Robot butt coffee.

If it’s the farmers acting on their own, simple enough, I’m wrong. No issues with that.

If they were receiving support from the Russians (encouragement, incitement, materials, methods, etc.) or there was more direct involvement, the goal may be destruction and disruption as punishment for the ongoing support of Ukraine’s defense. It’s part of the Budget Day agenda so that may be their motivation. Being able to plausibly point the finger in other directions reduces the risk of consequences even if there’s a reason to suspect that they had something to do with it. Uncertainty in the immediate aftermath could buy time for their people to get out or hide while police are looking at the farmers and then they can drop hints without explicitly claiming responsibility.

My usual assumption is that anything I can think of is already in a Kremlin memo with pros and cons scribbled in the margins. Doesn’t make it true but it means I’m not surprised as often.

Clever gir- splat!

If I were in charge of the operation (calm down, Interpol, I’m not!), I’d have my people make use of the event for cover or manipulate those activists into doing it for me. Absolutely could be ordinary homegrown terrorism but Russia has been more aggressive than usual lately which, for them, is saying something.

I’ll remember: no rushing.

Who would do such a thing? They’ll have to Put in some long hours at the office to figure it out.

Non-citizen long-term residents are also included in the US.

Fine with me if it keeps them from inflicting it on the rest of us. They can have their shitty Matrix.

Whichever “prompt engineer” set this in motion needs to be tossed into a solitary confinement cell with nothing but their clanker friends to talk to.

Same reason we have a number that you call to report a suspected drunk driver but not one for somebody doing a great job following all the laws.

That’s not what apostrophes do.

Vendgeance: Exact Change

A serial killer is on the way to the electric chair and passes a drink machine. Feeling parched but with no change in his prison pocket, he starts to rock the machine in hopes of shaking something loose. He is successful but, unfortunately for him, the thing shaken loose is the entire vending machine which tips over and pins him to the floor. Busted cans spray soda and fragments of glass into his open mouth so attempts to scream for help only come out as a muffled gurgle. There’s no chance that he’ll be heard over the crackling thunder. Oh yeah, there’s a storm too.

The liquid pools and spreads until it reaches the machine’s frayed electrical cable, giving the killer his electrocution a little earlier than planned. His body goes from dying to dead right before the breaker trips, plunging the whole complex into darkness. Flashes of lightning provide spooky intermittent illumination.

The families of the people he killed had just made it into the wing with the execution viewing room when all of this is taking place. Lights flicker while they make subdued small talk. Many carry pictures or mementos to stand in for the loved ones they’ve lost to this monster. The last of them comes in and shuts the door when that circuit breaker finally gives up the ghost.

Guards find the charred corpse on the floor but it’s clearly too late to do anything. Electric locks won’t cycle until the power is back on so they can’t bring him to the infirmary anyway. Settling in for the wait, the guards absorb themselves in a game of cards by flashlight. One gets thirsty and notices the drink machine standing by the wall has two bright red LEDs shining from its control panel. Strange, he thinks, must have a battery backup…

Anyway, they’re all toast. It’s a real gorefest. More plot happens, tension and hijinks with those families from earlier too. Love sideplot with some who lost spouses. Various trinkets of the killer’s victims protect them from the machine’s attacks so they figure out that his consciousness was transferred on death.

In a final showdown, the remaining family members lure the machine into the room with the electric chair. Ghosts rise out of the photos they brought earlier and feed themselves into the power outlet in order to energize the chair. The living struggle to get straps and electrodes in position on the machine. The family member who was last to arrive earlier delivers a sick one-liner and pulls a big chunky switch to complete the circuit and put an end to the horror once and for all. The machine shudders, jolts, and smokes. A flash of lightning shows its boxy rectangular frame, another shows the man they were expecting to see in that same chair. This happens several times but not so many that it gets too boring. It’s the machine again and those red LEDs glow faintly before dimming and winking out.

The lights come back on, the chair is empty. Everyone goes home and lives happily ever after.

(Also, if anyone’s wondering why the facility was so poorly built, why the prisoner was unattended, why the machine was there, etc., it’s because horror movie logic. Don’t worry about it.)

Almost like we suck at risk assessment or something. That’s why we have a whole Wikipedia category about shark attack films but none where a vending machine is the primary antagonist. Honorable mention to the one in Maximum Overdrive that kills the coach though. Spoilers, by the way. Also this section of a Wikipedia page with a few other pop culture references.

I’m lichen their style.

US internal news.

I don’t know how the laws work for EU members but figured their home countries would be the ones most interested in what their citizens are doing. They can definitely keep the Russians stashed away somewhere and save Ukraine a handful of drones though.

Because the backflipping axe-throw technique has surprisingly few applications on the modern battlefield.

Traitors. Hope the situation is handled appropriately if they return.

Is there some reason you feel a need to use it?

I wonder what they’ll call their PAC.