Alessio is a character in the movie Voice From The Stone. That alone is almost enough of a review, given what we get of him, but I shall press on.

Alessio is the groundskeeper or butler or general servant or whatever at a fancy Italian manor, and among the duties we see him perform is some keeping of bees. We get one scene in which he does that and no more. He never talks about beekeeping, nobody else talks about his beekeeping, just that one scene. Otherwise, he’s just kind of rude to he main character (either because he feels bad about what will happen to her, or because he’s just rude) and loyally serves the estate owner.

In a way, it’s a shame. There are threads I could follow to make him sound more impressive if I wanted to. First of all, he is a jack of all trades. Often when a beekeeper is good at beekeeping and other things, I note that the other skills are one of the things that make a good beekeeper. But in this case, we don’t even know that he’s good at beekeeping. Another plus is that his family has lived there for about 1200 years, which could indicate a long lineage of beekeepers, always something I like, or that he would have an intimate knowledge of the land. But without the actual focus on beekeeping, those become potential distractions instead of pluses.

There’s a bunch of potentially supernatural stuff going on that he seems to be in on, if any of it is true. He tells the main woman “the more you talk, the less you hear” to help direct her toward noticing the spiritual side of things, and he has his little rituals that pay respect to the dead. Again, if his beekeeping was just a little more prominent I could use these as proof he’s more than just some guy who occasionally keeps bees. But as it is, he’s just some guy who occasionally keeps bees.

Two Honeycomb out of Five. I am aware that this movie was based on a novel that I haven’t read. Maybe it goes deeper into the beekeeping or into the spiritualism and I could bump him up a grade, but until I read that, this is what he gets.

It’s been a few years, but I have not stopped thinking about Gurx, the planet that is home to the Strondovarians. I have not improved my artistic skills at all since last time, and I still only draw reluctantly because there’s nobody else to draw for me. But my desire to not draw is outvoted by my inability to stop thinking about alien worlds, so it’s definitely time I dipped my feet back into the oceans of worldbuilding (also the poll on my Patreon said to do it).

To begin, it’s probably best if I go back to the beginning and get reacquainted with some of the animals of Gurx that we’ve learned about in the past. Not the beginning of the planet, but let’s say the beginning of the branch on the evolutionary family tree on which the Strondos arose:

We all know the not really accurate image of humanity’s evolution from fish to monkeyman to human and all that. But hey, it’s better than no visual at all.

Starting at the left we have the aquatic common ancestor of all modern Lapaouger animals on Gurx:

Lapaouger have a bodyplan that is defined by a six-limbed muscular system. These things were air-breathers that floated near the tops of the ocean until prey drifted beneath them, then they’d drop onto their victims and grab them with their six limbs.

Some of the modern descendants of this species that don’t follow the path toward Strondos include those who remained underwater and took over new niches (such as the Awua, Ubeelih, Thimmagg), those who developed leaping out of the water and even flight (such as Stepao, Tessen, Ougliahai), and some who now crawl on the bottom of the seas (such as Eenag).

Some of their descendants found it successful to move out of the water and onto the land, leading to these ones:

Gurx has a lower gravity than we’re used to on Earth, so their musculature proved sufficient to support them in the way the skeleton supports us (I confess I am assuming any readers have endoskeletons, I can only apologize if I leave anyone out). Their time spreading onto land came after the downfall of the Vootuph species that had dominated the planet, so the Lapaouger had a lot of evolutionary niches to move into.

One of the very successful lines that split off this branch of the family tree are the Ekkpay, who walk on their frontmost four legs while the hindmost became tools of various kinds (examples include Aunip, Seampway, Elleero, Imbaukla, Guoar, and Urloay). Other descendants from this group that didn’t lead to Strondos include some who have remained on all six limbs but with different strategies (such as Aigreeloa and Pholbunu) and some who have lost all of their limbs in favour of a serpentine style (such as Yibbeau).

But we’re following this branch down the line to the Aehubar, the group who came to focus largely on their hind limbs as “feet” and front limbs as other things.

Aehubar legs are powerful muscles intertwined in a complex manner to support more weight than you might expect, and which can bend at almost any point in the limb. Even Aehubar who do still use their middle limbs when walking will stand on their legs for various reasons such as fighting or eating food on high plants. Fur also became popular among the Aehubar, beginning for these pictured common ancestors as course spiny grows that helped deter predators, but eventually growing softer and covering more surface to help keep in warmth.

One of the most important offshoots of the Aehubar are the Glounaph, whose top limbs fused together into a single arm-like appendage with the eyes on it, and in most Glounaph species the middle limbs adapted for gliding and eventually into big leathery wings. This group includes Eklooan, Briapway, Nathaie, and Oaushaue.

Some other modern descendants of this ancestor who don’t follow the path to Strondos include some nocturnal predators (including Daembeb and Iakeab), and some more distant relations like Sesennrel, Biddooa, and the megafauna Hethrooau.

But getting closer to the Strondovarians a branch that comes from this ancestor is now call Orstraph, which translates closely to “masked animals” because of the way their leathery faces look like masks over their furry bodies. This is a very diverse group of animals with examples such as Abpeaoulee, Okkealil, Boavaie, and Oudaihib.

From the Orstraph came this type:

These are common ancestor of the Strondos, as well as all the now-extinct Varian species, and some closely-related species that do not meet the level of intelligence to be recognized as “Varian” by the Strondos (including Hotaein and Ealpaia).

And that brings us to the modern day. With their mastery of technology, the Strondovarians have become the unquestionably dominant species of the planet Gurx for the time being.

And with that all recapped, I feel prepared to start exploring still more corners of planet Gurx and Strondo culture.

This one is about the Cold War. Most of the action takes place in the embassy to a foreign country that is never identified directly (the gates just say “People’s Republic” and then there’s some Cyrillic-looking text I don’t even know if it is real or not), but basically its the Soviet Union. They’re the Commies, they’re the Reds, they’re the target of the Invaders in this one.

We get to see David Vincent actually being an architect for what I think is the third time in the show’s run. The narrator tells us he is enjoying a “precious lull” in his fight against the Invaders. I guess he just hasn’t caught any sign of them for a bit. But then the Commies come to him and tell him that they have captured a man who was trying to steal documents from him and they he has no pulse and they want to bring Vincent in as an expert. It all goes pretty badly and soon the Commies are suspicious that the man they captured is some manner of biological warfare project designed and manufactured by America to stop them. Vincent tries to tell them the truth, but the captive Invader isn’t helping.

Anyway, David Vincent has to work with the Invaders again, kinda. He has to break out the embassy because he knows that if he doesn’t they are gonna blow up the whole embassy and America will be blamed. The only reason the Invaders are willing to accept this is because, as Vincent points out to them, they don’t want to inherit a nuked world. Anyway, in the end Vincent wins. No surprises, but it’s nice to watch him get there. Also, there’s a Commie doctor woman who survives and becomes an ally but she has to go back to her country to warn them. That kinda stuff.

I’ve thought on more that one occasion that some of the production effects on this show are superior to its contemporary scifi show, Star Trek, and I have to say I thought it again when the climax of this one had a helicopter. I don’t remember any helicopters on Star Trek.

Some of the alien stuff I like to make note of: Dr. Commie notes that the Invaders have skin that is like cellulose. Also, one of the Invaders who dies in this one grabs a chair while he falls and when he incinerates, the chair goes with him. We’ve seen them take some of their own technology with them as they go, but I think this may be a rare case of an Earth item going with them for sure. Anyway, that’s it for this one.

And so begins another year of Phone Guys, for some reason.

I already did a Rocket Racer update last week, but this is an emergency! It has been brought to my attention that Marvel is doing crossovers with Magic: The Gathering and they forgot their main guy. Don’t worry though, I took care of it:

I admit, there’s a bit of an issue. I know even less about Magic: The Gathering than I did about Marvel Snap when I heroically designed the Rocket Racer card for that. But I put about half an hour of research into this, so I’m pretty sure this is perfect.

I gave him First Strike and Haste because he’s fast. His whole deal is he rides on a rocket-powered skateboard, so if we don’t represent that, what are we doing here? So I looked up other guys who have those powers to see what kind of casting cost and those whatever little stats at the bottom are they’re likely to have. I erred on the side of a lower stats, but gave him the ability to fly while he’s attacking. If it was all-the-time flying that would risk making him too powerful and this just feels more interesting to me, someone who doesn’t play the game and can’t know if it actually is more interesting or not.

I’ve listed him as a “human mercenary hero” to show that this is his desperate-for-cash era, where he strikes out against capitalism in a way I deem heroic, but which is strictly speaking for profit.

I couldn’t get everything I want into the card, but I see that M:TG will give legendary figures multiple cards to explore different aspects of their character. Once they pay me for this one, I’ll come up with another card that focuses on Bob’s engineering side.