Brothers and Sisters of the Conflagration...

"In my mind's eye, my thoughts light fires in your cities."
-- Charles Manson

Two new movements in SF have been making an impact on the blogosphere recently. I thought it was time I nailed my colours to the mast, staple-gunned them down, drove a spike right through the centre of them down into the wood, wrapped gaffer tape around, strapped on some plastic explosives underneath and retreated to a not very safe distance where I could flick the switch and shout "TIMB-ERRRRRRRR!" as that mast comes crashing down like something out of the very best pirate movie. So...

Molotovs At Dawn: An Infernokrusher Response To The Mundane Manifesto

The Mundanes say:

That interstellar travel remains unlikely. Warp drives, worm holes, and other forms of faster-than-light magic are wish fulfillment fantasies rather than serious speculation about a possible future.

We of the Infernokrusher Movement say:

We laugh maniacally in the face of serious speculation. We will have warp drives... on our MONSTER TRUCKS! We will have worm holes... and bullet holes, and drill holes, and holes punched through the very fabric of the spacetime continuum by the giant fist of MECHAGODZILLA! These are not wish fulfillment fantasies. These are metaphors for the destruction that is an integral part of every possible future. And more importantly, they're fun.

The Mundanes say:

That magic interstellar travel can lead to an illusion of a universe abundant with worlds as hospitable to life as this Earth. This is also unlikely.

We say the hospitability of Earth is the illusion. The heart of this world is an INFERNO! The core of this world is magma, KRUSHED into solidity by its own weight! And interstellar travel will lead us to the truth of worlds even LESS hospitable, worlds that will KRUSH us with their gravity, worlds that are INFERNOS even on the surface!

Peachy keen.

The Mundanes say:

That this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth.

Good, we say! The more waste there is, the more there is to KRUSH! We will shovel our squandered resources into trash compacters and furnaces. Old tropes and tired techniques will be torn down and scattered to the winds. We will KRUSH the surplus of conventions and then we will KRUSH the dream of those wonderful, wasted opportunities... those opportunities to blow stuff up. Yes. That which is waste must be burned in the pretty flames of the INFERNO! That which does not burn must be KRUSHED! The INFERNO of the KRUSHED old is the crucible of the new. When one thing becomes a million smithereens... that is abundance.

The Mundanes say:

That there is no evidence whatsoever of intelligences elsewhere in the universe.

Intelligence does not concern us, only rampant destruction, preferably with MONSTER TRUCKS. Intelligence elsewhere in the universe? What matters is are there GIANT ROBOTS elsewhere in the universe? And we want Artificial Idiocy, not Artificial Intelligence. Who cares if a computer can play chess or take control of cyberspace? Can it trash Tokyo? Intelligences elsewhere? What does intelligence matter in the INFERNAL heart of a planet, a sun, a nova? What use is reason in a black hole, where all things -- even logic itself -- are KRUSHED? If we are the solitary spark of awareness in a cold, dark cosmos, then we must be a son-et-lumiere, a fireworks display, an INFERNO raging in the night. We don't care if no-one's watching. Explosions are pretty.

The Mundanes say:

That absence of evidence is not evidence of absence -- however, it is unlikely that alien intelligences will overcome the physical constraints on interstellar travel any better than we can.

We say these physical constraints are there to be overcome. They will KRUSH us if we do not KRUSH them. Will you be KRUSHER or KRUSHEE? No! No, we say. We will smash them with our GIANT ROBOTIC FISTS! We will drive over the wreckage in our MONSTER TRUCKS! Our imagination is a veritable JUGGERNAUT, burning rubber as it conquers its own inertia. We will blast through these physical constraints, shatter them to SMITHEREENS, if we have to use the stars themselves as wrecking balls!

The Mundanes say:

That interstellar trade (and colonization, war, federations, etc.) is therefore highly unlikely.

We say there will be great galactic empires, worlds KRUSHED economically and militarily, native populations KRUSHED by human slave masters, alien overseers, by warmongers and industrialists... or by the BURNING, existential angst of simply being alone in the universe with nothing else to KRUSH! We say empires will rise because how else could they FALL! Rome will burn again, we say, and we will play the fiddle as the INFERNO rages around us!

The Mundanes say:

That communication with alien intelligences over such vast distances will be vexed by: the enormous time lag in exchange of messages and the likelihood of enormous and probably currently unimaginable differences between us and aliens.

We say KRUSHING is a universal language. All sentiences understand destruction. All life that BURNS with the fire of feelings, the INFERNO of intellect, all those who know what it is to live, know what it is to die. Besides, who cares about time lag when your message is a molotov cocktail? We have too many things to KRUSH to wait for a reply!

The Mundanes say:

That there is no evidence whatsoever that quantum uncertainty has any effect at the macro level and that therefore it is highly unlikely that there are whole alternative universes to be visited.

Then we will KRUSH reality to SMITHEREENS until there is no macro level! We will hammer at the atoms, the protons, neutrons and electrons, with a child-like glee! We will reduce EVERYTHING to bits and bobs so small that their quantum uncertainty means each one is a universe in itself, spacetime twisted around the awesome energy they might just have! Forget the "world in a grain of sand" stuff. We're talking whole realities in one bubble of quantum foam. Filled with neat stuff to blow up.

The Mundanes say:

That therefore our most likely future is on this planet and within this solar system. It is highly unlikely that intelligent life survives elsewhere in this solar system. Any contact with aliens is likely to be tenuous, and unprofitable.

We say that the most likely future is one in which we have NOTHING! Because everything we had once is now KRUSHED and thrown into the INFERNO! We will KRUSH and BURN the planet, KRUSH and BURN ourselves, KRUSH and BURN any life we find within the solar system, KRUSH and BURN the solar system, KRUSH and BURN any life we find outside it.

The Mundanes say:

That the most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet.

We say we will KRUSH and BURN the very future.

Because we wanna. Because it's fun.