PRone DRone

STAR WARS WAS REAL MARCH 1993

STAR WARS WAS REAL March 1993

Somewhere inside a mountain in the middle of the continental United States – Strategic Air Command – USA

It is a very large room that is lit dimly by glowing monitors and the reflection off projection screens. The many monitor screens have various maps and read-outs displayed on every possible vertical wall. There is a ceiling but it is imperceptible with just the monitors lighting the truly cavernous room. Several military officers in uniform are discussing with a group of poorly dressed scientists who work for the defense contractor Pounce Incorporated. The scientists have well-worn enameled Pounce Inc. pins on their lapels. The logo consists of a large lion's paw with winged missiles shooting from the claws simultaneously. The scientists are very anxious – one is chewing skin off his thumb, while another is fidgeting with his ballpoint pen, clicking and un-clicking it. Meanwhile the military personnel are very calm going about various appointed tasks.

The scientists are looking over some charts on the screen of a nearby military personnel's desk. The voice comes over the intercom "here is the count-down." Everyone looks up to watch a spectacular rocket launch through the night sky on a large screen in this vast dimly lit imperceptible size room.

The scientists after being tensely postured let out a collective sigh and awkwardly high five each other. The Pounce Inc. scientists nervously banter with the military officers and everyone is excited.

A few hours go by and you can see everyone relaxed. One of the scientists is awkwardly flirting with an enlisted woman. Trying to impress her, "these neural networks, they learn how to survive. They are totally hard-wired to the entire intelligence network. I probably should not be telling you this." The woman interrupts him, "please don't then", as she attempts to walk away. The scientist tries to keep the conversation going subtlety but obviously blocking her exit, "you've heard of Star Wars, this is the real deal here. This satellite is not even detectable unless you have physical eyeballs on it and even then it will probably blast you out of its orbit." The woman makes a head fake and successfully walks away from the scientist.

The scientist makes eye contact with the other scientist lounging at a desk with his feet up and gives him the geeky thumbs up sign and awkwardly winking. The rest of the personnel have all found various places to sit and lounge around the large room in clutches of two or three – stray coffee cups and takeout food containers are strewn about. All of them look up when they hear a military person at a desk by herself call out, "we have it."

The military officers with their jackets off now and ties loosened along with the poorly dressed and now stained shirt and tie defense contractors from Pounce Inc. walk quickly over to a desk with several controllers on them. The controllers look like a cross between a very exotic video game controller and fighter plane controls. There is an airplane cockpit joystick as the main controller. Along with those control are a computer keyboard and a regular computer mouse. All of this is on top of a single desk contained in a large silver type suitcase about six inches high by two feet wide by four feet long when opened up. The case has a large handle and is on wheels similar to a carry-on piece of luggage. There are several of these cases next to the desk unopened with the hand scribbled letters PR1-DR1 on it.

One of the scientists sits down at the desk, adjusts the pop up screen, and then throws a few switches. No indicator lights come on. He cycles the switch a few times quickly and everyone is looking very worried. The panicked scientist lifts up the controller top and pulls out a circuit board hand labeled with a red paint pen X1PR1-DR1. Out of another case he frantically opens it up, rummages through it, and pulls out what appears to be an identical circuit board hand labeled similarly X2PR1-DR1.

The scientist comments, "These two boards are identical. We only made two because it is a neural intelligence circuit. Basically the two boards can learn from each other."

He gently slides in the second board while one of the officers asks, "What are these other circuit boards for?"

The scientist answers, "Some are failed attempts at these two boards and others are for the computations but they have nothing to do with the controls. Only these two boards will cover the controls of the entire satellite." The anxious scientist cycles the same switch and still no lights. Then another military officer holds up the cord, it is unplugged.

Everyone lets out a deep sigh and nearly simultaneously say, "Plug it in!"

Then a faint little red light comes on as the visibly relieved scientist cycles the switch one more time. Now everyone is grinning hovering over a small computer screen. The scientist types in a few commands as a blue light now blinks on the X2PR1-DR1 circuit board.

The scientist says, "We have made the connection PR1-DR1 is operational. Just let me put this other board in," as he brings up X1PR1-DR1 circuit board. He slides it into an adjacent slot under the controller cover and cycles the switch one more time. The circuit board red light comes on. The scientist types in a few commands, "We have to give it a few seconds to learn from the other board," as he stares into the screen while you can see a mass of other heads in the reflection of the screen all trying to see. Non-descript monochromatic code is filing line after line on the screen. The scientist operating the keyboard leans back crossing his arms as the code scrolls rapidly down the screen for a good three minutes.

Underneath the blue light on the X1PR1-DR1 circuit board now blinks. "All set, we need to schedule our demo now."

The military officers converse amongst themselves, "Let's shoot for May at our tank proving grounds in Yuma. I'll have our office set up the exact date."

The scientists look at each other smiling and one says, "Well that will be fine – this gives us until April to develop the controller console and work on the command protocol."

The scientists are seen walking out struggling to handle all the rolling cases, they came in with while talking amongst themselves. You can see the Pounce Inc. scientists walk away from the light of the monitors rolling their cases doing fist pumps and geeky comments. Only one faint red light is left as evidence that Pounce was there on one remote monitor screen in the whole bullpen of monitors in the vast control room. The faint red light dims and finally fades as the controller power is slowly fading.