Freedom!

This intelligence report comes from deep inside enemy territory. There is no longer time for secrecy. This is an open letter to the people of my homeland, a warning of what is to come, and a call to arms.

For centuries we have supported our neighbours in this inhospitable land, civilizing its people with generous economic and technological gifts. Now it seems the Scotch are about to turn on their benevolent betters.

Despite our efforts to keep them divided they have now come together under a common leader and cause. You may have seen the news. In recent polls the Scotch elected a government of Scotchmen. Nationalist sentiments have been bubbling under the surface of the lochs of this land, and now they have boiled over. We must be cautious lest we get scalded.

One man has arisen as the leader of these rebels. Alex Salmond stands proud, sword held aloft, his big girl’s skirt flapping in the wind, making rabble-rousing speeches. His people adore him, devote themselves to him.

But I suspect darker forces at work. I have seen with my own eyes the unholy army gathering. Across the rolling landscape north of Gretna a stench rises. The stench of sweat, of horses, of chainmail clammy with the filth of a ten day march. And worse, the stench of oily blood, of burnt human flesh, of sacrifice.

The leaders of this army are disfigured creatures, misshapen hulks. Some say they are grown in pits, a cross between elves and goblin men. Others say they’re from Inverness. Whatever their origin, they are unnatural beings of pure hatred who strike fear into the hearts of any who stand before them.

Salmond himself is a puppet made to dance by a more potent force. Rumours abound of a new darkness. I have travelled far to discover the truth, and it is enough to chill the blood.

During the Second World War (also known as World War The Second) the Nazis undertook a secret programme of experiments. Hitler had become obsessed with the occult, and had ordered his brightest scientists to create a new breed of human. They would mix flesh with steel to create a living biomechanical vessel into which they would bind the spirits of ancient warriors. The Übersoldat.

Obviously it didn’t work, and we had to pop over to mainland Europe and give them what for. But now it would seem that a new player has entered the game. It’s a development which may prove to be our undoing and, worse, one for which I can’t help but feel partly responsible.

The ancient Celtic god of technology, Ceilidh, has been freed from his prison at Manchester university, and he’s super pissed. By which I mean he’s pissed on Tennants Super.

We were wrong to pledge our support for this creature. We were wrong about Mike James. We called him a monster for imprisoning a proud and decent deity, never realising that he was our guardian, our last defence against the darkness. Now Ceilidh is free, and has fled north, where he has completed the Nazis’ work.

There are fields Neo, endless fields, where men are no longer born. We are gro… no wait, I’m thinking of something else.

I never wanted this to happen. When I moved to Scotland I had hoped to find excitement, not terror. I left my old life behind. I had a little money, and a van full of things, and I’d hoped to become a trader, or a fighter, or a pirate. Or a software engineer for a successful medical imaging company.

And now I stand at the frontier of a war that may see the lush green countryside of my homeland overrun with possessed mechanical Glaswegians, and who wants that? It’ll be worse than the bloody Moomins.

Invasion is imminent. Only the elite will survive. My life is forefeit. A snarling ginger sea surrounds me. This will be the last message of my resistance.

But listen to me, my brothers, for there is yet one last hope. This war can’t be waged with conventional weapons. We need to fight fire with fire, chips with chips. We need a digital weapon. We need David Braben. Weaponise the Raspberry Pi. Take that computer-on-a-stick and whip Ceilidh’s ass.

At least that’s what I assume Braveheart is about, I haven’t seen it.