Bizarre leaked Pentagon video is a science fiction story about the fut...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/bizarre-leaked-pentagon-...

SIGN IN
LITERAL MILITARY SF

Bizarre leaked Pentagon video is a science

ction story about the future of cities
Cities in 2030 will be hives of scum and villainy (plus Bitcoin and Anonymous).
ANNALEE NEWITZ - 10/28/2016, 4:56 PM

Recently we got a peek at what the Army secretly thinks is coming next for humanity. This short,
untitled lm was leaked to The Intercept after being screened as part of an Advanced Special
Operations Combating Terrorism course convened by Joint Special Operations University (JSOU).
Originally made by the Army, it's about how troops will deal with megacities in the year 2030. What's
surprising is that it acknowledges social problems that the US government usually ignores or denies.
Over at The Intercept, Nick Turse explains the lm's provenance:

The video was used... for a lesson on The Emerging Terrorism Threat. JSOU is operated by
U.S. Special Operations Command, the umbrella organization for Americas most elite
troops... Lacking opening and closing credits, the provenance of Megacities was initially
unclear, with SOCOM claiming the video was produced by JSOU, before indicating it was
actually created by the Army. It was made for an internal military audience to illuminate the
challenges of operating in megacity environments, Army spokesperson William Layer told
The Intercept in an e-mail. The video was privately produced pro bono in spring of 2014
based on Megacities and the United States Army... The producer of the lm wishes to
remain anonymous.

Turse goes on to make fun of the lms hyperbolic narrative and cheesy stock photos, which
admittedly feel like a propaganda snippet from Starship Troopers. Despite the terrible delivery,
however, the movie does some good science ction world-building. The premise is that weve
mastered urban warfare, but our tactics only work in late 20th-century cities. Megacities, which are
usually dened as urban areas with more than 15 million people, will change the game. The movie
explores what social life will be like in such places, especially after climate change has made them
more dangerous and the separation between rich and poor has been magnied beyond belief.

1 de 4

09/11/16 14:18

Bizarre leaked Pentagon video is a science fiction story about the fut...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/bizarre-leaked-pentagon-...

MUST WATCH - Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity - A Pentago...

In this video, produced by the Pentagon for its Joint Special Operations University, we learn that the future looks
like Blade Runner crossed with Hunger Games.

That's rightthe Pentagon acknowledges climate change as a serious threat. This stance is not a new
one, and it highlights a rift between the armed forces and Congress. Likewise, economic catastrophe
is tackled head-on in this video, with the military describing our class-divided future much like the
Occupy movement did. With more people living in poverty, cities will become snarls of DIY electrical
grids and ad-hoc social systems that rely on alternate forms of government and decentralized
economies.
Strikingly, the megacities the Army imagines are like something from the pages of an early William
Gibson novel. Rich people with unimaginable technologies live alongside shantytowns, and both
groups are knit together by unaligned individuals who work in the shadows on digital weapons and
social media counter-insurgencies. There, in a world where social structures will be dysfunctional,
the Army imagines a nervous system of non-state actors further eroding national security by
mingling with citizens to create new threats.
Like I said, the delivery is clunky and the imagery comes from stock photos, but whoever made this
movie is familiar with many of the concerns in the best of contemporary science ction. Plus,
lmmakers look at future disasters without inching and without pretending that climate change is a
myth. And thats why the scariest part of the lm is the fact that it offers no solutions, only more
combat. This is the dystopian military future, as imagined by the US military, where the wars go on
forever.
Listing image by Program Executive Ocer Soldier

2 de 4

09/11/16 14:18

Bizarre leaked Pentagon video is a science fiction story about the fut...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/bizarre-leaked-pentagon-...

ANNALEE NEWITZ
Annalee Newitz is the Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. She is also the author of Scatter, Adapt, and
Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, and her rst novel will be published in 2017.
EMAIL annalee.newitz@arstechnica.com // TWITTER @annaleen

READER COMMENTS

184

SHARE THIS STORY

PREVIOUS STORY

NEXT STORY

Related Stories
Sponsored Stories
Powered by

Virtual Reality
Upending the Way
Business Does
Retail [White
Paper]

What It's Really

Like to Live in
Romania
Citi Blog

Cognizant

Heres the House

Obama Will Live in
After He Moves
Out of the White
House
Mansion Global

This game will

keep you up all
night! Build your
city!
Elvenar

The Most Famous

Actress the Same
Age as You
PrettyFamous | By
Graphiq

Lindsey Vonn
Reveals Dark
Days Dating Tiger
Woods New
Secrets Inside
Their Split
Radar Online

Today on Ars

3 de 4

09/11/16 14:18

Bizarre leaked Pentagon video is a science fiction story about the fut...

RSS FEEDS
VIEW MOBILE SITE
VISIT ARS TECHNICA UK
ABOUT US

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/bizarre-leaked-pentagon-...

CONTACT US
STAFF
ADVERTISE WITH US
REPRINTS

WIRED Media Group

Use of this Site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 1/2/14) and Privacy Policy (effective 1/2/14), and Ars
Technica Addendum (effective 5/17/2012). Your California Privacy Rights. The material on this site may not be reproduced,
distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast.

4 de 4

09/11/16 14:18