A short story by CharlieStross. What if the Cold War had been fought, not with the threat of nukes, but with the threat of GreatCthulhu? - http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm EText "There is probably no way of explaining Project Koschei, or X__K-P__L__U__T__O, or M__K-N__I__G__H__T__M__A__R__E, or the gates, without watering them down into just another weapons system -- which they are not. Weapons may have deadly or hideous effects, but they acquire moral character from the actions of those who use them. Whereas these projects are indelibly stained by a patina of ancient evil ..." It fits very cleverly into the HPLovecraft universe; in particular, it follows the obvious extrapolation of AtTheMountainsOfMadness: what if the narrator's warning went unheeded, and further expeditions went to the Antarctic? What if, rather than all being destroyed, some finally brought back alien technology, including the shoggoths? What if, decoding the dioramas on the walls, men dived to the bottom of the Baltic, to RLyeh itself, and brought back something even worse, the ultimate weapon, the final horror. Now _that_'s Mutual Assured Destruction. As well as meshing well with the CthulhuMythos, it has a beautiful meshing with consensus reality; Stross ties the creatures of the mythos to the fossils of the BurgessShale (as explained by Stephen Jay Gould in a cameo appearance), and associates the lake beneath the Old Ones' city with LakeVostok. The horrific, supernatural weapon systems go by classic US black-project names like X__K-P__L__U__T__O, M__K-N__I__G__H__T__M__A__R__E and F__E__V__E__R D__R__E__A__M, and are under the command of one Colonel Oliver North. Even Saddam Hussein puts in an appearance! Fucking brilliant. -- TA Do the gates come from Lovecraft, or are they Stross' own creation? Are N__I__G__H__T__M__A__R__E and F__E__V__E__R D__R__E__A__M ever explained? CategoryShortStory