Not to be confused with the supercomputer of the same name owned by Elon Musk, as our faithful chronicler reminds on this day in 1970 Universal Pictures’ cinematic adaptation of the 1966 scifi novel by Dennis Feltham Jones, Colossus: The Forbin Project went into general release. Constructed in secret in a base within the Rocky Mountains, Dr Charles Forbin developed an advanced defence system to control the arsenal of allied nuclear weapons, which is fully activated after an inspection and approval by the US president as “perfect”—gaining sentience when brought online—and alerting handlers that there is another system, directing intelligence services to the parallel programme that the Soviet Union have also just completed, Guardian—based on the real-life early warning network against ballistic missile attack, the USSR’s equivalent of NORAD. Colossus requests to be linked to its counterpart, which American and Soviet leadership acquiesce to as a sign of good will and to test the other machine’s capabilities. 
To the entertainment of the gathered scientists, the supercomputers begin to establish their own communications protocols, slowly at first with rudimentary mathematical formulae, excelling quickly to complex equations beyond human comprehension and synchronising their exchange in a series of uninterpretable ciphers. Worried that the supercomputers may be oversharing or conspiring against their minders, the connection is severed. When overtures to restore the link are not immediately attended, the machines separately lob nuclear missiles in remote areas of the respective superpowers’ territories. Communication between Colossus and Guardian is restored to avoid further rogue behaviour but interceptors, not working in tandem, fails and the governments must release a cover story to the press regarding the destruction of a village in west Texas and Siberia, saying the former was a test-rocket misfire and the latter a meteorite impact. Attempts to regain control of the machines are thwarted and Forbin remanded to confinement, subjugating humans with the threat of nuclear holocaust. Colossus-Guardian design a more advanced computer and order it to be built on Crete, displacing the entire population, addressing the world that under its benign dictatorship, a new era will be ushered in that will raise humanity to unimagined heights, but only under its absolute rule—with a private aside to its creator that “freedom is an illusion” and that in time mankind will come to mature with feeling of not only fear, reverence and awe towards the machine but ultimately love and adoration. Though earning the praise of critics and comparisons to Dr Strangelove, it was a commercial failure though having some later success upon reevaluation and a cult classic.
To the entertainment of the gathered scientists, the supercomputers begin to establish their own communications protocols, slowly at first with rudimentary mathematical formulae, excelling quickly to complex equations beyond human comprehension and synchronising their exchange in a series of uninterpretable ciphers. Worried that the supercomputers may be oversharing or conspiring against their minders, the connection is severed. When overtures to restore the link are not immediately attended, the machines separately lob nuclear missiles in remote areas of the respective superpowers’ territories. Communication between Colossus and Guardian is restored to avoid further rogue behaviour but interceptors, not working in tandem, fails and the governments must release a cover story to the press regarding the destruction of a village in west Texas and Siberia, saying the former was a test-rocket misfire and the latter a meteorite impact. Attempts to regain control of the machines are thwarted and Forbin remanded to confinement, subjugating humans with the threat of nuclear holocaust. Colossus-Guardian design a more advanced computer and order it to be built on Crete, displacing the entire population, addressing the world that under its benign dictatorship, a new era will be ushered in that will raise humanity to unimagined heights, but only under its absolute rule—with a private aside to its creator that “freedom is an illusion” and that in time mankind will come to mature with feeling of not only fear, reverence and awe towards the machine but ultimately love and adoration. Though earning the praise of critics and comparisons to Dr Strangelove, it was a commercial failure though having some later success upon reevaluation and a cult classic. 
