Every now and then a solution to a problem arrives that is so wonderfully sensible, simple and logical that it makes me kick myself for not thinking of it first. I think we can all agree that this is one of those cases: it turns out we could potentially bypass the contamination or skin irritation issues involved in the use of hideously chemical pesticides (with all their chemically chemicosity) by simply replacing them with bio-engineered zombie wasps.
Zombie. Wasps. A species so malign it injects its young into innocent mini-beast bystanders that they then control as puppets even as they eat their way through their tiny bodies. That's what we've decided to fuck around with now? Even Doctor Moreau would probably dismiss this as the product of a particularly dangerous cheese dream. Think of every disastrous tinker with the natural world ever presented to us by Hollywood and ask yourself: could any of those freaks make you into goddamn zombies? Well, those messed-up ants in Phase 4, I guess, but they developed the power to control minds two thirds of the way through. These things will have the brain-domination powers from the ground up. God knows what they'll develop in the third act. Telekinesis? Time-travel?
If only we'd listened to Joni Mitchell. She saw this coming. That's why her live performances of Big Yellow Taxi contained the lines "Farmer farmer, put away your DDT/ But don't think I'd rather you used fucking zombie wasps, you buzz-killing narc." Who's the lunatic hippy now, huh? Mitchell might have smoked enough pot to put the Cheech and Chong fan club to shame, but she never suggested we can live in perfect harmony with cybernetic brain-wasps, did she? She specifically said to leave the bees alone, and those waggle-happy bastards can't even control their own breeding anymore.
Not even in my darkest entomophobic nightmares did I consider the possibility that the world would end in a swarm of mind-controlling hymenopteric killers, but that'll teach me for not thinking sufficiently out of the box. Time to invest in bug spray, I think. And to start welcoming spots on my apples.
3 comments:
Surely Bill Bailey's "Insect Nation" is the lunatic hippy warning of choice for this?
Zombie wasps vs Zombie bees? One group are ruthless repeat killers but the others have intelligent institutional organisation, whilst they can only attack once. Who would win?
"Surely Bill Bailey's "Insect Nation" is the lunatic hippy warning of choice for this?"
Well, yeah, but it's hard enough trying to be funny without explicitly referencing people who are at least 374 times more amusing.
"Zombie wasps vs Zombie bees? One group are ruthless repeat killers but the others have intelligent institutional organisation, whilst they can only attack once. Who would win?"
I believe that there are documented cases of wasp hives and bee hives attacking each other, and the wasps tend to come out on top. Of course, this fails to take into account the game changing nature of zombification.
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