Hi all, Am having trouble with a name for something in my novel. First of all, it's a thriller. And it revolves around the theft of a top-secret British military project. The novel is set in present-day. I'll give you the jist of what I have so far. - Bottom-line: It doesn't exist. Not to the general public, anyway. It's either a weapon, or a piece of technology - preferably deadly, but if it's a piece of tech, then majorly disruptive to an enemy's military readiness. - Silent, but effective - If this is to be a weapon, then it has to be silent, but deadly. Silent as in, if it's airborne then it's undetectable by enemy radar. If it's a piece of technology, then it's undetectable and will easily bypass any enemy security protocols on their computers/network/mainframe. - "Cool.", but plausible in today's world - I was watching "The Hunt for Red October" last night, and it struck me, just how cool the piece of technology was. How plausible it sounded. Now I realise that most of that is down to Tom Clancy being a bloody good writer... I'd like this idea to be similar, cool, but entirely plausible. - Portable. Not necessarily easily so, but still, portability is key - In the end, this weapon, or piece of technology, or whatever, gets pinched by an Iranian black ops unit. Whether it's carried by a single operative, or flown out by an Antonov An-225 transport aircraft. Either way, portability. - Adhere to British codename protocols - I'd prefer it to adhere to British military codename protocols. The British Armed Forces operates on a one-word name basis. For example, Op Herrick (Afghanistan combat operations). Op Telic (Iraq combat operations). Op Flavius (Special Air Service operation in Gibraltar in 198. - It can also be an acronym. But I'm struggling to formulate one in my head. The thing, doesn't have to be "Operation ---------" etc, but I'd prefer if it were given a one-word codename. Sorry if this isn't the place to put this - if so, Mods, feel free to move it. If you'd like more background information, do let me know and I'll provide you with as much as I can. Cheers, Hawky.
For an idea of a piece of technology, there's the series "Person of Interest". In the series there is a piece of technology known simply as "The Machine". After 9/11 it was created to tap into emails and cameras etc. in order to look for terrorist threats. There were two piles for the collected data; relevant and irrelevant. Crimes involving terrorisms were marked as relevant while things such as muggings against ordinary people were seen as irrelevant. This leads the characters Finch and Reese to look for and help the people who are marked by the machine as being in trouble - through the use of their social security number they are marked as being involved in something dangerous. Whether or not they are the victim or perpetrator is unknown and they have to work it out themselves. I'm not saying you should steal the idea but you could write something similar about a extremely power computer system capable of hacking into almost anything in the world - the fact it has been stolen means there is going to be a lot of trouble. Try to avoid the old super weapon trope and go for something that is less obvious. It's entirely up to you, really. You could make the dangerous MacGuffin a coffee maker, if you felt like doing it at the time.
I agree with all. You're asking a lot...haha. But, you could always go with the old bait and switch. Build up this elaborate story on the myths and rumors of what this secret weapon is; present all kinds of off-the-wall, implausible things like suitcase nukes, pocket-sized mind control devices, something to control the weather... And then when you get to the end and the Iranian's finally get their hands on the "device", it turns out to just be an empty case, and British SAS agents are waiting to arrest them. They build the entire story of this secret weapon simply to lure in the enemy and nab them. I don't know, I'm just a big fan of leading people on.
Remember the movie Pulp Fiction? If you're really stumped on how to make it match up to expectation then don't reveal it Some of the best surprises are the ones that aren't given, like the End to The Sopranos or the mystery 666 briefcase in the aforementioned Pulp Fiction Always something to keep in mind
Project "Crumpet." It's a portable recapitulater that is in effect an electronic biohazard emitter. Programmed to despoil unplatable foodstuffs, two AAA batteries could denude the entire British Isles of every morsel of nourishment. James Bond starves to death when every pair of edible panties in his Aston Martin crumbles onto his tuxedo...
A super-soldier? (give it the name of some mythical hero) Bio-weapons / custom viruses Or, combining the above, a retrovirus that creates supersoldiers... A decryption software that breaks so-called "unbreakable" codes
