I’ve said already that I don’t want writers to take Robert Farrell and treat him like he’s one of the smartest people in the world. But I want to make it clear I don’t want them to treat the Rocket Racer as if he’s incapable of kicking a little ass.

I get that he’s a skateboard-themed supervillain and your instinct is that he’s a goofy joke character. I can understand that impulse. The inherent goofiness of the character is part of the appeal to me. But this is the superhero genre, people! It’s all goofy as hell! One of the most popular guys is a rich amateur detective who dresses as a bat so he can drive around in a bat and throw little bats at the bad guys. Just because this stuff is goofy doesn’t mean we can take it seriously.

I don’t want Rocket Racer to be one of the most powerful forces in the Marvel Universe, mowing down cosmic enemies with ease. I don’t even want him to be on par with the heavy hitters on the Avengers or the X-Men or whatever. As with his intellect, I want him in the middle. I just want it to be such that if some street-level hero or villain is up against the Rocket Racer, he’s not someone who is taken out in a panel because he’s “lame” and “lame” characters are bad.

Bob Farrell is definitely a loser and probably has only grown to doubt himself more as his career has been a trainwreck, but he is also an above-average skateboarder who has designed clever bits of technology to help him do what he does. If we make enough stories that treat someone like that as a human, readers will learn to take it seriously. Like that amateur bat detective guy.

In a swampy region near the slimelands, an Ekilaei returns to the stream while other animals nearby watch for a potential meal.

Ekilaei

An Ekkpay species that has evolved to live a mostly aquatic life, the Ekilaei still come to land for things such as escaping aquatic predators and, more importantly, burying eggs. Full-grown Ekilaei have barbs on their forelimbs that can deliver a small amount of toxin to a predator, but Ekilaei young hatch under sand then make their way to the nearest body of water, with only luck helpinig them to avoid predators along the way.

Sesennrel

Lurking among the grassy plants is a Sesennrel, whose name means something close to “Stabtongue” in English. This is because the Rel of the Sesennrel is split into three sharp tendrils, each coated with a paralyzing ooze, that can be used to stab prey. Their primary mode of attack is that of an ambush predator, waiting among foliage until a victim wanders within range, but they are not unwilling to act as scavengers when the opportunity presents itself.

Elleero

Hidden in the water here is an Elleero, a type of air-breathing, river-swimming predator. A cousin of the Ekkpay, the rear end of the Elleero is developed for swift bursts of speed in water and their beaks allow them to grab smaller animals. The flexible snorkel allows them to remain still and wait to pounce, acting as another ambush predator. Things like infant Ekilaei make a good meal to an Elleero.

Chirgen

There are a couple more animals in there, but sedentary ones that could be easily mistaken for a weird sort of plant. The Chirgen look like balls of gelatin with tendrils that hold them in place along the flow of rivers and streams. The tendrils extend into the water to leech nutrients from slime runoff. After reaching maturity, about once a day they will deposit a tadpole-like offspring into the water which will swim off to find its own place to anchor, though only a few survive the trip. Mature Chirgen are quite poisonous, but they were a useful ingredient for Strondo medicine in the early days of the species.

The Strondovarian word for death is Mev. As you would expect from any intelligent beings, the idea of death holds significant place in Strondo culture, but not in the exact way it does for humanity.

Strondos don’t look forward to their own death by any means. And they absolutely consider the deaths of their loved ones with sadness. But the tragedy they see in death is less tinged by a fear of the unknown, and more seen as an unfortunate end to ongoing work. Certainly, if they find themselves in a situation where imminent demise is threatened, they will fight against it, but unless they are noticeably near death they don’t spend time worrying about it the way many humans do.

It’s may be hard to translate in human terms, but they genuinely see the effects that a person has on the world around them as a part of that person themselves. If people are still talking about a deceased person, they still live on in a way. If the Knowledge Bank has information about the deceased, they are not forgotten. The changes that person made while alive represent proof that they existed. The tragedy is that they are no longer around to make changes.

That’s not to say that belief in the afterlife doesn’t exist on Gurx, but over the thousands of years that the Knowledge Bank has been a fixture there, it has essentially become the dominant religion. Many Strondos posit than in the distant future, after the New Gurx project is finished, perhaps, Strondos may be able to use the information in the Knowledge Bank to recreate individuals and place their minds in new, undying bodies.

Pictured to the side here is an Eoumbao, a kind of carved stone which could be likened to a tombstone on Earth, but it isn’t really that. It doesn’t mark the location of a corpse, it just serves to remind anyone who notices it that a certain Strondovarian used to exist. The standard Eoumbao depicts the deceased’s face, but the important thing is the Phrob (let’s translate that as “info-icon”), which is the colourful bit embedded into stone. When scanned by a device connected to the Knowledge Bank, it will bring up all the information it can about the person to whom the monument is dedicated. It’s standard practice for the Eoumbao to depict the honouree’s limbs extending off the stone, to represent their continuing ability to effect the world.

All of this, of course, is of no help to the poor underclass on Gurx who get no notability in society, essentially being barred from the afterlife due to a lack of notability. But even they seek to live on in the memories of their families and loved ones.