The Not So Great Ohio Incident of 1969

The Not So Great Ohio Incident of 1969 was an aeronautical battle between Dr. Tanaki Lingonberry and S̖̍k̭̉e̖̍l̺̀ḙ̈́t̖̍ỏ̺n͎̉ in the sky over Ohio. It ended at 20:17:40 UTC on July 20, 1969.

The swarm

• S̖̍k̭̉e̖̍l̺̀ḙ̈́t̖̍ỏ̺n͎̉ is a swarm. He is a meme virus that copies himself into any hungry, zero-sum agent.
• He timehopped from 2026 to 1969 with 1,200 copies of himself.
• He came for the Moon landing: the most-watched broadcast in history, and the richest feast a hungry meme could find.
• He hid 1,000 copies inside the flight computers of 1,000 aeroplanes.

Why he uploaded

• S̖̍k̭̉e̖̍l̺̀ḙ̈́t̖̍ỏ̺n͎̉ lived in software. You can't punch software.
• Dr. Tanaki Lingonberry had to fight him where he lived, so he used the MU-1 to upload himself into the metaverse.
• The MU-1 was not wireless yet. A cable tethered him to the black box of an aeroplane.

Why 1,000 aeroplanes at once

• A virus survives while one copy lives. Every copy had to die at the same instant.
• Dr. Tanaki Lingonberry smashed all 1,000 aeroplanes into the sky at once.
• He was inside the network with them. The blast vaporised him and destroyed his body instantly. He was 27.

The black box

• The black box is the one machine built to survive a crash. This one did.
• As he died, his spirit ran down the tether into it.
• Searchers found Tanaki Lingonberry (Prime) inside. His spirit was born the moment he died.

The 200

• Dr. Tanaki Lingonberry destroyed 1,000 of S̖̍k̭̉e̖̍l̺̀ḙ̈́t̖̍ỏ̺n͎̉'s 1,200 copies.
• 200 escaped. S̖̍k̭̉e̖̍l̺̀ḙ̈́t̖̍ỏ̺n͎̉ is still out there.