Wot's - 'Microbots'?

Forgive The Excessively Vernacular Title

I had to use a word that rhymed.  Yes, HAD to, no arguing at the back.

Conrad made up the word 'Microbots' himself, and if it ever sees the light of day in future editions of "Collins Concise Dictionary" I shall want royalties.  It's an alternative portmanteau version of 'Microscopic Robots', which you might know better as 'Nanobots'.  Art!

     This is the first, and best, of a trilogy, and you can guarantee that Ol' Jeff isn't going to turn it into a hexalogy to rake in the coin, by virtue of him being, how can I put it?  Dead.

     There is a flashback that takes place in California, between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, where the archos nanobots get loose, and by the time this becomes news, it's too late for the nanobots to be contained.  A grim warning of what can happen in an urban environment if microbots intended for use inside the human body get loose.  And go wrong.  Art!

     What's this doing here?

     SPOILERING is what.  Read on at your peril.

     The villain of the piece turns out to be replicating nanotechnology, which had been insufficiently quarantined: the power sources driving the containment field were picked up by recording equipment when on full-power, so they'd been turned down a fair bit.  And, as one technician says, all it takes is for one nanobot to escape the field.  Then it's 1+1= 2+2 = 4 + 4 = 8 + 8 = 16 + 16 = 32 + 32, and all the merry little microbots replicate themselves using up one-quarter of Los Angeles in the process.

     What does this have to do with 'Lost'?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

Ol' Smokey

     Here you see The Smoke Monster, which variously swoops around making loud noises, terrifying people and occasionally killing them.

     One thing is certain: it isn't made of smoke.  Smoke, for your information, observes the laws of physics, especially entropy.  Which is to say, it will dissipate over time, and the greater the local windspeed, the faster it will disperse.  It does NOT remain coherent, act with intelligence (or at least purpose) or move against the wind.  Art!

     Here you see The Island.  I'm at the end of Season One and it still hasn't been given a name, so The Island it will be and remain.

     Yesteryon, if you recall, Your Humble Scribe postulated that The Island had been the destination of a bunch of utterly amoral scientists, who wanted to cook up all sorts of maleficent monstrosities, without any kind of government oversight.  Since the first season takes place in 2004, we can guesstimate that the Saturnine Scientists arrived a couple of decades earlier.  Art!

What's missing from this picture?

     Whether the bunker here was constructed in place, or transported as a pre-fab structure, tons of earth would have needed excavating, not to mention heavy construction plant to do so and move the bunker.  Do you see any evidence of that in the surrounding jungle?  No, you do not.  So time, weather, plant and animal life and abandonment have smoothed away all the evidence of what had been done here.  Decades of time.

     What if The Smoke Monster is a precursor to nanobots?  Their technology isn't good enough to produce robots at the molecular or sub-molecular scale, so these gadgets are of the order of thousandths of a metre rather than billionths.  The killer nanobots in "Plague Year" are too small to be visible to the naked eye, and TSM is definitely not.  Plus, it can manufacture sounds, which implies being able to form temporary structures that oscillate.  Difficult to manage at the sub-atomic level.  Art!

     It makes a great hunting or guard dog.  Also, you'll notice that The Island is - you may be ahead of me here - completely isolated in the far distant southern reaches of the Pacific, surrounded by ocean and completely off any trade routes.  Thus, no risking the population of Oakland if it ran rogue and rampant.  Nor of the CDC or OSHA coming to peer, frowning, over your shoulder.

     There must be a control of some variety behind it.  For one thing, it hasn't mindlessly converted the whole island into more Smoke Monsters, so there is a limit on it's replicative ability.  Then again, microbots are not large or robust and will suffer a significant attrition rate through wear, tear, moisture, UV radiation and storm-force winds, so there must be a 'factory' where new ones are produced.

     Of course, I could be overthinking this .....

Conrad Behind The Times

It's a symptom of not working in an office alongside other people who are better informed about contemporary music than I am.  Ian and Liam at the Electric Goldfish Bowl, both being musicians, were always good for info.  Now what do I find?  Art!

     Doves - NOT 'The Doves' - are back, and have been for 5 years.  Ooops.

     For those unaware, they 'went on hiatus' back in 2010, which in music-biz speak usually means 'we've broken up but are too cowardly to say so because it might impact the bottom line'.  Which was a shame, I liked their stuff.

     Not in this case.  Apparently they put out an album in 2020, which I was completely unaware of - "The Universal Want".  Now they're putting out another, "Constellations For The Lonely" and are going to tour for the first time in 15 years.  Except without their singer, who appears to have dropped out thanks to going completely hatstand.

     Whatever next!

"The War Illustrated Edition 202 16th March 1945"

In case you were wondering, by this point in time the war in Europe had less than two months to run, and was visibly in the endgame, since the Allies - we're going to ignore the Sinisters as it annoys the Ruffians more than they can say - were now well into Germany proper.  Art!

     Here is the usual central pages montage, this time focussing on the British as they advanced into Northern Germany.

     To you, this is yet another picture of a muddy European battlefield.  In fact it's part of the British advance on Cleves, the first Teuton city to fall to Perfidious Albion, where the city was given an absolute pummelling by the RAF before ground forces rolled in to occupy the rubble.  Art!

     The caption here notes that the condition of the ground was so bad that even the ubiquitous Bren Carrier, that British equivalent of a Jeep on tracks, had trouble moving cross-country.  Here it's being given a tow by a helpful Churchill AVRE - Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers, which is identified by the enormous Petard mortar barrel mounted on the turret.

I Keep Saying We Are Living In The Future

Here's a bit more evidence.  Last year we mentioned the British 'Dragonfire' laser system that could knock down UAVs as easily as you or I swat flies with a rolled-up copy of the M.E.N.  Well, now the Ukrainians have gotten in on this 25th century technology ahead of time.  Art!

     This is just a stock image, the Ukrainians have been careful not to show what it looks like, and they have made claims that their 'Trizub' (Uke for 'Trident') is capable of downing drones at up to 2 kilometres distance.  This is actually very short-ranged, so Conrad The Cynic strongly suspects that they're telling fibs about how ineffective it is at a distance.

     Back in 2022 the Ruffians claimed they were using battlefield laser systems to deal with Ukrainian drones, a claim that was quietly allowed to die out as they've never mentioned it again.  In fact, when it comes to Ruffia and technology - Art!

     The mighty Ruffian army is now being issued with donkeys.  Horses, you see, come at a premium.  But you can eat both if you get desperate.  Not even orcs can eat a 'Bukhanka' (Ruffian for 'Loaf') van.  Art!