h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here's a thing.

Look at all these wasps, wasping around stealing catapillars and crawling into food. Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow harness their power for our own needs? For example, we could train wasps to harvest berries for us, or we could employ deadly hornets as security guards.

But wait!

What if this insect-o-manipulation power got into the wrong hands?! What if someone trained killer squadrons of wasps to assasinate people or cause havok in the streets? What if someone trained bees to only take pollon from certain plants, thus holding a monopoly on certain species, even down to the area they're being grown in?!

This would obviously be disasterous. Now I ask you: could the possible benefits outweigh the very real possibility that the world may become overtaken by killer armies of garden pests, bent on a hellish scheme of wasp-related domination?

Don't even try
If the government got hold of the knowledge, things could get ugly

Wasps have a proven malicious streak and so training them as assasins is a real possibility, in fact I have done this already and am prepared to launch my squadron of evil soon. But that's beside the point.

It remains that if wasps can be harnessed safely, possibly using a "computer chip" to control their brain-thinking then we can lead humanity to a new and higher plateau of greatness. Therefore any risk of widespread panic and massacre is worthwhile.

We need to train the wasps while theres still time!

But what of the ants - the ants, I ask you?!

They're climbing up the walls... they want to gain entrance... or at least get to this sandwich.

Ants are everywhere, the silent enemy. Only a steam gun can help us - we must act fast (someone call QVC).

Ants, though hardy have little killing abilities whereas a good wasp can take down a whole army. Steam guns won't stop wasps but I've sorted the ant problem.

But imagine you went to put on your shoe, but when you picked up the shoe you realised that in fact it was a big pile of angry ants, brainwashed into impersonating a shoe? What then? Hmm?

The ants would be ineffectual at attacking my foot and I would have to stamp them into obliteration. With wasps though the same scenario would become dangerously scary!

Aha, but you wouldn't be able to do that... if you didn't have any FEET.

Mind you, that would then pose the question: why would a feetless man own shoes? Apart from to crush ants, I mean.

This very paradox is what led me to my foreknowledge of the ant situation. Luckily I was merely pretending to have no feet and thus won the moral victory too.

Also, what would happen if someone trained beetles to crawl through the exhaust pipes of cars and into the engine? Think of the devistation. I think we may have a crisis on our hands.

This problem is spiralling out of control and I'm sickened by the apathy of the government. What we need now is a ban on the training of all insects for any purpose! We need to draw up a petition and get some others views on how to fix the evil that this monumental error by the government will create.

Agreed. I've not heard it mentioned even once in parliament - they obviously hope that the problem will "just go away". Well it won't, and they'll soon realise their mistake when they wake up one morning to discover that their house has been turned into a giant hive filled with unconcious baby lambs and shrews, carried there by super-intelligent, mutant wasps that have broken their "programming" but retained the intimate knowledge passed on to them during the brainwashing process.

This is a bad as the problems with GM Foods, it smacks of croneyism to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the people behind this training had some government contacts to help cover up this scandal. For instance I talk to some people in the street about the Wasp problem and they treat me like I'm insane, and claim never to have heard of it. Have you heard the latest news? A mutant strain of highly trained grasshopper is being used to pilot helicopters in preperation for some terrorist activity. This hasn't been confirmed yet.

The whole premise of this discussion is ridiculous: it's not insects we should be worried about, it's the armies of kamikaze gerbils and prawn commandos that are the real problem.

I'm just relieved prawns haven't learnt to survive out of water.

Or have they?

thats hardly constructive, while both of these problems you mention are terribly dangerous and require urgent action we also must cover ourselves against the armies of insects besieging this world. Only when all animal warfare is stopped will the people of the world be truly free!

I'm afraid to say that prawns have developed the power of flight due to cross-fertalisation with hummingbirds.

Oh man!

Luckily, their lifespan should be fairly short. Heh heh.

As long as they don't team up with the wasps, we'll be fine.

Sounds fishy to me...

ouch