Welcome to the first article in what I hope will be a weekly feature for the SuicideGirls Newswire where I detail all the wonderful fake things from science fiction that we’re closing in on making a reality.

This spring several wonderful things happened to our Future. We begin this Future fucked in merry old England. In early March, the UK upgraded its Skynet military satellite system. Fantastic. Long overdue if you ask me.

If there was one space-based information system that need to be bulked-up, surely it was Skynet. The men in charge were thrilled at their accomplishment:

Why wouldn’t it behave perfectly? It will always behave perfectly. It probably adores the burping, farting carbon-based nerds that blasted it into space and provide it with commands to follow. I think if there’s one thing that Skynet loves more than sending, receiving and monitoring all military communications – it’s taking commands. Long may Skynet serve mankind.

More recently, on our side of the Atlantic, the US government -- specifically The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA -- wants to get cracking on shape-shifting war robots.

Because, what fun is a robot that can squeeze under a door and then have nothing to murder with? I cannot think of any disadvantages to this program. In fact, I hope they only make these machines smarter, deadlier and more difficult to detect. So say we all.

Rounding out today’s trifecta of speculative fiction-turned-fact is another DARPA program –- this one from their cyborg department.

I’m very excited about what’s being referred to as “Luke's Binoculars” after the painted shoebox that Mark Hamill gazed into while pretending to be a moisture farmer in one of the only good Star Wars films.

Essentially the person using this technology would be a cyborg. A lucky cyborg. Just imagine being able to spot the skynet-controlled shape shifting murder robot from between 1,000 and 10,000 meters away. Standard binocs would only give you up to 1,000 meters notice –- barely enough time to shit your pants. The kind of tactical advantage that this new tech would give you should provide the user more than enough time to brown his or her own trousers and actually get moving. Of course, no amount of time is enough to escape the tireless murdering machines of the future but it will make the death much more cinematic and exciting. (Additionally, the thinking is that you won’t care so much about being killed by a robot while you’re waddling away in your own filth.)

So, we’ve started on the more violent end of science fiction’s offerings but I’m sure our finest minds will soon be slaving away on Dr. McCoy’s sickbay bed or Dr. Theopolis.

In the meantime, keep up the good work, science! These robots won’t make themselves. Yet.

See you in the future! (Fingers crossed.)
Gerry

PS -- I know Roy Batty can't change shape. Sue Me.