Brink: Seeing the conspiracy everywhere

There's a very funny moment in the latest volume of Brink, the thoroughly excellent 2000ad strip by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard. The series, which features the last of humanity are clinging to existence on giant space stations packed with a despairing population, explained the origins of a word that has been used in connection with dark eldritch gods from the deep nothingness, and it turned out to be something very banal. 

It's a moment that is almost thrown away, but it's also a delightful summation of how conspiracy theories grow out of misunderstood or lost information. The series has been about how humans who have been stripped of all hope turn to sects and cults for answers, and there have been horribly clear indications that there is something supernatural going on, with words that make people literally sick, and video that turns trusted friends into murderous automatons.

But there's also a good chance that there really isn't anything there and that it's all in the collective head of the last of humanity, who are filling the gaps with their own fears and monsters, and the perversion of a technical slogan into a terrible word is the clearest indication yet. 

The big dopey conspiracy theories always fall over because human beings don't work that way - the best argument against the faked moon landings or 9/11 is that thousands of people would have to shut the fuck up about it forever, and that never, ever happens.

But in Brink, there is a voice coming up from the deep, and it could very well be something vast and monstrous, or it might just be the echoes of a depressed humanity, seeing patterns where there aren't any, unable to recognise their own cries. 

The past few years have shown us that we don't have to live on the brink of existence in the cold vacuum of space to poison our brains, but it doesn't help.