I'm Not Going To Apologise For Two Exclamation Marks
Because I need to get across the terrifying nature of what this Intro is all about, namely things that are so incredibly horrifying that they send viewers completely round the twist. I was walking Edna earlier this week when I recalled a story from a comic annual waaaaaaaay back in the Seventies -
Which is where the narrative sort of breaks down. I can't remember the title of said annual: it might have been "TV 21" but then again it might have been "Eagle" or "Lion". Nor can I remember the title of the strip - we are talking fifty years ago here, and age plus gin have dulled my wits. Art!
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| A metaphor (We'll come back to this) |
ANYWAY the story features an adrenaline junkie who decides to track down a legendary creature in Africa, so terrifying that it will send anyone who views it insane. He finds it, looks at it and -
Goes insane. He loses the ability to speak and turns into a furry feral ferocious fiend, unrecognisable as a human being. Guess what? Other people turn up looking for a Terrifying Beast, and they find him, and the cap fits, so he ends up as a zoo exhibit. Art!
Then of course - obviously! - you have "Star Trek: Is There In Truth No Beauty?", which is where the first photo above comes from. Hiding inside that container is the Medusan 'Kollos', one of a race so ugly that they send any Hom. Sap. seeing them insane, shortly before dying. Nothing a little trip to Boots couldn't solve, surely? Art!
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| CAUTION! World's most dangerous cat-box |
Inevitably Mister Spock gets sent round the bend, but the glamourous Doctor Jones (above to starboard) pulls him out of it and we get a happy ending.
Then we have one of the excellent short stories written by Manley Wade Wellman, centred around 'Silver John', a wandering minstrel in the Appalachain mountains: "The Desrick On Yandro". A 'desrick' is the local slang for a log-built house, and Yandro is the mountain-top on which it is situated. John is escorting a greedy, abusive city tycoon up to the desrick, and on the way he contemplates the critters that lurk in the mountain forests. Art!
One of them is the 'Behinder', which the victims never see, as it's always behind them before it pounces. O - apart from John, who sees one as it pounces on the city gent, and then promptly wishes he could un-see. He doesn't go into detail. Clever - MWW letting the reader do all the work.
Another I came across only recently is "At The Mountains Of Madness", by everyone's fave bigot H. P. Lovecraft, where the <ahem> 'Star Spawn Of Cthulhu' had prevailed in a battle in Antarctica against The Elder Things. One of the surviving protagonists, as they escape in a plane, happens to look back and see a revived SSOC, which temporarily deranges his senses. Art!
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| An Elder Thing. Remember, the SSOC are much more hideous. |
You can't really lump Medusa or the Gorgons into this category as you simply died if viewing at close range, just to be clear. You can't have Judge Fear for the same reason, and if Art will -
- plus some people have no sense of fear. Art!
Having gotten off track a little, there is also 'Bird Box', where anyone who sees The Things That Cannot Be Unseen (capitals for extra pretension) goes mad and commits suicide. Conerad is unsure how this works. Do these entities have a physical presence? Because if so then they cannot approach if you have a physical barrier up between you and them, so you could get around by crawling on the ground. Art!
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| Which is a lot safer than this. |
We may come back to this topic on a slight variant, where we deal with things that instantly kill stone dead if viewed directly.
Fission Chips
A headline torn from the front pages! Er - that is, if front pages were on the internet. Conrad has come across an interesting article from "The Telegraph", possibly the most conservative publication of the UK's conservative press. They deal with the economic uncertainties of the Ruffian economy, and mention the micro-chip industry in passing, a topic Conrad has little knowledge of. Art!
Ho ho. ART!
ART!
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| <sounds of Tazer charging-up> |
AS I WAS SAYING the Ruffians are trying to import Chinese microchips, currently the bulk of their microchip sales, except these are low-fi chips not fit for modern military material. Currently, Taiwanese, Korean and South Canadian chip technology works on the 2 nanometre scale: these countries are at the cutting edge of chip technology, where the smaller the nano-number the more sophisticated the chips are. The Ruffians are looking to build their own factory to produce 90 nanometre scale chips - by 2030. Art!
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| "You're doomed. DOOMED!" |
"The Sea Of Sand"
Major Hampson, of the Royal Army Service Corps, is very uneasy about just what's going on at Mersa Martuba's Field Supply Column, since all contact has been lost. He has been bribing a fellow officer. Meanwhile, back with the bio-vores ...
Trans-mat platforms couldn’t send
telecommunications between each other.
Thus, information between Homeworld and Target Seventeen was exchanged
by sending inscribed scrolls or bio-vore couriers. In the case of Lord Excellency Sur’s edict on
speeding up algae production, the demand came as an inscribed scroll, one which
bore the elaborate house crest of Sur.
It was passed to the most important bio-vore on duty at the trans-mat
station.
Senior
Overseer Fosor unrolled the scroll and read it before passing it on to a party
of Warrior guards and his assistant, Sub-Senior Overseer Kosadi. Kosadi read the declaration once, then again,
more slowly.
‘A
five-fold increase in algae production?’ he echoed, staring at Fosor. ‘And
Eviscerate Farmers?’
The
senior stared back at Kosadi.
‘What
is your reticence due to?’
‘Simple
fact!’ retorted Kosadi. ‘Even trying to
achieve an increase in production by a factor of five is over-ambitious. To attempt to drive it by killing those who
are trying to produce the algae is – is - ’
He struggled to find the correct word.
‘Enough
discussion,’ said Fosor, comparatively mildly.
‘Implement the coercion.’
“Stupid”
was the word Kosadi had been reaching for, thought Fosor. A very apt word. A stupid decision taken for stupid reasons.
Things are brewing in the background. The Doctor's sly sabotage is taking effect.
I Don't Know If This Will Translate Well
Conrad came across a video on Youtube by yet another person with too much spare time on their hands. This one was a mash-up, "2001: A Space Odyssey" - as done by George Lucas. Conrad found it hilarious. We'll not go into the whole thing, but may return to it. Art!
A good start! Art?
Keep it coming -
Hilarious stuff. Not sure what Stan Kubrick would make of it.
Finally -
At the behest of Wonder Wifey, I have finally started to watch 'Happy Valley', which seems to be a slice-of-life police drama set in the Calder Valley, and which contrary to the title, trawls the very ocean depths of squalor and misery. The Calder Valley is up here in the North of This Sceptred Isle and features accents and dialect so impenetrable that those in the south of this country, let alone South Canada, need subtitles.
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