Miniature Giants: Universal Monsters Glow In The Dark Reissues!

 

It's the start of a week I was planning to use for a full lineup of posts, and I'm already a bit late getting this started. Fortunately, it happens that I thought to save a few leftovers from my last Marx post. So here I go with another sequel, this time about the Universal Monsters line I covered from exactly one figure before. While I'm at it, here's a pic I was going to use before of my "new" acquisitions with the freakishly tall Campus Cutie girl.

Now for some previously covered backstory, the Marx Universal Monsters line was released in 1963, the first year of the 6-inch figures. This was an evidently licensed release, since the bases of the figures have Universal Pictures along with the Marx branding. What is of some note is that this was not entirely necessary, as Universal had itself cut legal corners by claiming to use sources in the public domain, and in some cases used works and characters that had been adapted for the screen before. Needless to say, I'll get to that in more detail. In any event, these were evidently popular at the time and continue to command respectable prices in online listings. That was followed by reissues, most notably by Uncle Milton in the 1990s. The company made the further move of selling the figures with paints for the artistically minded, like the Mummy figure shown in the top photo for the post. They also released glow-in-the-dark versions of the figures. Initially, I wasn't that interested in these. Eventually, I got a Hunchback of Notre Dame figure that went in the backlog. Then, during the buying spree where I acquired other figures covered earlier this months, I picked up a figure purporting to be the Phantom of the Opera, and that was where things got intriguing. Here is a pic of the pair together.

Now, what's interesting about these figures is that they most closely resemble the silent films of Lon Chaney, the original makeup/ suit effects guy. With the Hunchback, the figure is just kind of generic, though the grotesque asymmetrical face (photos do not pick up detail on these things at all) certainly looks like something Chaney would have created. The Phantom, on the other hand, most definitely resembles Chaney's version far more than anything else. The twist is, Marx could easily have gotten away with using the characters without Universal's permission. The studio had made the original films (one more reason to downgrade the status of Dracula), and in the case of the Phantom followed with a sound version in 1943, but they would both have fallen into public domain status by the 1950s. The reasonable inference is that the Universal licensing was a matter of cooperation rather than necessity, securing the right to reference the studio's name and films directly in marketing as well as the use of iconic original characters like the Mummy and Creature From The Black Lagoon. Now that I think of the legal angles, the absence of Dracula makes a lot more sense. Given the infamous litigation around Nosferatu, I find myself wondering if Universal was paranoid about an adverse ruling. Now, here's a few more pics. From the back...

Closeup; yeash, this makes Chaney's work look a little tame...

Profile; I think this really caught the most actual detail of any of these...

And one more with the Mummy; this damn thing would be gruesome for a McFarlane figure!

One more thing I'm going to shoehorn in is a little terminology: "original", reissue and recast. As I have commented (see my video on the Star Wars scale figures), what to call original is already a bit of a gray area, as it can include things like the Ukrainian figures (also now a video). I for one am willing to count anything made with Marx's permission up to the company's bankruptcy in 1979. For "reissue", I consider the present figures to be a good example of the most useful criteria: They were still made in the "vintage" 1980s-1990s period; they were sold commercially in the United States; and perhaps most significantly, they were at least nominally made and marketed for kids rather than adult collectors. By further comparison, I would prefer to use the recast designation for items made within the current millennium, which are likely to be made for the US collector market even though most are made in Mexico (see my Space Guys unbagging). For the moment, this remains a minor distinction that really doesn't even have much effect on price, but things could get a lot more complicated down the line.

And while I'm at it, here's a bonus because I already went through all the hoops to use them. These are pics of a full set of Soviet soldiers from Ukraine, used with permission from seller Double Duncan Treasures. Per the seller's very helpful correspondence, these were played-with figures from an owner from eastern Europe, originally part of a set that also included Wild West and Viking figures. Of most interest, he reports that about half of them have Cyrillic markings, which failed to translate as anything but abbreviations. He also confirmed that the reddish color is that of the original plastic rather than an aging effect. Here they are...

And that catches me up. That's all for now, more to come!

Fiction: The Space Guys Adventure, Part 22!

 It's the middle of my attempt to do a full week of posts, so of course I'm taking a short cut with the Space Guys. This is really a new part of the adventure, but for now, I'm keeping the numbering and table of contents at the end. And hey, I worked in the Marz building!

 

The voyage of the Janus went on for months after passing Uranus, but the boredom and isolation that had fallen over the crew never returned. There was laughter, singing and a return to games, music and books that they had long declared themselves tired of. The morale was further improved by the appearance of one more orb in their path. “We didn’t announce it in the mission plan because we weren’t sure of the alignment,” the captain said. “You are seeing the paraplanet Pluto, within the orbit of Neptune.”

They did not pass as close as they had to other planets, so it did not appear on the porthole. Still, it was near enough to take turns looking at the orb from the communications tower during their closest approach. It was white beheld with the naked eye, mottled gray with hints of brown when viewed with magnification. Jason and Alek spent their turn talking with Old Yuri.

As Pluto receded, the captain made another announcement. When they gathered, he looked unusually solemn. Jason noted that he stood side by side with Professor Futura. “I have just received approval from Gaia to give a special briefing,” he said. “It should coincide with simultaneous broadcasts on the Homeworld and Mars. Moxon, load the disc.”

Moxon took out a disc with the markings of sensitive material. Jason realized that it was the same one that had been played for the mission briefing. The officer flipped the handling caddy before loading it in the video record player. The first image that came up showed the sigil of the Union of Nations and the stylized rocket of the space agency. Jason instinctively put an arm around Alek at the sight of what appeared next.

At a glance, it looked like a crystal, with four major sides subdivided by corrugations and protruding multitiered buttresses in place of its corners. Then the camera’s focus shifted to show its surroundings. It was the Southlands of Mars, not far from Hellas Basin. The object reared up from a level plain at the foot of the ice caps which dwarfed it. Even on that enormous scale, it was obvious that the object was immense, certainly as tall as the Janus was long, quite possibly even taller than the bygone Empire State tower it was compared to. It was evident that it tapered up to what looked like a cupola, topped by a dome and a tall, narrow spine that looked like an antenna. The focus shifted again, and Professor Futura came into view. He wore an archaic pressure suit with a dome supported by a square frame. He looked visibly younger, but only by five or ten years rather than more than Jason had been alive.

“I am at the foot of the Structure,” the Professor said. “All observations confirm that it is an artificial object intended for habitation. From corrosion and geological evidence, it is at least 1,000 and not more than 2 million years old. Preliminary findings further indicate that it was constructed by and for organisms comparable to humans in all major characteristics. We have entered and partially explored the lowest tiers of the structure through several compromised or unsecured entrances. Our efforts have been hampered by repeated equipment failures associated with electromagnetic anomalies from the structure. In particular, we have been unable to reach or enter an evident control center in the spire. I have determined that any conclusive investigation will require an exterior ascent and likely forced entry. I have prepared to affect such a breach. I will be accompanied by my wife, Irena Futura, who is recording this film. The rest of the party are under orders not to follow or allow others to enter.”

The film showed a small party climb up the exterior of the building with a series of rocket-assisted grapnels. The ascent culminated in the entry of the cupola through an already damaged window. There was an evident skip to an aerial shot of the cupola. There was a flash from the cupola, seemingly no more consequential than a glint of sunlight, until puffs of smoke erupted at the base of the spine. The spine listed and then toppled, momentarily filling half the frame before the camera and presumably the aircraft veered away. The camera zoomed in again, on a figure waving from the damaged window. There was another skip, showing the tower from a distance. It collapsed in smoke and flames, as ice and debris cascaded down to cover it.

Futura spoke up. “My wife and I spent 17 hours inside the spire of the Structure,” he said. “I brought no cameras or recording equipment, only limited writing materials. We spent the first 11 hours examining the lower superstructure, which I ventured to describe as the Globe. In the twelfth hour, I breached a possible control center at the meeting point of the dome and the spire. We found a series of computing stations, several of which were functioning and partially operable. These proved to be primarily for calculation, and thus a source of our most detailed information on the Builders’ numerical characters and mathematical system. After 4 hours of investigation, I attempted to use one of the higher-level stations. This activated a self-destruct mechanism which ultimately collapsed both the Structure and a large section of the polar cap. The device simultaneously sealed the entrances to the control center. Over the course of 47 minutes, we successfully escaped, and were rescued by our expedition’s hovercraft.”

The gathered crew gaped, except Donald, who scowled. “I spent the next 36 hours assisting my wife as she drew her observations of the structure from memory,” Futura concluded. “On my advice, the existence of the Structure was placed under highest classification, known to a few thousand individuals over time. A select few have been given access to our recordings and data, including a number of members of this expedition. A much smaller group have examined our drawings, which have remained in my possession. Three of them are here, Tanya Plotnikov, Mehmet Eskandari and Aleksandra Kapek Freeman.” Jason turned to Alek, who gave him a vaguely embarrassed smile.

“Hold on,” Donald said. “Here’s what I’m hearing. You found the first evidence of alien intelligence in the Solar System, from before regular people figured out gunpowder. So, you went in alone, didn’t take any pictures, and made the whole thing blow up. Then at the end of it, they took your advice and let you keep the only records that mattered.”

Tanya spoke up. “I reviewed the raw feed at the time, when I was consultant for Union intelligence,” she said. “Every decision Colonel Futura made was justified. There were extreme difficulties with equipment failure and unexplained lighting anomalies every time the expedition attempted to photograph the Structure interior. One of the technicians was almost killed trying to collect a sample of material. There was ample evidence that these difficulties were caused by active interference from the Structure itself. It had to be further assumed that a second expedition would be met with even stronger countermeasures, if the structure did not self-destruct. An individual or very small party without electronic instruments was the best chance we had.”

“Okay, so what do you have to show for it?” Donald said. “A few drawings of what you can remember?”

“The full report has over 500 drawings,” Alek said coolly. “Every one that could be checked against independent data was accurate within 0.5%.”

“Sure,” Jason said. “But why keep it secret until now? There’s more, isn’t there?”

“I had to consider several hypotheses,” Futura acknowledged. “All of them implied that the entities who built the Structure were very concerned that no other species or culture would be able to imitate their technology or identify its origin. Perhaps it was for their own protection. Perhaps it was for ours. Perhaps the two are one and the same. But Dr. Capek, excuse me, Dr. Freeman, and Dr. Plotnikov can explain that better.”

Alek stepped forward, smiling. “Thank you, I am proud to report my findings,” she said in her flat voice. “I prepared this report as an appendix to an earlier analysis by Mehmet and Tanya. Of course, their work is already quite comprehensive. I have only added what is useful to comment on.” Behind her, a canvas screen was set up with a microfilm projector. It showed the first in a long series of photographs and drawings, each of the latter as painstaking as a Greek statue or a Dutch still life. They showed almost gothic entryways, spacious corridors and atria, compact cells and storerooms, elegantly simple light fixtures, abstract patterns that seemed to be artwork, and here and there an interactive control surface, from doorknobs to instrument panels. Several drawings showed keyboards with as few as 8 and as many as 24 keys, most of them bearing sigils that looked like a wheel or a star, with varying numbers of arms and more arcane dots, circles and rings at the center. There was even a pair of lavatories, each comprised of a line of self-contained stalls that held a slot toilet in the floor and a showerhead above.

“Now, the central and repeated finding of both Futura’s report and the later analysis is that the Builders of the Structure were very similar to humans, biologically, mentally and even culturally,” she said. They came to a series of drawings of what could only be the dome of the Globe. This proved to be meeting place roughly the shape and nearly the size of Shakespeare’s amphitheater. There were regularly spaced signs with more of the sigils. “Their evident mode of locomotion is that of a bipedal vertebrate, their reproduction bisexual. Their height can be extrapolated as between 1.2 and 2.1 meters. Their geometry, numbering and architecture are based on multiples of 4 and 12, common to terrestrial cultures despite the biological fact that we have ten digits. The use of primary colors in their art further implies a similar visual range.”

She straightened. “In fact, this correspondence is altogether anomalous,” she said. “Consider all the ways an extraterrestrial species might differ from humans. They might be half our size, or half again. They might have six fingers on one hand and three on the other. They might have eight limbs instead of four. They might be color-blind, or able to see spectra beyond human vision, especially if their native star was of a different type than Sol. They might have entirely different senses, like the echolocation of a dolphin or the electromagnetism of a platypus. This requires a reconsideration of the Structure’s origin. That is borne out in one more anomaly… Almost every trace of writing was removed from the Structure.”

With that, Tanya stood up. “What Dr. Capek has mentioned is a central finding of our report, though we do not necessarily endorse all of her conclusions,” she said. An image appeared of what could only be shelves, completely empty. “To begin with, there was extensive evidence that printed records other media had once been present, only to be removed. This was unremarkable. We might do the same, if it held instructions for making gunpowder or the atomic bomb. Yet, there were many cases where completely innocuous inscriptions had been removed or defaced, including the lavatory. This was not explicable. There are dozens of languages and scripts of human origin that have never been translated beyond the most rudimentary level, if at all. The only reason they would have cause for fear is if mere comparison with other scripts would tell us something they did not wish to be known.”

She brought up a series of images of signs from the Globe. “It was only these characters that we were allowed to see, most likely because there were too many to remove, and perhaps because they were too intuitive for definite conclusions. Even so, there are certain similarities with known symbology. The swastika. The mandala. The Yin and Yang.”

“Yeah, and the Mercedes Benz logo,” Donald said, as one of several three-spoked sigils appeared. “So what? Are you saying these are aliens who talked to cavemen, like in the silly old magazines?”

“No,” Alek said with a smile. “I am saying they were humans. From Earth. And they knew we were coming.”

Table of contents

Part 1. The demo!

Part 2. The villain!

Part 3. The world-building!

Part 4. The romance!

Part 5. The killer robot!

Part 6: The shuttle ride!

Part 7: Alternate universe pop culture!

Part 8: The launch!

Part 9: The girl talk!

Part 10: The domestic disturbance!!!

Part 11: The Space Nazis!!!

Part 12: The inevitable geography lesson!

Part 13: The wedding!!!

Part 14:  The spicy chapter!

Part 15: The bad guy backstory!

Part 16: The Dinner!

Part 17: The alternate history!

Part 18: The weapons exposition!

Part 19: The alternate history Captain America!

Part 20: Zero G repairs!

Part 21: Bad Guy backstory, Part 2!

Miniature Giants: Mystery Monday crossover!

 

As I write this, I just went a whole week without making a post. I decided it was time to try going a week with a post for every day, which for a while was what I did every week. To kick things off, I decided it was worth doing another Marx figure post and if at all possible bring back my Mystery Monday feature. As it happened, I had a few things in my pipeline that fit both purposes, plus a few more things in reserve in case I didn't get something in time. To kick things off, here is the minor mystery, with a couple friends.

This lady is from the previously covered Campus Cuties line, labeled Lazy Afternoon. In the time I have been aware of these figures, she has been my favorite, though I waited a long time to make a purchase. What convinced me to make the purchase was that the figure was a white or gray color I had seen frequently, quite different from the pink color of the trio I had purchased. I had already seen others voice the suspicion that this was a mark of a reissue. I finally ordered the figure and had it arrive s little after my previous post. Here are a few more pics.

"Hmm, actually, I've never been canoeing in my life. Why do you ask?"

Now, it will be evident on examination that there are a few things that are... odd. First, this is one of two of the original 8 figures wearing pants instead of a dress or skirt, and the only one in what can be considered athletic wear. Because the oar is not anchored to the rest of the figure, it is commonly warped as a condition issue (also a problem with the Flag Guy astronaut). Then there are some odd details of of anatomy. The lady's endowments are not so much oversized as oddly squeezed, to a degree that would be difficult to achieve short of using recycled shock absorbers as an undergarment. Her hands and feet, on the other hand, are curiously small. (For that matter, the angle of her right wrist does not look natural or comfortable.) What really only stands out on actual handling (grow up...) is that things look significantly off-center, which might be rationalized as an ill-fitting jacket if the hood and her head didn't also appear skewed to starboard. The upshot of all of this is that Marx's moldmakers were still working out both the female form and poses that reflected peacetime activities. But the mystery was always, is this an original figure or a reissue? Here are a couple pics that just might give an answer.

To state my conclusion first, I am not necessarily convinced this is original, but I am definitely far less skeptical than I was. First and to me most significantly, the real color of the plastic is a tan or off-white, which is different than the pink usually accepted as a mark of authenticity but still a "flesh tone" in keeping with the concept of the line. Second, it does bear the Marx name and logo, though this is not conclusive. Third, it is made from soft plastic typical for Marx, which among other things made it relatively easy to bend the oar back into its intended position. My one reservation came down to two marks in the wrist, at least one of which should be visible in the first of the pics above. On casual inspection, this looks like nothing more or less than chipping, but that would really only happen with much harder plastic. There are independent signs of scratches on the figure, but this kind of damage would take deliberate gouging, which I see no evidence of. What I believe is that this is an imperfection caused by air pockets in the plastic (see the Field Museum Mold A Rama dinos), which would definitely be out of character for Marx. As usual, there is middle ground here; maybe this was made later, when the company was struggling, or perhaps in one of their foreign factories. And that brings me to the other item under consideration...

Now this was a figure where nothing looked right. While it is vaguely similar to the nominal 45mm figures I have been using for the Space Marine analogs, it did not match any of the sculpts used for the US soldiers within the 6-inch line. The fact that it was painted was odder still. On top of that, the whole style was quite different than usual for Marx. It would have been easy to count it as the work of a competing manufacturer (see the Lido draft dodger from back when), except that the seller showed a pic with Marx markings on the base. It was also reported that it was indeed 5 to 6 inches tall. I concluded that the only way to sort this out was to buy it. Immediately on receiving it, I discovered the greatest anomaly: The figure was made of hard plastic. Here is a lineup with the Japanese office and a Soviet soldier to show the difference.

And here are a couple more pics.

Now, this was a little more than a Wall of Nothing. The markings identified it with a set called Combat Soldiers, released as part of a reasonably well-known line called Warriors of the World which I ran across several times trying to run this guy down. These were "army men" figures of about 60mm scale that represented a range of nations and historical periods. Unusually, they were sold pre-painted, typically in individual boxes. Evidently, they also tried scaling these figures up to nominal 6-inch scale (I get about 5 1/2 inch, and yeah, part of the gun broke off) at the same time they started releasing the soft-plastic 6-inch figures we know and love. By all indications, this was a dead end of another dead end. Warriors of the World clearly failed to displace playsets with unpainted army men. As for their large-sized counterparts, the WW2/ Vietnam era US soldiers are the only ones I turned up that received this treatment. By all indications, they were short-lived compared to their soft plastic counterparts. I believe it is possible they were sold mainly outside the US, based on the fact that the only other seller to offer them was in another country. As for their value, I paid a little more than usual for this one because it was so clearly unusual. The problem, as I keep doomsaying, is that price is a function of demand more than actual scarcity, so most likely, items as obscure as this will remain no more than moderately expensive.

Now I really need to wrap this up. I can't call it a night without a shot of the Truckstop Queen! We've come a long way, kind of...

That's all for now, more to come!

Miniature Giants: Blue Moon figures???

 

As I write this, I'm still in what is dormant mode compared to what I once did with this blog. That has given me time to consolidate my new and old acquisitions. That, in turn, has brought me back to a big part of what started all this, my giant Marx figures. Over the year since I last posted on this subject (most of the links will be below), I had made a few new acquisitions. What led to this feature, however, was a literal accident: A few days ago, I got someone else's package. In the process of figuring out what happened. I looked at the most beautiful figure I have ever seen. Here are a couple pics I took to cover my posterior.

The backstory here is that I received a package from an online seller I had made a previous purchase from containing figures I hadn't ordered or paid for. A quick correspondence confirmed that this was another buyer's purchase, accidentally shipped with my name and address. The figures proved to be Scooper and the Cameraman, both in the shiny marbled blue Marx used with some of the astronaut figures released at the beginning of 1970. What made me immediately paranoid was that there was absolutely no sign of damage to the lens of the Cameraman figure, where both of my specimens of the figure had been so roughed up it was hard to say if there was a trace of the original detail. I made sure to document this fact before repacking the figures. Here are a couple more pics.

And of course I had to do one with the Truckstop Queen...

"Hey, chicks dig a guy who's good with animals..."

Now, here's what started this. About a month ago, I put in a bid with the same seller for a blue version of a sculpt I have called Digger, which I previously had acquired only as a specimen in an odd shade of white with the head broken off. That one had been most interesting as an evident example of a different kind of plastic being used, possibly in a later run of the figures. I hadn't been unduly concerned with getting a more complete specimen, but when I saw I could get one that was whole and in blue, I put down a minimum bid and won. Here's a pic of the two together.

This, in turn, was proceeded by another purchase from a different seller. This was for the Commander, which I already had two of. I still decided it was worth the money, so I put in an order. What I got was much more impressive than I expected, particularly since my very first blue figure, the Cameraman (featured in the top pic), had proven distinctly underwhelming. This is literally brilliant, and if anything, that's a strong indicator that this is from the first run by Marx. Here are all three in a lineup.

I know, I'm bad at lighting...

And here's a few more pics of the new guys together.

"Sir, it appears that we are in a world of plastic toys. The upside is, most of them are smaller than us."

"Let's go home. Half our funding was just diverted to defense spending anyway."

So, the upshot of this is that I have now handled and photographed 5 of the 6 astronaut sculpts in blue. On the whole, having to send two of them back was a small price to pay. The future remains uncertain, as I have a few more relatively recent acquisitions I haven't posted about (see my video on rare figures) but no immediate plans for more purchases. Here's one more pic.

"The briefcase says authority, but a shovel says a guy who will bury the evidence."

That's all for now, more to come!

And as a bonus, here's all the installments of this feature.

Part 1: Enemy Marx (Japanese figures)

Part 2: Marx Marxists! (Soviet figures)

Part 3: Marx on the Moon (Apollo/ astronaut set)

Part 4: The Good, the Marx and the Ugly (Wild West and "'casualty" figures)

Part 5: Not Marx Is Still Good Marx (Mexican Marx toys and other large-sized figures)

Part 6: Marx By Marxists??? (Ukrainean produced figures)

Part 7: Back to the Moon! (Astronaut figures, part 2)

Part 8: Scooper Mystery? (Bulgy-pack production variant/ error)

Part 9: Mexican Scooper and Marvel Guy (The Daredevil figure...)

Part 10: More Cowboys! (Wild West, part 2)

Part 11: Universal Monsters Reissue Figure (The Mummy!)

Fiction: The Space Guys Adventure, Part 19!

 I wanted to get in a post in the actual weekend, and I actually had two options for the Space Guys. One had stuff happening, the other was a backstory dump that does develop a few characters who are supposed to be important. Guess which one this is. As usual, a table of contents is at the end...

The trek to Uranus went on. Training with the equipment improved morale. There were further unexpected effects. Jax and Dr. Cahill began appearing together again, and acted more like real friends than lovers. Vasily emerged after a long self-imposed exile, often in the company of Sandra. Jackie simply stayed on his own, talking freely with men and women alike. A very few times, he kept company with Anastasia in her husband’s absence. That subsided, however, after the third time Jason saw Moxon watching her.

He also spent more time with the higher officers. Alek conversed regularly with or leastways at Mehmet, who was often with Tanya. Jason considered whether the two were having an affair, but his suspicions faded after the one time he did see Mehmet leave her quarters, following a half-heard argument that clearly ended in him being thrown out. He also grew more acquainted with the Americans Smith and Yates, officially their Ethnic Relations and Morale officers, evidently good friends. A time came when Jason, Alek and Jax joined them at the captain’s table. Smith brought out a map of the United States, divided into 54 states and 7 Trade And Commerce Authority zones. Jason pondered the largest of them, which ran from Louisiana to Montana. Its center of operations was Baton Rouge.

“So, here’s my home town, Philadelphia, PA,” Smith said. He pointed to a spot in the Upper Atlantic Trade Zone. He tapped another spot in a corridor that tapered down to a swath of coast east of Louisiana, in the east of a blocky state in the middle. “And this is where my counterpart is from, Franklin, Tennessee. We both represent the United States Office of Ethnic Relations. Our mission since the War has been to identify and integrate non-Anglo citizens.”

By then, Donald and Anastasia had wandered in. “Yeah,” Donald said. “In case you think that sounds nice, they started as a wing of the Draft Board. It was all because there were people trying to get in to the all-moreno units.”

Jason nodded, disregarding Donald as usual. “So, what, were your folks on opposite sides of the Civil War?”

“Uh-uh,” Yates said. “I came from east Tennessee, where there isn’t enough flat land for the plantations. People say we were never really in the South, but we’re further south than Virginia. It was one of the places the Rebs couldn’t control. One of my ancestors fought on the Union side. My own family organized for Integration. I went door to door taking donations.”

The captain spoke up then. “It is like Thuringia,” he said, either wistful or sad. “We are at the meeting of West, East and South, of every part and no part. We were not many or powerful, yet even the Reich knew better than to tell us our business.”

After a moment of silence, he regathered himself. “I am given to understand that there have been discussions among the crew about the history of the Americas,” he said. “Officers Smith and Yates have provided a list of films that might better address any questions. We were interested in getting a Martian’s opinion.”

Jason looked at Jax. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

A monitor was set up. The first few videos were a propaganda reels featuring either Tweel the Martian a costumed character named Captain Patriot. Jason had seen others, but these were the first that was in color. The reels with Captain were always idealistic, always ending with the vindication of non-Anglo war heroes and gallant workers misunderstood by society. Those with Tweel were sadder and more mature, as the ostrich creature talked openly about prejudice, persecution, enslavement and worse, grimly illustrated from history. Then they got to a reel with the Captain that was different. This time, it was a young veteran and his bride and groom arrested at the altar by a doddering yet devious Race Registrar. He presented an affidavit that one of her great-grandfathers’ great-grandfathers, supposedly unknown, had in fact been an enslaved African. On those grounds, he held that they not only could not marry, but had committed a knowing felony by listing her race as “white”.

The ensuing drama was longer and more elaborate than usual. The couple admitted that they knew of rumors of that a distant ancestor of the bride had had an affair with a freed Creole, but insisted that while none denied it might be true, he had died years before the birth of her only son. However, the record of the Creole’s death could not be found. The Captain went in search of a duplicate in Federal records, suspecting an intrigue by the bride’s distant family. Meanwhile, two friendly morenos debated a movement to repeal laws against intermarriage, which they emphasized was led by Anglos who had been denied marriages to each other over minute or entirely speculated degrees of mixed ancestry. Of course, the Captain captured a lackey sent to destroy the records that proved the bride’s story. He arrived in the court room with proof that the Registrar was part of a plot against her, and a Reich sympathizer to boot. The judge prepared to marry the couple as the villain was led away, until the Captain gave his own objection. He called on the young man’s father, who confessed that he had hidden proof that his own grandfather was moreno.

“It’s a good propo,” Donald mused. “It couldn’t have happened that way, of course. All the penalties were down to fines and misdemeanors by the end of the War. And they couldn’t mess with church marriages. And  if Anglos just put their race as colored, the States had to go along with it or wait 18 months for a review by the Draft admin. By then, people were putting anything they wanted, just to scraw with the Registrars.”

“It wasn’t that simple,” Jax said. “The States hadn’t all repealed felony penalties, they just couldn’t enforce them while the Draft was active. All the Fed cared about was giving the Selective Service branch time to create a standard for their own Registry. They actually stopped suits that could have overturned the laws. It hurt a lot of people.”

Yates showed them another reel, evidently for the Office’s own staff. It led into a case of an Anglo caught trying to hide the body of an Anglita child in a field on commune land.  “Jill helped her mother with a book on the trial,” Jax said. “The girl was really half-Mexican. They had been looking for the guy a while. The Fed was close to getting involved. He probably thought leaving a body on commune land would convince them they were looking for a moreno.”

The trial followed. With utmost delicacy and fairness, the petitioner for the commune presented the case to moreno jury and an Anglo judge, in a court in Baton Rouge.The man was found guilty of abduction leading to death. The jury foreman earnestly requested that he be committed as unsound in mind. The judge instead sentenced him to hang. “He didn’t have the authority to do that,” Jax said. “It would have gone to Federal review, anyway.

“Authority, Hell,” Donald said. “I read someone had to tell him the State had outlawed hanging 20 years earlier.”

“It was all a misunderstanding. Really,” Yates said. “The Office sent a statement explaining the facts to every news paper in the country. There were editors who printed it that still had the headline that blacks had sent a white man to his death.”

“They said what they wanted to believe,” Jax said. The reel already showed what followed. It froze on a shot from above of flames that seemed to stretch without limit from east to west.

“And that was it?” Jason said, baffled. “That was what they needed an Intervention for?”

“Sometimes, the forest just wants to burn,” Donald said.

Jason started at Moxon’s words, which he had never admitted overhearing. Fortunately, Jax spoke first. “Wait,” he said. “Where did you hear that?”

“I don’t know,” the engineer said. “I guess it’s supposed to be an Indian saying, or something.”

Jason saw one record left, with the markings of restricted material. Yates reluctantly agreed to play it. “It was a propaganda film from a faction called the Nordicist Party,” he said. “We placed their materials on a Restricted list just before the Intervention.”

“I want to see it,” Jason said. At a nod from the captain, Yates put on the disc.

It was an animated film, little more than still images that showed in sequence as the dialogue and narration played. Its vignettes were on a Biblical vein that meant little to Jason, with the evident intent of an allegory for the sophisticated. Even he recognized it from the start as an escalating chain of heretical deviations. It started with the Creator making men from baked mud, each colored according to the clay from which they came. Some were a deep, burnt brown. Some were glazed white. Some were brick red. Then the creator tried to mix another race from remnants of half-baked clay. The result was small and malformed dwarfs of ugly yellow that crumbled in the Maker’s hands. It was decreed that the men should be scattered on the Earth so that they would not mingle.

Then came the central story, of a chief named Adam who called himself made by God’s own hands. He had two wives, one brown and one snow white with golden hair. The first was named Eve, the other Lilith. Some said that the latter was not a woman, but a goddess, angel or demon who had defied heaven to consort with a mortal man. It happened that Eve had born two sons, Abel and Seth, one brown and the other tan like olive, where Lilith bore a son and a daughter, Cain and Aclima, each as white as herself. Cain guarded his sister from any man, some said out of love, others out of a lust that Adam declared could not be fulfilled. A time came when Adam declared that Aclima should be given to Abel. When Cain tried to hide her, Abel abducted her. Cain struck down Abel in vengeance, only to find his sister already with child. Fearing a war between his sons, Adam called on Heaven to send a curse, that all should know by Cain’s white skin that he was mighty and terrible as Death, and so flee him or serve at his feet. Cain called down his own curse, that his sons would ever after do as they willed with the daughters of Abel, but any son of Abel who but touched a daughter of Cain would be made a eunuch in their house.

Finally, there was a tale of Babel, founded by the descendants of Seth in the land south of Eden. Their king Nimrod was nearly white. He decreed that he would make his Tower, a great ziggurat to ascend to Heaven and meet the gods or God that made Heaven and Earth. To secure workers for his great monument, he married a dark queen from beyond the western sea. But the slaves and servants she brought with him could not or would not learn the speech of his overseers, nor would they obey the clearest direction. Soon, they ran riot, looting the city and seizing women who would not be willing consorts with them. When the queen bore a son of pure black skin, the king knew he himself was made a cuckold. He took her to the platform atop the Tower and hurled her down with his own hands. But the bricks were already weathered and crumbling, and the earth beneath was sand. As the queen tumbled down, she  called a curse that split the ground. The ziggurat collapsed, crushing the king and queen and their followers together.

“What the Hell?” Jason said at the end. “I mean, really, what the Hell? Who believed this? Did anyone believe any of it?”

That was when Anastasia spoke up. “You can tell them what they teach us,” she said.

“That’s… different,” Jason said with a frown.

Alek looked at him, her expression halfway between empathy and amusement. “You never talk about religion, even to me,” she said. “What do they teach the farmboys?”

“Well, it’s only for the families that don’t have their own church,” Jason said. “People like Jax’s folks and Jill’s know about it, but we don’t preach at each other. So, anyway, they teach us prayers to the old gods, like Mars and Venus and Jupiter. It’s not to worship them or say we believe in them, but to honor what they stood for and everything they gave us.”

He crossed his arms with a scowl. There was a silence. It broke when Alek started laughing. “Sorry, sorry, it is not how it looks,” she said. “It is just, when we are alone, he calls me Venus. Sometime, he has me call him Vulcan!” She covered her mouth as she continued to giggle. Jason managed a smile. The captain himself did the same, quite kindly.

Jason finally looked to the captain. “You came from Deutschland,” he said. “What do they really say about what happened there?”

“I don’t suppose we could understand,” he said. “One thing you must understand, we do not speak the names of the Leaders or of their deeds, if we can avoid it. Why should we, when even the historian cannot say who gave the last commands? In Thuringia, we look at them differently than others. Even now, there are men and women who will say what it was like to see them come. It was from the south that they came, Austrians, Catholics, alehouse trash, faugh!”

He looked down at the map, a frown on his face. “We did not understand them, we could not,” he said. “The elders say they laughed at them. Why not? They said that Germany had forgotten how to be German. Perhaps it was true, in Munich or Berlin, but not in Erfurt! And who were they, to tell us or anyone else how to be German again? It is a proverb now, if it was not then, a Bavarian is to a Thuringian what a frog is to a fish!” He thumped his chest. “We were the living heart of Deutschland. Our ways were as they had always been. We were happy, we were free, we minded our business and let others mind their own!”

He shook his head. “But the old ones will confess that they knew even then, the men of the Reich were evil, and if they were not consumed by their own evil, it would be by a greater evil they drew on themselves and many more. We thought that if we minded our business as we always had, we need only wait for their end. But that came from the south, too. The old men say the hills shook long before they could be seen or heard, a thousand tanks and a million men who had seen and suffered the worst the Reich could do.”

Again, it was Anastasia who spoke. “Our leaders were against it, even the ones we do not talk about,” she said. “The commanders said we could still break out of Poland. The Englishman only said that Munich was to the Reich what Leningrad was to the Party.”

She turned to Jason. “What do you think, Farmboy?” she said. “Do you want more history? Here it is. People are terrible. They always have been, they probably always will be. Just be glad we’re out here.”

She turned to leave. As Donald rose to follow, he turned back to Jason. “I’m just glad,” he said, “I already married a Russian.”

That made Anastasia freeze in her tracks. “Russian?” she said. It was a hiss like a snake. “We have been married almost a year, and you think I am Russian?” She ran out, and Jason and Jax ran after her.

 

By the time they got to her cabin, she had already locked Donald out.

Table of contents

Part 1. The demo!

Part 2. The villain!

Part 3. The world-building!

Part 4. The romance!

Part 5. The killer robot!

Part 6: The shuttle ride!

Part 7: Alternate universe pop culture!

Part 8: The launch!

Part 9: The girl talk!

Part 10: The domestic disturbance!!!

Part 11: The Space Nazis!!!

Part 12: The inevitable geography lesson!

Part 13: The wedding!!!

Part 14:  The spicy chapter!

Part 15: The bad guy backstory!

Part 16: The Dinner!

Part 17: The alternate history!

Part 18: The weapons exposition!