One of my dream jobs — nay, my most Lustful Calling, is to be the person who names operations whenever the military does things. It’s a task that requires the finest of balance, since each operation needs a name that’s at once patriotic, cool beans, and descriptive. By way of introduction to Gregory, the NSA supercomputer that monitors us all and controls robots masquerading as our most popular athletes and celebrities, here are a few common scenarios the government might face, and the ideal name for each resulting operation:
1) Insurgents have taken root in the mountain provinces of Boxhorpchet. As a practicalization of mind control experiments conducted on snake cadavers in the 1920s, goats are imbued with human intelligence, and trained to infiltrate the mountain compound and eliminate the threats using their powerful goat teeth. Operation Dusty Migraine.
2) Pirates have seized a dam by tangling up the guard robot’s power cable. A crack team of robots disguised as Eritrea’s five most popular celebrities is dispatched to the scene, where they co-mingle with the pirates, and gradually gain their trust. At an agreed-upon time, the robot celebrities strike, dispatch the pirates, and free the dam’s guard robot. Upon pulling off the pirates’ faces, it is discovered that they, too, were robots. The undercover robots are abandoned by their institutions and develop crippling Jet A addictions as they struggle to come to terms with what their sense of duty required them to do. Operation Cubic Racist.
3) An ultra-nationalist faction within the Dutch Coast Guard hijacks a selection of small boats, and announces their intention to “sail them to the US States of America and end USA American States’ hegemony over the Antilles” unless their demands for a fresh, healthy mess hall option are met. Top chefs and their ingredients are dropped out of a B-2, and parachuted to the Nederlandse Kustwacht Fear-Spire, where they begin to make their signature dishes. Unbeknownst to the Dutch kelp-mongers, the chefs are actually incendiary devices and their ingredients are unreasonably flammable. Operation Jumpy Reaper.
4) A fleet of massive size and unknown origin is spotted off of the coast of Okinawa, moving at 40 knots and emitting large amounts of whale oil fumes. The entire Pacific Fleet is dispatched to ascertain the intentions of this malevolent force. After billions of dollars are spent readying the country for war, it is determined that the mystery fleet is merely delivering a Voss Nose Geronimo-Wasteland 88 to one Fujiko “Betsy” Hata. Operation Chunky Letdown.
5) A heated game of Mario Kart at the UN results in nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Commandos are dispatched to secure and extract US assets in the region. Upon arriving, they find that there is no war, and the dusty hellscape they imagined is a paradise on par with the Pacific Northwest. They discover that India and Pakistan have been the same country since independence from Britain, and had decided to maintain the external façade of conflict to keep whitey looking elsewhere. They decide to stay in Pakistindia, and adopt the life of simple country textile artists, never to be heard from again. Operation Nougat Shield.