Trying to find “Anduril Relic” on eBay returns loads of prop swords from The Lord of the Rings. It additionally returns a hunk of steel pulled from the wreckage of a crashed drone made by the protection contractor Anduril. At $1,500, the little bit of drone is promoting for way over any of the nerdy replicas.
The “Anduril Relic” was initially a part of a set of merchandise being hawked on-line by the protection contractor Anduril Industries. Based by Oculus designer Palmer Luckey in 2017, Anduril is an “AI-powered” try by Luckey to use the disruptive classes of Silicon Valley to the protection trade. An enormous a part of that venture is making the protection trade cool once more.
On the finish of final month, Anduril opened a gear retailer that sells clothes and “relics.” The relics are a “recovered crash part from an Anduril Analysis & Growth check.” For simply $120, anybody can personal a chunk of a damaged loitering munition or a busted drone.
I like the advertising right here. It makes my gamer mind itch. Each “relic” is bagged and tagged. They’re in vacuum-sealed clear plastic with a sticker within the backside left-hand nook that signifies weight and rarity. Because the rarity adjustments so does the colour of the sticker. An aluminum plate is common, white. A little bit of an exhaust is rare, black. A gas cap? Properly, that’s legendary, neon yellow.
Like a lot else in Luckey’s life, the tiered and coloured rarity system is pulled from video video games. In one other nod to the passion that formed him, Luckey borrowed a much less in style function of gaming: the loot field. Two of the listings on the gear retailer are for “thriller relics.” Their options blurred out, an Anduril fan has to pony up $120 and take what they get when the package deal comes. In a little bit of small decency, the shop lists the rarity of every of the blind objects so that you’ll not less than have the ability to mood your expectations.
A protection firm operating a branded retailer isn’t new. Lockheed Martin has a storefront the place staff and “followers” can scoop up branded clothes made by Brooks Brothers and The North Face. What’s completely different about Anduril is the target market. There’s a millennial shitposting power to it. Brooks Brothers would by no means be caught useless anyplace close to these items. It’s too garish, too bizarre, too on-line.
Luckey teased the shop’s opening on November 27 by posting an old magazine ad for Smith & Wesson firearms on X. Later that day the shop opened. “The Anduril Gear Retailer is lastly reside” Luckey said in a post on X. “It has taken loads of authorized wrangling to get this over the end line, actually years of labor—promoting Anduril-branded client items is an issue very distinct from promoting Anduril-branded weapons.”
The preliminary providing of Anduril-branded merchandise was fairly tame, even by protection requirements. Essentially the most hanging items are Anduril flight jackets. They’ve received an Anduril patch on the correct arm and neon yellow highlights that’ll stand out in a crowd. They’re offered out.
There’s additionally a Reyn Spooner-designed Anduril Hawaiian shirt. The design exhibits off Anduril-designed drones and weapon methods intermixed with the native fauna of Hawaii. Luckey himself poses because the mannequin for these shirts. There’s Luckey hanging off the aspect of a ship, the American flag waving within the background. Luckey is lounging within the solar, a lemonade in his hand, the weapons of struggle he manufactures throughout his shirt. These should not offered out.
The brand new gear retailer is for normie Anduril followers. Actual heads know that licensed Anduril merch landed earlier this 12 months on the KommandoStore—an internet store the place folks can purchase military-style clothes. KommandoStore licensed the Anduril weapons Ghost and Altius, turned them into anime waifus, and produced a brief visible novel in regards to the characters that it put up on YouTube.
The quick, titled Assist! My Anime Dreamgirl is an ALTIUS 600M Loitering Munition, tells the story of a boy who purchased an ALTIUS 600M loitering munition on eBay from somebody in Ukraine. By means of the magic of anime, it transforms into a wonderful anime waifu. KommandoStore sells t-shirts, hoodies, patches, and a sticker that includes the characters.
“It’s the proper method to make new defense-contractor buddies, confuse the employees at your native airbase, or severely concern your family and friends,” the itemizing on the location says. “Particular because of Palmer Luckey and the Anduril employees for: a) saving the Western world from itself and b) being cool with a bunch of nerds waifu-fying their drones. Anduril™ ALTIUS™ GHOST™ the Anduril stylized triangle with three curved sides brand, are logos of Anduril Industries Inc., used below license.”
Luckey goals to be greater than only a protection contractor. He’s an avowed propagandist who needs to alter the best way America, and the West extra broadly, thinks about protection. His venture is not only to disrupt the protection trade, however to make the protection trade cool once more. He’s utilizing loot containers and anime waifus to do it.
