In a fit of internet nostalgia, I dug up an old web comic that Patrick Farley had started back in 2002ish. The comic was called "Spiders" and it depicts a sort of Sci-fi what-if scenario. I always felt that it was a response to those who speculated that Al Gore would not have been able to handle the post 9-11 aftermath or that he would have ended up handling it the same way that George W. Bush had in our reality: by invading Afghanistan.
These two assertions were often leveled as a catch-22 way of implying that a) Al Gore and the administration style of progressives is simply to soft to get the job done in the real world or b) that those same progressives would have been forced by reality to take the same route as Bush, thereby bolstering the position that the Bush administration had chosen the correct course.
Nevermind the position of Clinton and Gore that they already had plans strike Al Qaeda in Afghanistan after the 2001 election, and left detailed intelligence briefings for the Bush administration after Gore's concession[1], the timeline of experience leaves us only with speculation.
But, speculation is fun. And when science fiction is involved it can be more forward thinking than the long timelines of Pentagon research can allow, and more bold in suggested action than generalist politicians can imagine and still be taken seriously by the people they must convince.
And so comes in Patrick Farley's "Spiders" a tale which takes place in the backdrop of Afghanistan after the United States invasion in response to 9/11. An invasion which involves the use of tiny robotic spiders equipped with webcams, microphones, speakers, sensor arrays, translation software and satellite up-links where they are controlled back in the free-world not by paid military personnel, but by average citizens volunteering some of their time to help search for Osama bin Laden by piloting the non-weaponized drones into the caves of the mountainous country, and also to provide direct humanitarian assistance to the Afghani people.
The developed world kids who participate in the program are depicted as attempting to provide a genuinely civilian to civilian pen-pal style relationship with Afghani kids, and doctors who pilot the robots provide medical assistance. The whole system is not without its disadvantages, and I have no intention of implying that it was actually a technical possibility in 2002, (though it seems that it could be possible right now.)
Oh, did I mention they also bomb the Al Qaeda training camps with Extacy?
I hope you're intrigued. Here's the prologue:
Farley published it however quite slowly and begrudgingly. He took down the first 2 chapters for some reason, which are now only accessible through the Internet Archive:
Further discussion of the comic's themes, good ideas, bad ideas, worshipful praise and zeal to implement ideas, or cowering between the bedsheets at such notions will be reserved for the comments section.
References:
- “They Had A Plan,” Time, August 12, 2002, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003007,00.html.
didn't one of the Matrix movies have robotic spiders scouting areas? Somehow I think I heard taht tere really are flying insect-sized scouts available now. Careful what you swat.
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