The Alfas have taken over. Millions of Alfas are expected to emerge from their underground hibernation after spending 17 years dormant. The truly striking carapace of these creatures can be seen everywhere, though mostly in Europe these days. As many as a dozen of these periodic Alfa Romaeidae will burrow to the surface per acre where they are most heavily concentrated. And as near as scientists can tell, they only come out to scream at the top of their lungs before heading back to infiltrate a garage near you.

Nobody is really sure of where they came from. Some say they emanated from Milan, Italy in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. They’ve largely been gone from the United States since 1995, though small pockets of Alfa offspring have been uncovered in recent years. Some experts believe they came here from the planet Stellantis. It’s hard to know for sure.

Occasionally these Alfas will gather at or on an important historical motor racing circuit to scream at each other and give chase for a while. Some believe this is a strange mating ritual, but others still contend that it is more a series of war games intended to keep the Alfa attack squad at the ready. Alfas have no known predators, and have up to this point been docile creatures, so this seems unlikely unless they are secretly planning some kind of hostile takeover.

Some humans, known amongst themselves as Alfisti, have fallen victim to the siren song of the Alfa clan. They’ve become something of slaves to these mechano-entomological creatures, giving up their weekends in servitude of the Alfa, and tithing large proportions of their income to the support of the Alfa race on this planet. It is an interconnected symbiotic relationship, though nobody seems to know what the humans get from it.

Our favorite natural history documentarian (aside from Sir David Attenborough natch), 19Bozzy92, recently infiltrated a gathering of Alfa to see what their war game simulations were like. Whatever the purpose of these exercises might be, they appear to require smooth paved infrastructure to carry it out. If the day ever does come that the Alfas attack, head for uneven terrain.