This article contains spoilers for Future State: Dark Detective #2 by Matthew Rosenberg, Mariko Tamaki, Carmine Di Diandomenico, and Dan Mora.
Future State - uncovering just how they neutralized so many of Gotham's greatest vigilantes and villains. DC's Future State initiative presents a harrowing vision of the future, and it reveals Batman is destined to lose his war for Gotham City's soul. Gotham City has become a dystopian nightmare, essentially ruled by an anti-vigilante organization called the Magistrate.
But how did the Magistrate consolidate their power so effectively? Batman has been wrestling with this riddle for years, stunned at their ability to identify his friends and enemies alike, and the efficiency with which the Magistrate neutralize potential threats. They weren't above turning Gotham's people against one another, at one point using Harley Quinn as an asset to track down villains like Professor Pyg. Still, even knowing all that, Batman sensed he was missing something.
Finally, Bruce Wayne discovers the truth in Future State: Dark Detective #2 by Matthew Rosenberg, Mariko Tamaki, Carmine Di Diandomenico, and Dan Mora. His infrared sensors detect motion, and he manages to capture one of the Magistrate's micro-drones, which are presumably patrolling the entire city. "Next-level spy tech," Batman reflects. "About the size of a small hummingbird or a really big bee." The tech was actually developed by Wayne Industries for surveillance purposes, to get into tunnels and put eyes on Gotham's nooks and crannies. Apparently micro-drones were still in development by the time of the "handed over control of Wayne Industries to Lucius Fox.
This is a modern, sci-fi take on the concept of George Orwell's surveillance state in 1984, but it's frankly even more sinister than anything Orwell could have envisioned. It's safe to assume Gotham City has been flooded with micro-drones, and that the things have identified countless crime scenes and discovered numerous secret identities. Batman suspects the drones explain how the Magistrate figured out who he really was, which resulted in an attempt to assassinate Bruce Wayne. They can't be everywhere - otherwise the Magistrate would have tracked him down again - but he has no way of knowing when he's being followed by one. He only discovered this one because its cloaking tech was malfunctioning.
Batman has always considered himself a master detective, but there's just one problem; now he's learned the truth about the Magistrate's surveillance state, there's not a lot he can do about it. Perhaps he'd have been able to defeat the micro-drones if he had the resources of Wayne Industries behind him, but those days are long gone, and he is just a ghost in the night. In this case, Batman may have finally stumbled across the one enemy he cannot defeat.
