Six Shooter

The funniest part of all this is that most people won’t believe it. Tell your average Joe that humans never figured out anything more complicated than the vacuum tube, and he’ll give you a skeptical look. Mention gremlins and he’ll assumed you’re talking about a campy movie from the ‘80s.

The first gremlins were captured and domesticated in El Alamein, Egypt, by British soldiers fighting Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps in World War II. They were distributed among the Allied nations in secret—the fear was that, if the Axis learned that our submarines, planes, and even bombs were run by little green men, they might develop some sort of anti-gremlin weaponry. After the war, it was just plain easier to attribute our technological prowess to good old American ingenuity than to the mechanically inclined little men found in Egypt. The best part was, no serious degree of secrecy was required—the idea of gremlins living in circuitry and hiding like cockroaches whenever a machine was opened up seemed so far-fetched that no one believed it.

The gremlin breeding programs across the world are nothing short of impressive. You’ve surely noticed how most technology tends to be loud and fragile when it’s new, only to become more stable as time goes on. Things happen this way because the first step in the breeding program is growing gremlins that can accomplish the task required. Mixing their bloodlines with hardier stock comes later. The machines are loud because there has to be a cue for the gremlins to start working; since they live in the dark, an auditory cue is just easier. Later, a new strain of gremlins will be bred with better hearing, so the auditory cue can fall outside the human range of hearing; that’s why dialup modems are so loud while broadband modems don’t appear to make any sound at all. Perhaps the most amazing thing was incorporating the ability for gremlins to derive nourishment from electricity instead of food. That was such an important step that it’s been bred into almost all the strains.

Really, it’s nothing short of amazing how dependent humanity has become on these little creatures from North Africa, but what really gets me is how few people even realize they’re there.

# posted by Andrew Michael @ 5:21 PM