Cupcakes!

"I merely looked into the accounts of the actual events and found out that we started the war, and we did so over a type of food I had never heard of, some confectionary called cupcakes."

When humans finally arrived at the outer tail of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm of the galaxy, in the early years of the seventh millennium, they were surprised to find a large and vibrant community of intelligent races. This first encounter with a peaceful federation of sorts ran counter to all prior experience of alien life as being isolated by time and distance. The tendency of successful interstellar civilizations in most species ran toward empire and away from trade and cooperation with other aliens. Yet this federation of species seemed congenial, cooperative, and happy to add another like-minded species to the list of friends and allies, provided the funny-looking ape-like humans were willing to play nice.

Having calmed down quite a bit on their long progression across the galaxy, and given the number of and the technological prowess of these federation species, the humans were quite happy to talk and trade instead of fight. The federation members, for their part, found the humans to be a promising applicant for membership. The humans seemed industrious, eager trading partners; friendly, and quite clever, and perhaps most importantly, it was discovered that the humans possessed a sense of humor. This had been a sticking point in centuries past, when promising species happened by, seemed to be congenial, and then snapped into combat posture at the first sign of a slight, completely incapable of taking a joke. They’d find some way of turning the tiniest lighthearted teasing into an insult to the honor of their entire species, and then out came the warheads, rail guns, and stellasers, and everyone knew the new guys definitely weren’t going to work out.

The humans, though, during the very first meeting were self-deprecating, playful, even irreverent, and best of all, seemed already to understand some of the federation’s best and oldest jokes. When the special envoy ended the first exploratory counsel with the usual quip, “So for the next meeting, who’s bringing the cupcakes?” The usual loud outburst of laughter followed, and the humans seemed to laugh loudest of all. Then the humans’ cultural minister replied with a most hilarious promise, “We’ll bring the cupcakes,” which set off a roar of laughter unheard of in a first meeting. Diplomatic ties were off on a solid footing. These humans seemed great.

What the federation envoys on the membership subcommittee didn’t yet understand, though, was that, being a tribal species, humans had evolved a most uncommon trait. They found laughter itself funny and couldn’t help laughing genuinely whenever others were laughing, a genetically-imposed and seemingly harmless form of deception that helped humans to fit in with the group. Whenever others laughed, humans laughed too.

The federation members thought the humans were gifted with an extraordinary comic intuition, perhaps even a kind of low-grade form of telepathy. How else would they already know how funny the cupcakes joke was without understanding the context? That was something special.

For the humans, though, it was a problem. Admiral Sontoshia Montoya returned from the meeting and headed straight for the debriefing room with the cultural minister.

“What the hell was with the cupcakes thing, minister? Did we screw that up? I couldn’t stop laughing, but I had no idea what they were on about.”

“I’m not sure, admiral. I thought everything was going great till then. I don’t think it was a major mis-step, just a minor cultural misunderstanding.”

“Was it a mistranslation? Why the hell do they find cupcakes so funny? And what are the odds these aliens should even eat cupcakes at all?”

The flagship’s central AI chimed in, asserting that the translation was correct and that the odds of encountering another species that had cupcakes was higher than one might expect, with the odds increasing dramatically when encountering a federation, because one of the species out of the hundreds in the federation was all but statistically certain to have cupcakes and then to disseminate the recipe to the rest of the federation on account of the universality of their deliciousness.

“So now the real question,” the admiral said, “do we actually bring cupcakes to the next meeting?”

A long debate ensued. Ultimately, the cultural minister’s point of view won the day. The Merganser’s cook had a deep well of special recipes to draw from, and what could it hurt to actually show up with cupcakes? If it was just supposed to be a joke, the admiral was instructed to say he thought it would be both extremely funny, and now everyone had cupcakes to eat during the meeting. Win-win.

The humans showed up to the second meeting with a service cart covered by a decorative tablecloth containing hundreds of cupcakes. The admiral began the humans’ opening statement by declaring, “Your honors, we are happy to announce, we brought cupcakes.”

That simple statement set off an eruption of laughter unmatched in the history of the federation admittance process. The humans, of course, couldn’t help themselves from bursting into laughter too. Some of the sounds these aliens made when laughing were so ridiculous, the admiral couldn’t help himself. Belly laughs, guffaws, shrieking, snorts, roars. Pretty soon both the admiral and the cultural minister were doubled over, howling, laughing so hard they were crying.

“Look how they emit salt water from their eyes!” one of the envoys declared in between fits of laughter. “These humans are amazing.”

The cultural minister, who always strived to maintain her composure during such important meetings, then began laughing so hard she involuntarily snorted, which turned the following five minutes into a cacophony of laughter so intense that even the humans present had never experienced its like.

The cupcakes too, were a big hit.

“What is this brown gunk?” one of the moldags asked the admiral at one point.

“Chocolate frosting, your honor,” the admiral replied, “with sprinkles.”

“Blugggh,” the moldag minister replied, which the AI translated as “long, satisfied sigh.”

It set off another wave of sustained, contagious laughter.

The meeting concluded on a positive note, with the special envoy stating, “We seriously like you humans a lot. You actually brought cupcakes. That’s special.”

When the admiral returned with the cultural minister for debriefing, the human committee was in a quandary.

“You’ve got to figure out what the hell is up with these cupcakes, minister,” the admiral declared. “I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up. Are we just supposed to keep bringing cupcakes and bursting into laughter whenever the word gets mentioned? Somebody, please figure out what’s so damn funny about cupcakes.”

There was no such chapter in the handbook for cultural ministers. Clearly, some cultural misunderstanding was at play, but she wasn’t sure what, and now that the humans had been playing along with the joke for several days, it seemed a grave mis-step to admit the lie and ask for another species to explain the joke.

The cultural minister devised a plan she thought might fix the problem. Aboard the Merganser, several different types of disembodied AIs regulated separate ship’s systems as backups to the humans who ostensibly drove the ship. She instructed the chief engineer to fabricate a robot body and to install a clone of Garbeaux, the ship’s onboard encyclopedia. Then, they would send Garbeaux to the federation pavilion to ask about the joke. Garbeaux was given strict instructions on how to word the request, that the humans can’t stop laughing about the cupcake joke. “The humans get it,” he would say, “but none of them has been able to sufficiently explain it to me, so I feel left out. Can you explain it, so that I, a humble AI might understand?”

Then they sent Garbeaux off to the alien pavilion, and it took nearly two days for the AI to return. The third meeting was coming up in a few hours, the cook was waiting on cupcake orders, and the admiral was getting anxious. Fortunately, Garbeaux returned with a timely answer.

“It was a long story,” the AI said, “Made all the more time-consuming that every species I spoke to directed me to the Frawn, a fungal hive mind, who spoke extremely slowly in a bizarre dialect I had difficulty translating, but I am certain I got the gist of the story, which I will distill for you in the time we have now before the next meeting.”

“Before you begin, Garbeaux,” the cultural minister said, “shall we instruct the cook to make more cupcakes?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Garbeaux said. “Somebody will always eat cupcakes.”

The story went like this:

In the early days of the Outer Scutum-Centaurus Federation, one of the founding members was a race of dog-like, highly-intelligent creatures called the Daglion. They were much loved in that corner of the galaxy for their many good qualities. They were pack animals, hard-working, tough, jovial, and extremely loyal to their allies. Over tens of thousands of years, they made allies of hundreds of races, and truly, it was their diplomatic nature and skill that brought the earliest forms of the federation into being, cementing the shaky alliance whenever the federation began to fray.

Several hundred years into the federation’s earliest days, the small group of allies brought a new race into the fold, though it wasn’t without reservations. The newcomers, the Barraxa, were a race of gangly, mean-looking, reptilian-mammal hybrids, bipedal, horned, and possessing a most serious and stern disposition. When the Barraxa were confronted with any type of friendly gesture, their response was almost always suspicion, as though friendship itself was a foreign concept. Trade was trade, but anything beyond that made the Barraxa wary.

Among the most disagreeable of the Barraxa’s many irksome traits was their absolute certainty of their reading of others’ motives. They were decidedly untelepathic, yet, at the same time, they were utterly convinced that they always knew what others were up to, and it was always some form of maliciousness directed against the Barraxa. When the Daglion gave them a deal on bauxite, they knew it must be an attempt at misdirection so that they’d miss another way the Daglion were screwing them over. When the Passca commissioned a statue of their leaders as a gesture of goodwill, the Barraxa were certain it was a way to portray them before the rest of the federation as uglier than they actually were in person, and they were ugly in person. About the only gesture the Barraxa would accept at face value was the offering of sweets, for as hideous as they appeared, and as nasty as their disposition was, the Barraxa had a soft spot for sweet foods that, once discovered, began to serve as the preferred manner of smoothing over any business transaction with them. It was about the only way to deal with the Barraxa and not be accused of insulting, bullying, or oppressing them in some uncharitable way. The cost of doing business with the Barraxa became the market cost plus some form of special sweets, which always went unreciprocated. As the federation expanded, it became a cultural guideline that was passed on to all new species: Always give a Barraxa sweets.

In the middle of the third century after the Barraxa joined the federation, a new species made the mistake of conducting a territorial negotiation with the Barraxa without bringing cakes, cookies, or candy to sweeten the deal, and the Daglion were called to mediate the uproar that followed. The misunderstanding threatened to develop into a full-fledged territorial war that was certain to disrupt a key interstellar trade channel. The crab-like species, the Haatat, who hailed from a sea-covered world, had no idea what a sweet-tooth was, nor did they have any means of producing any such foodstuffs underwater. Yet the Barraxa were incensed and threatened war for the insult. The Daglion promised the crabs they’d take care of it and sent the Barraxa a freight container filled with cupcakes and a greeting card that read:

Dear Barraxa,

You guys need to relax, like a lot. Anyway, enjoy the cupcakes and don’t start wars for no good reason.

Your friends,

The Daglion.

The Barraxa ate the peace offering, but they took the gesture as an insult to their honor. They responded by launching a sneak attack against the Daglion to avenge the perceived sleight. In the military sense, the Barraxa’s attack was devastating, crippling the shipyards of the Daglion home system, irradiating about half their homeworld, and killing an uncountable number of the friendly Daglion civilians, which some estimates placed at nearly half the species. What the Barraxa didn’t account for, being the self-involved and short-sighted species that they were, was that the Daglions’ loyalty to their friends and allies meant far more than the Barraxa could have calculated. Rather than turning on the bested and weakened Daglion, as the Barraxa expected and would have done themselves, federation members rallied to the Daglion cause, blockading the Barraxa from access to resources and cutting their warships to pieces at every opportunity. The Barraxa found themselves isolated, beleaguered, and besieged by every race in the federation, who’d all had enough of the Barraxa and their obnoxious ways.

Within five years, there was almost nothing left of the Barraxa’s fleet, and their home world was little more than a ball of smoldering ash. They hadn’t a friend left in the galaxy. The final intelligence report from the Horry, an outlying species on the very edge of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm of the galaxy, was that what remained of the Barraxa fleet was seen fleeing into the intergalactic void, a plume of smoke trailing ignominiously behind them.

The federation left it up to the Daglion to decide whether they should be pursued and eliminated. The Daglion, being the decent sort everyone knew them to be, unsurprisingly, insisted they be let go in the hopes that the Barraxa might quietly reflect on the mistakes they’d made and change their ways, or at least screw off for good.

For a while, it became a common expression when one species or other was being disagreeable in negotiations that they were “acting like a Barraxa” or would tell others “we don’t want to be a Barraxa here, but that price is outrageous!” But mention of the Barraxa left such a sour taste that the word was used infrequently, and then, over the years, all mention of them fell out of favor and they were forgotten by living beings, and would have been entirely forgotten if not for the files of federation history, where the Barraxa were but a footnote in what became known as the Horrific Cupcake War.

That wasn’t the funny part.

What became of the Barraxa was unknown for nearly thirteen thousand years until a strange looking traveler appeared in the Daglion system in a junker of a ship claiming to have vital information of the gravest nature. The stranger claimed to be Barraxa and was perplexed when the response he got to that statement was, “You’re who?”

“I’m of the Barraxa,” he said. “Your mortal enemies.”

The odd-looking, malodorous fellow was brought before the Daglion chancellor.

“I didn’t know we had any mortal enemies,” Fabian, Chancellor of the Daglion, responded. “But thanks for stopping by. We’re not really that concerned.”

“You should be,” the stranger said. “If only you’d allow me to tell you of the ungodly wrath headed your way, you might be inclined to take precautions.”

“Very well,” Fabian said. “Pull up a chair and help yourself to some tea and scones, friend. I like a good story.”

The stranger claimed to be a Barraxa named Siro. He only wished to prevent another ill-fated war with the Daglion, which he suspected wouldn’t end well for either species.

“Why would your species want to make war on ours?” Fabian asked.

The stranger went on to explain the history between their species, which, the chancellor’s historian was able to corroborate in a thirteen-thousand-year-old entry that mentioned something about cupcakes and a nasty race of fellows that looked an awful lot like this mysterious stranger.

“Go on then,” Fabian said. “Tell us why you guys are angry at us now.”

Angry, apparently didn’t begin to touch the way the Barraxa felt about the Daglion. They had retreated into interstellar space following their defeat in the Horrific Cupcake War. The defeat had left them in dire conditions. The remaining Barraxa had managed to cobble together enough antimatter from their warships to power a modest-sized stealth habitat. They’d been unsure whether the federation would pursue them, so they had prioritized stealth. Their habitat gave off no light, no energy signatures, and was undetectable in the dark of intergalactic space, where they attempted to lie low for long enough to escape the pursuit of the Daglion and their allies. Then, once forgotten, they planned to strike at the heart of the federation and have their revenge. The plan, according to Siro the stranger, was to unleash an energy weapon that disrupts the bonds in carbon atoms, which, theoretically would dissolve all living creatures in the beam’s wake. Siro stated the weapon had already been developed and was en route to the Daglion system as they were speaking.

“You guys are still mad over something that happened thirteen thousand years ago?” Fabian asked the stranger.

Siro explained that the Barraxa weren’t just upset about the war. No. The malodorous stranger described the conditions the Barraxa had been forced to endure on their intergalactic sanctuary. Things had not been pretty for the Barraxa.

First off, their hawkish and aggressive posture at the start of the war with the Daglion had taken a great toll on their home planet’s ecosystem even before the federation allies besieged it. By the time it became necessary for the Barraxa to flee to interstellar space, there was hardly enough life remaining to sustain a food cycle. What was left consisted of three species that were hastily crammed into a cargo cruiser when the Barraxa fled.

The Barraxa retreated into the black of intergalactic space, several light years from the outer star systems of the galaxy, where they disassembled their fleet and reconstituted it as a moon-sized habitat invisible to the EM spectrum. They didn’t lack for the technology to sustain themselves in the deep of space. What they lacked was biological matter beyond what they carried with them into the deep.

The conditions on their habitat were as follows. Their primary food source were eggs from the toxxi, a large bird-like species that was preserved because their egg’s nutritional profile was one of the only complete sources of nutrition the Barraxa could digest. The eggs themselves consisted of a chalky, bitter substance that revolted the taste buds, the nose, and the eyeballs all at once. Each meal became a solitary gag-inducing ritual, because if two Barraxa gathered together to eat, the sight of the other consuming the vile eggs would induce an endless, self-reinforcing cycle of retching, hacking, and cursing as they struggled to hork down the toxxi eggs’ disgusting, chalky-white phlegm.

The bird-ish toxxi that produced the eggs were a peculiar species that alternated sleep between the two hemispheres of their brains, such that the toxxi seemed to never fully sleep, but a truer description would be that they were always half awake. With half their brains switched off, they relied on cries and signals from their packmates for group safety. They produced a constant stream of outlandish squawks that established a baseline, every ten seconds or so, each toxxi-bird emitting a deafening high honk that transmitted to their compatriots that all was well. In the early days on the Barraxa refuge, the few remaining biologists worked furiously to disable the incessant honking only to find that no matter the methodology, whether it was lobotomizing, genetic modification, surgical removal of the vocal cords, or deafening the animals, in each case, the animals would simply lie down and die without the steady squawking assurance that all was well in the pack. Many of the Barraxa in those early years threw themselves into the antimatter chamber to escape the din of the egg-laying squawking toxxi-birds.

Nearly as awful as the toxxi themselves was their food source, which came from a vegetable misnamed jagfruit. The foul-smelling, reddish, gourd-like vegetable, once cracked open by the beaks of the lanky toxxi birds, emitted a foul cloud of stank that hung in the air of the habitat’s decks for hours on end, such that within weeks of the habitat’s completion, the stench was omnipresent and forever inescapable. And if the toxxi neglected to crack open the jagfruit gourds on their own, the suppurating gourds would burst, spilling out their seedy guts to the deck of the habitat, leaving a long fetid stink that hung in the area for months before dissipating back to the noxious baseline.

The last of the three species that came with the Barraxa to the anti-matter globe was a type of feather flea that hitched a ride on the squawking toxxi-birds. The fleas, seemed to cause the toxxi no noticeable issues, as they’d co-evolved on the Barraxan homeworld. But lacking a natural predator on the extragalactic habitat, and in need of a further food source as their numbers flourished, the bird-fleas quickly evolved to feed on the Barraxa themselves, causing a piercing bite that incited an unstoppable, flaming itch that didn’t abate for weeks on end.

The endless cycle of sleeplessness, the constant squawking, the incessant itching, the persistent stench, and the putrid diet itself only served to heighten the Barraxa’s already overblown sense that the universe was out to deal them an oversized dose of injustice. And the focus of their anger fell hard upon the Daglion, whom they blamed for their terrible plight. The only release from their torment was when they gathered each morning and evening to howl their anger in unison for ten minutes of daily wrath. They followed this ritualistic outburst of rage with an oath in which they swore on their species’ existence that they would carry their anger with them every minute of every day until ultimate vengeance was delivered upon every last living Daglion no matter where they may go in the universe.

During these thirteen thousand years of seclusion in their self-induced intergalactic torture chamber, the Barraxa, inasmuch as they could focus on anything at all, focused all their energy on vengeance. Centuries were spent brainstorming, developing, and troubleshooting various technologies that would destroy the Daglion homeworld and every last living thing on it. Though for the first twelve millennia, the Barraxa found failure upon failure, which all of them chalked-up to their inability to focus amid the myriad distractions, squawking birds, flea bites, and nauseating stench which conspired to sap the concentration of the top Barraxa scientists for centuries on end.

Finally, Siro related to the Daglion Chancellor, that in recent years a breakthrough had been made on an antimatter weapon that could trigger a cascading wave of energy that disrupted the bonds of carbon atoms. It was a weapon that required a small payload to deliver and would result in the destruction of all life on the Daglion planet without warning.

“But you’re warning us right now,” Fabian, the Daglion Chancellor said to Siro. “Why exactly would you come to warn us, by the way?”

The Barraxa stranger paused and said solemnly, “For thirteen thousand years, my species lived under the dogma that we were wronged by the Daglion. I merely looked into the accounts of the actual events and found out that we started the war, and we did so over a type of food I had never heard of, some confectionary called cupcakes. In retrospect, it seemed to me like our ancestors had it coming, and instead of reflecting on that truth and mending our ways, we spent thirteen thousand years blaming you guys and plotting revenge in all kinds of hideous manners. Somehow, I suspect if we continue down this same path, it won’t end well for us. But, Chancellor, I implore you not to underestimate the fury of the Barraxa. We have lived for millennia on end aboard a fetid, putrid, hate-filled, seething ball of rage. You may not have thought much of us for thousands of years, but for thousands of years all we have thought about was your destruction. Now that our species has the means to act, there is no doubt in my mind that we will.”

“Well, fella,” Fabian said, “we certainly appreciate the heads-up. If there’s any way you can convince your fellow Barraxa to give up their assault, that would be better for everyone.”

“I will try,” the stranger said, “but I doubt there is any swaying the thousands of years of raw fury set against you.”

“Good luck anyway, Siro, and for your troubles, before you go, I’ll have my personal chef send you off with a token of our species’ good will.”

Fabian outfitted the Barraxa informant with a fine meal, complete with a box of cupcakes for the ride home and a thank you card. Then he tasked his best researchers with finding out the true history between the Daglion and the Barraxa so he and his defense secretary could set about defending their homeworld.

When the Barraxa attack came months later, the results were devastating. The bomb was delivered by a single stealth ship that snuck between the Daglion satellite network. The warhead set off a chain reaction in the atmosphere that took apart every carbon bond on the planet, including graphene structures, igniting a furious wave of heat and destruction that completely devastated the Daglion homeworld’s ecosystem. The loss was total, and no sign of the Daglion remained.

The Barraxa, exulting in their victory, waited patiently for the heat from the energy wave to dissipate. When the atmosphere finally cooled, the Barraxa donned space suits and began to search the ashen landscape. They celebrated their triumph. They danced on the flaming ruins of the Daglion civilization. They crowed about their triumph. Never had the Barraxa in their species history enjoyed a day as much as this one.

In the center square of the now-demolished Daglion capital city, the Barraxa found a gigantic tungsten cube. On the side facing the open city square, there was a button with an engraving beneath it that read: Dear Barraxa, push to open.

The Barraxa leader was summoned to the square. They were perplexed but not suspicious. After all, the Barraxa were so self-absorbed that they believed the Daglion had been as much obsessed about them as they had been with the Daglion. It made sense to them that their mortal enemies would have their name on a monument to a thirteen-thousand-year-old enemy. The Barraxan leader pushed the button, and the thick tungsten cube opened slowly, revealing a hollow room whose interior had been unaffected by the cascading heat wave.

The room was empty but for a podium with a small box, on top of which was a paper envelope with a greeting card inside. The Barraxa leader read the card aloud to the troops and civilian leaders who had crowded into the room to see what was inside. The card read:

Dear Barraxa.

We understand that you guys have had a tough run of luck over the last thirteen millennia. Way back when you first tried to incinerate our planet, we researched ways to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. We recently succeeded in transferring our consciousness to a higher plane. As such, we no longer have any use for our bodies, our star, or our beautiful home planet. Because you’ve suffered so much over the years, we figured the least we could do to alleviate your suffering was to leave our beloved home world for you to enjoy. We think you’ll like it. Try not to make too much of a mess.

Your friend,

Fabian, Chancellor of the Immortal Daglion of the Higher Planes of Existence

P.S. As a final token of our good will, please enjoy a box of my personal chef’s finest cupcakes.

The cupcakes were the final insult. It drove the Barraxa into such a fit of rage that they began to tear each other limb from limb, each blaming the other for the strategic failure that had led them into the folly of annihilating another perfectly good home world. Within hours, there were no Barraxa remaining in the galaxy save one.

The informant who had warned the Daglion of the impending attack had been aboard one of the hastily re-constituted warships when the Barraxa in-fighting had broken out on the planet below. When word spread of what had happened, the Barraxa on the ships began to spontaneously tear each other apart with the same vigor they’d reserved for the Daglion. Siro the informant retreated to an escape pod, shaking his hideous head at the stupidity of his species, and he sat out the violence in the escape pod, his face firmly planted in his palms.

When he discerned that the fighting had finally stopped, he descended to the planet, walked to the main square in the capital city, and entered the tungsten cube. On the podium he left an encoded digital file, on which was a book titled: A True Account of the Horrific Cupcake Wars of the Daglion and Barraxa Peoples, By Siro Farragna, Historian of the Barraxa.

He also took the cupcakes and left a card behind that read:

Dear Fabian,

Thanks for the cupcakes. The last batch was superb. Looking forward to these. Turns out, you guys weren’t so bad after all. Good luck in the higher plane.

Siro              

The last of the Barraxa, Siro the Historian, was never heard from again.

When Garbeaux, the humans’ AI, had finished telling the tale, the cultural minister was perplexed. She needed repeated reassurance from Garbeaux that the story wasn’t just a myth but, in fact, a recorded account in the federation’s history. Indeed, they found Siro’s book in the federation archives under the genre headings: Federation History, War, Daglion, Confectionary, and Comedy.

The cultural minister quickly assembled the six funniest crewmembers in the fleet to write a series of one-liners for the Admiral to unleash at the upcoming meeting. She also instructed the cook to frost the upcoming batch of cupcakes with themes from the Horrific Cupcake Wars of the Daglion and Barraxa Peoples—two of which were Jagfruit-Cherry and Daglion Carrot Cake.

In an unprecedented show of unanimity, the humans were admitted to the Outer Scutum-Centaurus Federation following the third session of the membership subcommittee. The special envoy cited unique circumstances in the history of the membership subcommittee, inscribing the highest possible compliment on the “reason for expedited admittance” line. It read: You humans are funny, funny bastards.