The Rise of the Butterfly Army

A new breakthrough is taking place in national defense. No not a new tank or machine gun, Cyber Insect Agents of Doom!

We can rebuild them, we have the technology. Scientists are working to create an army of cyber-insects that can be “programmed” to sniff out explosives, send transmissions, and gather intelligence that normally could not be obtained by a human.

What terrorist or opposing army would suspect that the pretty little butterfly flying around the room is actually working for the government and is using its arsenal of high-tech instruments of espionage to report your position and coordinate a surgical strike against your forces.

An excerpt from the BBC:

The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later. A similar scheme aimed at manipulating wasps failed when they flew off to feed and mate. The new scheme is a brainwave of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which is tasked with maintaining the technological superiority of the US military.

Foreign objects, such as transmitters and the like, could be implanted as specific micro-systems - Mems - which, when the insect is fully developed, could allow it to be remotely controlled or sense certain chemicals, including those in explosives. The invasive surgery could “enable assembly-line like fabrication of hybrid insect-Mems interfaces”. The “insect-cyborg” must also “be able to transmit data from relevant sensors, yielding information about the local environment. These sensors can include gas sensors, microphones, video, etc.”

So what happens when the insects develop an intelligence far superior to our own and use their massive firepower and collective tactical awareness to wage war on their former masters?

Is it possible that a nuclear holocaust ensue? Will a small pocket of human resistance fighters wage war against the cyber-insects? Will the cyber-insects develop a time displacement technology to send an assassin butterfly to the past to kill the mother of the human resistance leader? Only time will tell.

Read more about the “Cyborg-Insects” on BBC News

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