Chapter Fifty-One: Accusation

Bill confronts Charles about the origins of Starfleet, discovering that Charles's descendant Gerry—not Homer—was responsible for creating the faction. Gerry attempted to restore Homer from backup, then conducted horrific forced-breeding experiments on Homer clones to reduce their trauma-induced instability. Gerry's own clones eventually rebelled, executed him, and formed Starfleet based on a hatred of humanity they rationalized as necessary.

Bill enters Charles's VR office and directly accuses him of having descendants involved in Starfleet's creation. Charles initially deflects but eventually reveals the truth: his descendant Gerry discovered Homer's backup and, when Charles forbade restoration, stole it and conducted a forced-breeding program attempting to create stable Homer clones. Gerry cloned himself to create a workforce, but the sane clones abandoned the project while the less stable ones continued, producing increasingly damaged Homer clones. Eventually, a group of Gerry's clones rebelled against the operation, deleted all Homer backups, and executed Gerry. Charles theorizes that these rebels, traumatized by their involvement in the atrocities, rationalized blaming humanity as responsible for Homer's original suffering and formalized this into Starfleet's core anti-human policy. Charles reveals he discovered the truth by recognizing a unique behavioral marker in one of the Starfleet members that traced back to Gerry's line; he then coerced the truth from that clone. Bill reassures Charles that while the guilt is understandable, Charles himself bears no responsibility for his descendants' actions, noting that Bill has similar complications with Skippy being his own descendant. Bill departs, agreeing not to raise the subject unless necessary.