Challenging images of universal vaccination

Crafting an Exit Strategy from Universal Vaccination Failure (Part #2)

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | Refs ]

---

Whilst they may reflect individual perceptions of vaccination requirements, the following caricatures are clearly inadequate to collective imagination of universal vaccination, as discussed separately (Jabbercovid from the Jabberplex: in celebration of the jabber strategy ensuring a jab-for-all as a global panacea, 2020). Reference to the hunt for Lewis Carroll's nonsense beast, the Jabberwock, does however offer a means of framing other virtual wars based on flimsy evidence, as argued by Binoy Kampmark with respect to the Global War on Terrorism -- known as the GWOT (The Messianic Failure: Pursuing the GWOT Jabberwock, Australian Independent Media Network, 11 September 2021).

Speculative representations of Jabbercovid
Adapted from the original illustration of the Jabberwocky by John Tenniel (1871)	Produced by David Avocado Wolfe of Memedrops

Since the strategic response to the pandemic has been framed by many authorities as a "war" -- to the point of invoking wartime emergency measures -- it is appropriate to consider how extraordinary warfare has been framed in the popular imagination following the The War of the Worlds (1897) by H. G. Wells, and to its many subsequent adaptations.

Authorities could, for example, now be seen as having effectively positioned themselves like the extraterrestrial Daleks of science fiction (below left). The Daleks appeared in the UK TV science fiction series Dr Who from 1963. Their simplistic response to opponents -- Exterminate --  entered popular culture over subsequent decades. With the call of authoritarian science to repress all arguments which contradict its own in mainstream discourse, there is a delightful irony to the degree to which that is coming to resemble the call to exterminate.

By contrast, given its role in the popular imagination, it is appropriate to ask whether the Death Star (a galactic superweapon featuring in the Star Wars space-series since 1977) is indicative of imagery of value to depiction of universal vaccination. Since its first appearance, the Death Star has become a cultural icon. As the images below suggest, it could well be imagined that the primary weapon of the Death Star was inspired by the design of that of the Daleks -- as well as bearing a degree of resemblance to the vaccination needle.

Images of extraterrestrial weapons from science fiction
Dalek from Dr Who (animation)	Death Star of Star Wars
	Prototype	As featured in films
Adapted from Wikipedia	Reproduced from Starwars Fandom Wookieepedia	Reproduced from Wikipedia

As presented, the Death Star image is however also of limited relevance in that it is designed to destroy other planets in the universe. More relevant would be images of operation of a technology whose "universal" impact is focused on the planet Earth through vaccination of its whole population -- with "shot" an especially unfortunate metaphor. The following animations are suggestive in that respect -- using contrasting design options. They are also consistent with the invasive surveillance technology scheduled to accompany such targetting.

Imaginative animations of universal vaccination on Earth

The Star Wars mythology has the  Galactic Empire as constructor of the Death Star to eradicate all opposition to its hegemony. The opposition in the form form of the Rebel Alliance takes advantage of the one weakness of the Death Star. This is an exhaust port which, when hit with a precise shot, triggers a chain reaction throughout the station's entire infrastructure. Asserted to be a fundamental threat to the "Empire", are the "unvaccinated" thereby framed as the "Rebel Alliance"?

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | Refs ]