing the minimum of meetings and largely rubber-stamping Sang’s decisions. As the H-craft explored different regions of space and discovered new civilisations UFOR processed their finds. The assessments and judgements were carried out and the Federation grew. The committee initiated assessments, assigned personnel and enabled judgements, incorporations or eradications as laid out in the manual. Everything followed a set procedure. Beheggakegri found it tedious.
Intelligent life was exceedingly rare but with 400 billion star systems and a chemical predisposition for nature to create the molecules of life, coupled with a universal evolution process whose culmination was intelligence, there were plenty of new species to be discovered. The UFOR committee was kept busy.
For the most part Beheggakegri sat back and allowed the process to unfold. He liked everything to progress in clear, simple black and white manner so that he did not have to think. He had developed an allergy to hard work and effort. Beheggakegri had reached that age where he no longer cared about how he looked or how others saw him. What he cared about was relaxing and enjoying himself. His greatest pleasure was eating. Anything that got in the way of eating was an annoyance.
Beheggakegri was fortunate. Everything at UFOR proceeded swimmingly. The process worked. It was tried and tested and required no input of brain power or energy. Just how Beheggakegri liked it. They had a process that never changed – proved and tested – as long as everyone followed the rule-book. But, in any system, there are always those little issues that aggravate, the sand that rubs the sores; there are individuals who annoy, individuals who do not follow the procedures properly. They might get results but they do not do it the correct way. That rankles. They impinged on Beheggakegri’s eating time. Beheggakegri had a solution. When people annoyed him he banished them to faraway places where they could no longer annoy him. Such had been the case with drangling Giforian Commander Chameakegra.
All had been well until, due to some administration issue, Sang had, out of necessity, brought Commander Chameakegra in from the cold to deal with a complex newly discovered civilisation. That is when things had gone from bad to worse.
She had carried out the assessment in her own infuriating way and rather than follow standard procedure, and simply eradicating the appalling Hydrans, this drangling Commander Chameakegra had persuaded Judge Booghramakegra (another of Sang’s dismal appointments) to run some unorthodox trial experiment. Beheggakegri could do without this.
The judgement had been clear. The Hydrans were psychotic apes and should have been quickly disposed of as space vermin. But after the verdict things had gone rapidly downhill. Drangling Commander Chameakegra had proposed a change to standard procedure, an experiment to see if remedial rehabilitation was possible. Instead of throwing out Chameakegra’s stupid idea and following the procedure clearly laid out in the UFOR manual, Judge Booghramakegra had become intrigued and sided with the mad eccentric ideas of Commander Chameakegra. They had gone out of their way to annoy Beheggakegri. He did not need this. What was cut and dried had become unnecessarily complicated. That disturbed his equilibrium.
Judge Booghramakegra had done something outrageously new. The Hydran race would not be eradicated; neither would it be accepted into the Federation. Instead there would follow an interim period of reassessment. The troublesome elements of the Hydran culture were to be excised – the violent, the greedy, the elitist, racist and psychotic would be removed. The culture was to have strictures imposed upon their organisation and operations. This new, radically different society would be allowed time to settle and readjust.
Could you believe it? For some reason this uppity H-craft Commander thought she was some kind of marvellous sociologist. She thought she knew best, knew better than Beheggakegri, knew better than the Federations best psychologists and sociologists, knew better than the process. Even more bizarre was the fact that she had persuaded Judge Booghramakegra to go along with her mad idea. How ridiculous. Imagine if every negative judgement resulted in such a tiresome process? How time-consuming would that prove?
Judge Booghramakegra had been fascinated by the novel idea that Commander Chameakegra had put forward. If Chameakegra was right in her assessment Hydrans, without the negative influence of those deranged elements, would create a new vital society with a flourishing culture and positive disposition worthy of taking their place in the Federation. If she was wrong, and the negative traits were genetically embedded in all Hydrans, the entire race would need to be sacrificed. The Judge had considered the proposal and was keen to run with it. She thought that it might have positive implications for future cases and the Federation could benefit. Well worth a try.
Together they had developed an experimental programme never before seen in the Federation. The last drangling thing Beheggakegri needed. Judge Booghramakegra had gone behind his back to assemble a team of expert behaviourists and therapists to be brought to bear on the abhorrent psychotic Hydrans with a view to radically changing their obnoxious dispositions. Insane!
The sooner Beheggakegri could prove that the crazy H-craft Commander was a raving lunatic and the nature of the Hydrans was firmly set in their DNA the better. He could get those obscene Hydrans eradicated and get that Commander Chameakegra banished to the periphery, along with that equally annoying judge, so that they were permanently out of his crest.
He sat, ate, fumed and plotted.