Aric and his fellow Human prisoners escape their cells with the aid of an old man who has mapped out the alien spaceship. They race to the room he has marked as an armory. Instead, they find this strange hovering ball.
This room is more than just an armory. It is a room tended by the priests of this alien race known as the Vine. Periodically during their travels, a member of the military will enter this room to be tested. As with the ancient Israelite priests, these warriors believe they have thrown off all weakness, and proven their worth to stand before Shanhara. They wish to accept Shanhara's judgment. Will they be judged worthy of wearing the sacred armor? Will they leave this most sacred temple, their version of the Israeli Temple the Holy of Holies, alive?
While many warriors believe in the legend of Shanhara, and submit themselves for testing, Commander Trill does not. He has seen his friends and colleagues die when Shanhara rejected them. He believes the priests do not truly understand the nature of the armor. He does not claim to understand Shanhara, but he does not believe anyone can wear the armor and live.
Aric does not know of the Vine and their history with Shanhara. He does not come before the armor as a candidate claiming worthiness. All he knows is that he has spent years in slavery aboard this alien vessel, and would rather die in an escape attempt, than live out the rest of his life in service to his captors.
When Shanhara deems Aric worthy, it shatters the way the Vine view their lives and culture. Whether they are priests, military, or members of another profession or caste, the way they make sense of the world (or universe) will never be the same.
After so many have suffered and died, and COVID-19 has shaken apart our fragile world, I think we can all understand how devastating such a paradigm-busting event can be.
Dragon Dave
In X-O Manowar Volume 3 Issue 2, alien guards lead Aric and his fellow Visigoths into a garden. There the aliens order them to tend the plants. Any prisoners who shirk their duty are killed, and their bodies added to the compost that feed the plants.
Penciler Cary Nord and Inker Stefano Gaudiano do a terrific job in evoking this alien garden, and Colorist Moose Baumann makes the garden look incredibly vibrant.
Unlike interstellar gardener Freeman Lowell in the movie Silent Running, these 4th Century Visigoths do not realize they are on a spaceship. Nor do they understand how the machinery overhead can make it rain indoors. All they know is that the aliens have not fed them, and the plants they tend produce fruit.
Unfortunately for them, the aliens, known as the Vine, regard these plants as sacred, and punish anyone who would commit sacrilege against their holy plants.
As Moses discovered when he interfered with an Egyptian punishing an Israelite slave, any prisoner who tries to stop a guard from disciplining his charge will, in turn, be punished. This Aric discovers to his regret, as the guards exact a heavy toll for his interference.
The notion of sacred gardens and holy plants has deep roots in fiction. This is especially true of orchids. The adventurer Allan Quartermain, best known for his adventures in King Soloman's Mines, led an expedition to Africa in search of a rare orchid in H. Rider Haggard's novel The Holy Flower. There, (as I recollect) he found it guarded by a tribe who worshiped the flower.
In the movie Moonraker, billionaire Hugo Drax tells James Bond about a rare orchid recently found in a Brazilian jungle. The orchid eventually destroyed the tribe that cultivated it, as it induced sterility in Humans. The industrialist plans to wipe out all of Humanity with a deadly nerve gas produced by this orchid, and repopulate the Earth with a handpicked few.
Most people think of plants as decorations, and use them in gardens and homes to evoke feelings and beauty. Many people in big cities feel dislocated, and out-of-sorts, unless they can grow a small garden, or even a few potted plants. A rare few become entranced by their love of plants, including rare and difficult-to-cultivate species such as orchids. These individuals place all else second in their lives, including relationships with family and friends, in order to procure and nurture their beloved plants. This obsession can lead to financial ruin, and even murder, such as in the Elementary episode "Seed Money."
Thankfully, murder never occurs from an obsessive love of comics. (Aside from the Elementary episode "You've Got Me, Who's Got You?" that is.) Whether this passion for collecting comics can lead to financial ruin is, of course, open to debate.
In this issue, Aric of Dacia joins the company of Allan Quartermain, James Bond, and Sherlock Holmes in opposing villains with an obsessive love of plants. Writer Robert Venditti thus taps a rich storytelling vein by portraying the Vine as interstellar gardeners, in X-O Manowar Volume 3 Issue 2.
Dragon Dave
Air too thin...
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