Pliable and Sinister
Wrapped in Terror
Hello Friends,
In the year 1984, the world was introduced to the T-800, one of the scariest robots since HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Famously played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the T-800 is powerful, mostly indestructible, and relentless in its pursuit of Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton).
I'll Be Back
It took seven years to follow up The Terminator with a sequel (the most expensive movie up to that time), Terminator 2: Judgement Day that included an even scarier and more advanced robot, played by Robert Patrick, the T-1000. It took me a full 20 years before I could watch the actor, Robert Patrick, in any other role and not visualize him as the horrifying lump of sinister liquid metal.
What made the T-1000 terrifying was it's ability to withstand more damage than the T-800, self-repair, and transform into any shape in its dogged quest to preserve Skynet's future.
This week, I saw several articles reporting on a recent materials invention of SHINE, a smart textile that not only glows, but can repair itself and be manipulated by a magnet. Being that this was created as a type of thread, most of the applications for it are in the area of intelligent fabrics—safety uniforms and wicked-cool concert t-shirts.
But, when I read about it, I immediately thought of the T-1000. And, I don't think it is much of a leap to consider wrapping a magnetic controller in these threads and give it commands—a real life Spaghetti Monster.
Squishy Horror
In the last few years, there have been an acceleration in the advent of soft robots and smart materials—gooey stuffs that can be remotely controlled, have memory, and include or serve as sensors. There is even a Lego man robot that can melt, slide out of a cage, and reform, free as a bird, outside the cage.
The strength of these things is that they can perform real work in environments (like the human body) where rigid devices can't.
That ability is precisely, in my opinion, what makes these things even more creepy than the Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoid and dog robots. You've probably them on the Internet. Or, the many incarnations of the robot from Lost in Space (the TV series and movies).
A squishy, self-healing, autonomous, intelligent blob is the real stuff of nightmares. Imagine a malevolent bowl of oatmeal. Or a Twizzler with teeth.
Not sure why my spooky images are of killer food. Perhaps consider a cyborg cockroach.
Either way, we'll just file this under the heading of Life Imitating Art.
Happy reading and happy writing,
David