Brain power request

[stephbg]

Flist et al, would you be so kind as to offer a theory as to why I should wake from a snooze this afternoon with the words "Russian squirrel factory" burning in my brain like some kind of divine revelation?

I am lacking even contextual information that would indicate if the factory in question was owned by Russian squirrels, or simply manufactured them. Or any other semantic permutation for that matter. A Chinese squirrel factory churning out cheap knockoff Russian squirrels?

Help!

Comments

An explaination

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

The (not a) Russian Squirrel Factory is, indeed, a factory in Russia that produced squirrels.

This was a GRU (later KGB) project to make cybernetic psychically controlled spy squirrels. Surprisingly, this was unexpectedly successful, but was limited to information available in parks and in nut-bearing forests. As limited as this was, much useful intelligence was gathered in this fashion, especially once they established the tradition of feeding pigeons as a meeting place for spys. In order to conceal the success of the the operation, the KGB eventually had to place a number of sacrificial spys in a number of areas. They even constructed an entire spy ring in Cambridge to protect the project.

After the fall of the wall, however, the funding for the project dropped off, and the control teams eventually disbanded. Every once in a while, though, they like to attempt to contact their old proxies. Alas, they have all, by this time, died of old age, or implant rejection, leaving the controller nothing to make contact with. This results in the controller broadcasting without a target, sending the keyphrase "Russian Squirrel Factory" out into the psychosphere, where occasional dreamers might pick it up subconsciously.

And when they awake, all they have is a a curious and oddly meaningless phrase stuck in their heads.

Re: An explaination

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

Nut-bearing forests are interesting places.

That might also explain this:

Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=96850

Re: An explaination

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

Actually, that was fall-out from two other KGB projects.

The first was to develop gene-modified squirrels that would attack and feed upon the rubber components of tanks and aircraft. The plan was to release them near NATO bases in the West.

The second was the annual KGB acorn gathering for their coffee supplies.

The second grew out of all proportion after their funding was cut, and they had to further economise by baking their own acorn-flour biscuits to go with the erzatz coffee, resulting in serious nut-supply depletion in Russian forests.

The first, well, the mutation was not too stable, and rubber is pretty similar to flesh...