No, This Is Not A Deconstruction Of Coppola's Mad Iconic Film
Shot on location in the Philippines, and using the Filipono Army's hardware, if they weren't out fighting rebels with it that day, 'Apocalypse Now' is an absolute classic made very much against the odds. For the full experience, you need to watch the 'Redux' version and the documentary 'Hearts Of Darkness'. which was shot by Coppola's wife. Art!
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| 'Das Nibelungen' will never be the same |
The Apocalypse we're talking about today is my tangential way of claiming that the Judge system and Mega-cities of the future might well arise, not in East Coast South Canada, but in Mordorvia, as the spiritual successor to the Sinister Union. We've already looked at this. mentioning how the Sovs recruit Judges - clones, volunteers or surgically-enslaved ex-criminals - and now we need to look at the heavier weapons used by both sides. The conflict in this instance is the 'Judge Dredd' serial 'Apocalypse War', intended by the Sovs of East-Meg One to crush and occupy the Big Meg in 24 hours. A city of 800 million people? Good luck with that. Art!
This is an excellent Carlos Ezquerra illo of the Sov's 'Strato-V's and Mega-City One's 'H-Wagons', the aerial component of both cities Judge departments.
Here a slight aside. Neither city has a formal military organisation you can point to and call an 'army'; in both of them, the Judges form a paramilitary law enforcement organisation with access to much heavier metal than Lawmaster bikes and automatic pistols - as shown above. Art!
This is the Big Meg's 'Manta' prowl tank, capable of supressing a riot, armed terrorists, robots run amok - or Sov invaders. Let me prod Art into semi-sentience and provide the Sov equivalent. Art!
To starboard you can see the generic Sov AFV they use en masse, where track size is equally as important as firepower (it says here).
Stick a pin in this, it'll come into play later.
What both city-states have in common are enormous nuclear arsenals, which they are not slow to use when this invasion begins. Unfortunately for the Big Meg, the Sovs have developed an 'Apocalypse Warp', which is in effect a portal to an alternate reality. Instead of exploring or exploiting this gateway, the Sovs use their Warp to divert the 29 Total Annihilation Devices the Meggers launch at them. Art!
Let us not get side-tracked by the Sovs behaviour, at least not on this Intro. I believe there are considerable later consequences - which is, again, for another Intro.
Where am I going with this? Well, I did mention that neither city-state has a formal army. Mega-City One has an armed citizen militia, known as 'Citi-Def', who are armed at the block level with anything man- (or woman, no exclusions here in 2120!) portable level. Small arms, MANPADS, mortars, rocket launchers, that kind of hardware. The Sovs don't seem to trust their citizens with weapons, but I cannot positively rule out that they, too, have a citizen militia. Art!
Bunker Midget Grandpa doesn't like to be reminded of the time Wagner Group marched on
ANYWAY Wagner in Ruffia were disbanded. This left all their hardware: tanks, self-propelled guns, mobile SAM batteries, Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Armoured Personnel Carriers, trucks and jeeps. Surprise! This hardware was all given to Rosgvardia, the Ruffian Home Guard and the closest equivalent they have to a Citi-Def force. They are trained in police work, not the military and like the Big Meg's own Citi-Def units, may turn out to be more trouble than they are worth. Art!
The blue blob to port is the site of East-Meg One, which grew from the twin conurbations of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, which is very possible indeed, as these are the two primary cities in Mordorvia. The attendant East-Meg Two is supposed to be located around Lake Baikal, which is considerably less possible, since the third largest city in Modern-day Mordor is Novosibirsk, situated over a thousand miles away from Baikal.
Of course, I could be overthinking this -
"The War Illustrated Edition 211 22nd July 1945"
Back to the central pages montage, which concentrates on matters naval in the Pacific. Art!
This photo claims to show British firefighters in action on the deck of one of their aircraft carriers in the Pacific, after a kamikaze attack. Conrad did a bit of digging and this is 'HMS Formidable' being hit on May 9th 1945, again off Okinawa. British carriers had an armoured flight deck, and were thus able to shrug off damage that would have paralysed a South Canadian variant. Flight operations were resumed within 35 minutes of this attack. GOD SAVE KINGIE!
Your Humble Scribe On A Diatribe
Time for your daily accommodation with the 'The 100' nation as they cope with separation from their space station. Art!
I apologise for the less-than-optimal quality of the picture here, but Netflix causes the screen to black out if you try to Snip a picture.
Whom you have here is Finn Collins, the quite bad boy, who has been silly enough to get impaled by a Grounder blade. Jasper, who brought him back, was clever enough to leave the blade in place, meaning no loss of blood from an open wound. Art!
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| Love the workmanship there |
I have already used the phrase BY AMAZING COINCIDENCE twice, and am about to use it again. You see, Clarke, one of the de facto leaders of the 100, only knows basic first aid and here she has a penetrating stab wound between the ribs to cope with.
Suddenly - you may be ahead of me here - BY AMAZING COINCIDENCE they get back radio comms with the Ark, and are talked through how to save Finn and his Finnjury.
That's good. I am only half-way through Episode 7 and the original 100 are now down to 90. I shall keep you posted.
Construction Update
A week ago Conrad updated you on the nature of his neighbourhood, where the occupants on Tandle Hill Road are always selling houses or doing them up, or doing them up and then selling them. Here we have up-to-the minute news hot off the press. Art!
For contrast, here is the site one week earlier. Art!
So they've plumbed in something, and clearly have a lot of kit on-site if they need a shipping container to keep it safe.
Meanwhile, across the way, Number 53 continues to be worked on, with a truck taking away 10 tons of excavated spoil. Art!
Foundations are being laid for whatever is being constructed, and that same lorry picking up a cargo container of spoil also dropped off an empty one, so they are continuing to dig stuff up. One wonders how long it will take until we get clear vision of the structure itself?
Conrad's Intermittent Quest Continues
If you recall, AND YOU OUGHT TO, Conrad is continually looking for the author or title of a couple of young adult novels he read in about 1972. One was about a group of teenagers surviving an apocalyptic event that turned the entire human population to stone, the other about domestic and wild animals making a temporary arrangement to speak (English of course!) with humans, for a reason I cannot remember. Art!
Methinks it was the same author, and that they must be wilfully obscure and forgotten because at no point have I been successful. O well. The journey is half the fun, hmmm?
Finally -
Conrad thinks another Sausage Stew needs to be cooked, to use up all those remaindered sausages, and the excess of mushrooms.
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