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For centuries, mathematicians rejected complex figures of nature, depositing them under a single description of "formless", by which it was understood to mean "chaotic" and "unscientific"; geometry was unable to describe trees, landscapes, clouds, and coastlines. However, in the First Incarnation of the early 1960*'s a revolution of our perception of the world was brought about through the work of the Aethernaut, bio-mathematician, Ambassador and renowned extraplanetary archeologist Benoit Mandelbrot?. At 38 (far younger, but a great admirer of Einstein), his published work on the native flora of Mars -- notably the famous fractal trees -- introduced and developed figures that were truly able to describe and predict the shapes of other, less-perfect, natural objects.

Like the Bright Race of Mars and the rest of the native life-forms of the red planet, fractral trees had developed along Lamarckian evolutionary lines and despite all odds to the contrary had achieved utter perfection-in-completion-of-form (a now-clumsy concept once embodied by the vanished Estate of Patration). The fact that Benoit was able to study the fractal trees to the degree required for his theorems without going completely mad (common occurances among visitors from Earth) is a testament to the man's dedication.

Some say it was the trees' unstabling effect on the human mind that made them so terribly unpopular on Earth and to humankind in general, though any sane person would more accurately blame jealousy (the emotion, not the Power herself). This ofttimes violent Earthside reaction to the fractal trees (once used as a perfect 'terra-forming' organism by the colony worlds of the Concordat Magna) resulted in the extinction of entire genus throughout most of the solar system (with the obvious exception of the Mynar orests of the Astilan Cooperative) and near extinction on Mars itself by the time of the Rollback.

Nature abhors a vacuum, but it seems mankind generally abhors anything obviously more perfect than itself.

See also:

• Bright Race of Mars
• Einstein
• Mandelbrot?, Benoit
• Estate of Patration

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This is an F entry in the Lexicon of the Lost 500 Years.