Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced onetime trillionaire Elon Musk, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and right-wing entrepreneur Palmer Luckey as the new heads of “Project Meridian”—a massive upcoming study on the “future of warfare.”
Hegseth made the announcement at his “State of the Force” address on Wednesday afternoon, describing the trio of Trump loyalists as “the best forecasters of future conflict.”
“There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them. So today we are leveraging a unique source of American advantage—one our adversaries do not have: our innovators, our senior leaders, and our technologists. Big thinkers and doers who will forecast the creative solution to tomorrow’s conflicts,” Hegseth said. “And that’s why today … I’m announcing Project Meridian, an effort led by America’s best minds to study the future of warfare.”
…
The original speech, untranslated:
BY THE GRACE OF THE OMNISSIAH, HEAR ME, ACOLYTES OF THE FORGE
[The Magos Dominus raises a mechadendrite, and the cogitators fall silent]
Mark well the weakness of the flesh, brothers.
The mind of the single supplicant is flawed, clouded by bias and the corruption of its own vanity. It is a heresy to let the same hand pose the question and pronounce the answer. The Machine Spirit does not sanction such folly.
Therefore, on this sacred day, we call upon a blessing denied to our foes: the holy congregation of our own innovators, our high Archmagi, and our devoted tech-adepts.
These are the great minds and tireless hands who shall divine the shape of wars yet unborn, and forge the instruments of our victory before the enemy has even dreamed of conflict.
And so, by the authority vested in me and with the sacred oils freshly applied, I proclaim the commencement of PROJECT MERIDIAN!
Let the greatest cogitators of our realm convene to peer through the veil of time and study the future of warfare itself.
[The augmetic choir swells with binary canticles]
Let the rites begin. Let the data-looms turn. Praise the Omnissiah! Praise the Machine God!
[Servo-skulls drift overhead, chanting in monotone: “01001000 01001001 01001100…”]