Transmission rate of grey goo across the universe

[newjerseyrunner]

If I imagine an interplanetary fight between two early races (the universe is about 8 billion years old) and one of them invents a super weapon to extinct the other. The weapon is a grey goo weapon, a swarm of billions of machines, each with the ability to bend light around it to cloak itself, each with the ability to convert matter to energy and back again (a star trek replicator) and has very simple programming:

Find Absorbable Matter
Move to Matter, avoiding obstacles
Absorb Matter
If (amountOfMatter > matterNeededForReplication){
     Replicate
}
Loop

It'd be an effective weapon and unleashed on a planet could overwhelm a population and continue forever. If the robots can fly through space though, it's a big problem. It was designed to seek out even point light sources as potential matter gathering locations, assuming that their enemy would attempt to flee on ships. If they can travel through the stars, they'd be like an unstoppable virus. Given a million years, they'd eat everything in a galaxy, in a billion, they'd eat everything in their entire galactic cluster. Then with nothing left to eat (they can't eat stars) they go dormant. Then billions of years later, another species evolves and tries to make sense of the universe that it sees. It sees stars and does calculations, and realizes that it can't see most of the matter in the universe and calls it dark matter, as they try harder and hard to figure out what it is, they risk awakening a dormant monster.

I've heard calculations that even without breaking the speed of light, humans could colonize the entire galaxy in only five million years, but I've also heard that'd forever be our limit. Why? Is that an assumption that we simply wouldn't want to make the long journey to nearby satellite galaxies and beyond, or are the distances that much further? Andromeda is only 20 times the diameter of the milky way away from us?

 

[OCR]

If I imagine...

You and K. Eric Drexler, huh ? ...LolWriting: Input Wanted... You should be very, very careful here... It could be a really dark matter, if Drexler put

some ice-nine in your story! ...

 

[Czcibor]

Does it have good enough engine to combat gravity well of a planet towards which it was dropped?

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Does it have good enough engine to combat gravity well of a planet towards which it was dropped?

Sure, they eat matter and change it to other types of matter at will, they have plenty of power. It has a space ramjet, that operates on laws of physics well beyond our understanding. They essentially pull the space in front of them, and expand it behind them. They are capable of directly warping space, so gravity is no obstacle to it. It leaves a trail of slightly expanded space behind the spacecraft . This causes the universe as a whole to appear to expand. As they awaken from their billions year slumber, and engines start getting turned on in the trillions of trillions of trillions, the expansion appears to accelerate. We call that mysterious force dark energy.

 

[Khatti]

To what extent are your little bugs programmed to clump together? To what extent are they programmed to repel each other? Normal physics would suggest that they would drift until they fell into the next gravity well that wasn't a star, and then the food-eating contest would be on again? I'm in the "None of us are here to have this discussion" camp.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

They're a weapon, but also very intelligent. At least as intelligent as humans but without the individuality and sense of self. In large groups they produce a hive mentality, they are essentially a self replicating army, not a dumb weapon. It's used like this: the species approaches a new star system with an alien species on it. They observe it and discover that they don't worship the same gods as the species with the weapon, so they obliterate the planet, they launch their weapon at it and sit and wait to give the order to recall them. In the group, the communicate and coordinate with each other. Even separated by years of travel and communication time, they are smart enough to coordinate a galaxy filled with them.

One time, they attacked a species that was stronger than it looked. They accidentally encountered a small colony of a much larger empire like them, the war was brutal and lasted a long time, perhaps both of these species had passed the technology singularity and lived thousands of years. As the defensive empire starts to win the war, the conquerers start getting desperate, they hadn't been vulnerable in millions of years. They spread their weapon throughout the galaxy, giving it orders to destroy anything that wasn't them.

For millions of years, this war raged on, each developing more and more powerful grey goo weapons to produce bigger robotic armies. Eventually' the damage to both sides was so great that their civilizations collapsed. Now there was nobody left to disarm the weapons. The weapons continued the automated war until one side overwhelmed the other. After millions of years of fighting, the galaxy had been essentially purged, no one else had the technology yet to survive in the middle of it. Only the weapons remained, out there, dormant, with billion year old orders to destroy anything it sees.

 

[Khatti]

Nanoberserkers...Hmmm, nasty! But I'm missing something here, are these things capable of--for lack of a better term--space flight? STL? FTL? If we're talking FTL then the time spectrum we're talking about is millions of years; maybe only hundreds of thousands of years. Even if left to drift passively in space they still have the ability to expand exponentially.

 

[Czcibor]

OK, so in this case you have to make a calculation:
-what's such device delta V
-how long it would take them after hitting a planet to spread further

From those assumptions, you could make a reasonable rate of spreading.

Anyway, such hive don't mutate? No problem of devices failing to communicate and within one group considering each other as enemy? (I mean speed of light puts limit on communication and coordination within any space empire)

 

[Khatti]

Anyway, such hive don't mutate? No problem of devices failing to communicate and within one group considering each other as enemy? (I mean speed of light puts limit on communication and coordination within any space empire)

Yeah I was thinking about that too. Would these things remain static for millions of years, or would they evolve or change in some way? In the same span of time planet Earth has seen everything from single cell organisms to dinosaurs to us.

 

[Czcibor]

Yeah I was thinking about that too. Would these things remain static for millions of years, or would they evolve or change in some way? In the same span of time planet Earth has seen everything from single cell organisms to dinosaurs to us.

Honestly? Cell in your organism are programmed that in case of noticing some serious mutations they would commit suicide, to protect the organism from cancer. Noticed problems would be also exterminated by immune system... regardless of that...

Here is even funnier, because AI would be able to redesign itself to fulfil its role better. The "evolution" can happen within a few years.

So within game we have:
-light speed which make any far away communication impossible and makes empire collapse
-robot ability to redesign
-evolution that prefer the fittest (it doesn't matter whether only on one planet a high tech redesign rebellion start, if it achieve a serious tech edge it would start devouring its weaker goo)
-singularity
-huge time scales

Conclusion:
-eternal war
-AI civilizations appearing and collapsing

Transmission rate of space settling ships would be then quite high, whoever invents them first would get a short term evolutionary advantage.

 

[Khatti]

Conclusion:
-eternal war
-AI civilizations appearing and collapsing

Yes...I just can't imagine any scenario where we are not around to have this discussion. I'm not really sure what newjerseyrunner has in mind: is this some sort of Science Fictional equivalent of a Conan story? Flash Gordon enters the crypt of deep space and awakes the little nanoberserkers and chaos ensues. The impression I get is that he (or she) is thinking of using this goo as the explanation for Dark Matter. Cool...if any of us are here to appreciate it.

 

[mfb]

Only the speed of spacecraft s will limit expansion speed.

Then billions of years later, another species evolves and tries to make sense of the universe that it sees. It sees stars and does calculations, and realizes that it can't see most of the matter in the universe and calls it dark matter, as they try harder and hard to figure out what it is, they risk awakening a dormant monster.

Sure, they eat matter and change it to other types of matter at will, they have plenty of power. It has a space ramjet, that operates on laws of physics well beyond our understanding. They essentially pull the space in front of them, and expand it behind them. They are capable of directly warping space, so gravity is no obstacle to it. It leaves a trail of slightly expanded space behind the spacecraft . This causes the universe as a whole to appear to expand. As they awaken from their billions year slumber, and engines start getting turned on in the trillions of trillions of trillions, the expansion appears to accelerate. We call that mysterious force dark energy.

I would avoid connections to the actual universe. Grey goo matter would look massively different from the dark matter in our universe, and the expanding space thing just does not make sense. Also, expansion happens mainly at points of low dark matter density, and not at all within galaxies.

 

[Khatti]

I would avoid connections to the actual universe. Grey goo matter would look massively different from the dark matter in our universe, and the expanding space thing just does not make sense. Also, expansion happens mainly at points of low dark matter density, and not at all within galaxies.

I should point out that I was only speculating on whether or not newjerseyrunner was planning to use his nanoids as an explanation for dark matter. I don't know what he actually has in mind.

 

[Czcibor]

Yes...I just can't imagine any scenario where we are not around to have this discussion. I'm not really sure what newjerseyrunner has in mind: is this some sort of Science Fictional equivalent of a Conan story? Flash Gordon enters the crypt of deep space and awakes the little nanoberserkers and chaos ensues. The impression I get is that he (or she) is thinking of using this goo as the explanation for Dark Matter. Cool...if any of us are here to appreciate it.

Crypt? I don't like this idea, if you have an ability to expand then you expand instead of staying in crypt. That what the fittest goo would do. ;)

Otherwise, if its really intended not to evolve, then I'd mention in the story some high tech safety mechanism, which prevents any copy error. Intended to protect winner of goo war, from a rogue goo.

 

[Khatti]

Otherwise, if its really intended not to evolve, then I'd mention in the story some high tech safety mechanism, which prevents any copy error. Intended to protect winner of goo war, from a rogue goo.

Exactly. There would be a reason why the goo has stayed static for millions of years.

 

[Khashishi]

Sounds a little far fetched, but it could still make an interesting story. How do you intend to handle the second law of thermodynamics?

 

[Khatti]

Sounds a little far fetched, but it could still make an interesting story. How do you intend to handle the second law of thermodynamics?

There is that diet of non-solar bodies that keep these little beasts fed. At some point of course all other astral bodies would be gone and they would either completely shut down or would start feeding on each other. I suppose that this state of affairs could be the first sign of real entropy. My problem, that planet Earth would be among those bodies initially devoured, makes concerns of entropy irrelevant as a story item.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

There is that diet of non-solar bodies that keep these little beasts fed. At some point of course all other astral bodies would be gone and they would either completely shut down or would start feeding on each other. I suppose that this state of affairs could be the first sign of real entropy. My problem, that planet Earth would be among those bodies initially devoured, makes concerns of entropy irrelevant as a story item.

No, only until they can't see any more food. If it happens to come across a cloud of space dust, it'll eat it, but it won't actively find it unless it's emitting enough radiation to be seen from a great distance, it's also been billions of years since they went quiet. Their AI directs them to travel towards the brightest object it can see, but also weighs the known density of fellow bots so that they all don't end up at the same spot. They also have memories and the ability to chart, so they aren't simply drawn like a moth to a flame. For example, if they came into our solar system, the inner parts of the solar system would be obliterated, but because things are so dim out at the oort cloud, they'd only be able to really eat that if they stumble across it randomly. It'll be programmed to specifically look for fast moving sources of light, as it's origin was a search and destroy weapon. It wasn't designed to clear matter, it was designed to destroy civilizations, most of which live in the inner parts of their solar systems.

 

[Khatti]

For example, if they came into our solar system, the inner parts of the solar system would be obliterated, but because things are so dim out at the oort cloud, they'd only be able to really eat that if they stumble across it randomly. It'll be programmed to specifically look for fast moving sources of light, as it's origin was a search and destroy weapon. It wasn't designed to clear matter, it was designed to destroy civilizations, most of which live in the inner parts of their solar systems.

This really doesn't refute my argument. The only thing that I can see saving our butts is if they showed up so early in the origin of the solar system that the Earth was either not even formed yet or was in the early stages of forming. No point in devouring a molten ball. Also, if said molten ball was in the habitable zone for the folks who created the grey goo they might program the goo to leave it alone. They might want to move in later when the ball cools down.

To be honest with you, I'm reaching the point where I'm beginning to have (not always productive) thoughts on how I would use this stuff. One thought that occurs to me is that the goo would look something like an ant colony: some of the goo would be specialized fighters; some of the goo would be sensors; some of the goo would be little brains; some of the goo would be the space drive unit. It doesn't seem likely that every mote of this stuff would be generalized like a human being, the components are just too small. Also how smart is smart with these things? Are they aware that their creators are gone? If so what does the goo think about that?

 

[Drakkith]

If the robots can fly through space though, it's a big problem. It was designed to seek out even point light sources as potential matter gathering locations, assuming that their enemy would attempt to flee on ships. If they can travel through the stars, they'd be like an unstoppable virus. Given a million years, they'd eat everything in a galaxy, in a billion, they'd eat everything in their entire galactic cluster. Then with nothing left to eat (they can't eat stars) they go dormant. Then billions of years later, another species evolves and tries to make sense of the universe that it sees. It sees stars and does calculations, and realizes that it can't see most of the matter in the universe and calls it dark matter, as they try harder and hard to figure out what it is, they risk awakening a dormant monster.

I don't quite understand. Are these machines around every star in every galaxy they can get to? When a new star forms do they seek it out? It is, after all, a point-source of light. How would any species every be able to evolve in any of these galaxies?

 

[newjerseyrunner]

I don't quite understand. Are these machines around every star in every galaxy they can get to? When a new star forms do they seek it out? It is, after all, a point-source of light. How would any species every be able to evolve in any of these galaxies?

Yes, they would swarm through an entire galaxy. If a new star forms, or is even in the process of forming while this weapon is active, they will seek it out. They can communicate at the speed of light and are very efficient at transferring large amounts of data back and forth to each other. They observe things as they go and communicate with the rest of the group things they observe. For example, if a bot near the edge of the milky way were to get a glimpse of andromeda while on it's way to a closer, brighter star, it would relay that information back to the rest of the swarm. Other swarm members may have also seen andromeda, and they knew their position in the galaxy when they saw it. From the parallax they are able to determine if something is not reachable. A few bots may have headed in andromeda's direction before others figured out it was too far away, but they would go dormant after traveling to too long. They can store a massive amount of energy, can fly at near light speed for a hundred years or so, more than enough to get to a nearby food supply, but not enough to infect other galaxies.

Other things can evolve only after the galaxy essentially reseeds itself. After a hundred million years or so, the swarm would have eaten everything, and they would communicate that to others. They know where there is food and where there isn't and as they keep getting information eventually there will be nothing left in their reach, and they will go into power saving mode. They have no concept that once they go to sleep for a while, the galaxy will change. Once they go into power saving mode, they monitor things, listening for signals from others in the swarm or specific circumstances to come back online, like a ship nearby. A handful of them may get activated from time to time, but as far as they know from their memories, the galaxy is devoid of food so it goes right back to sleep. Their ability to adapt to change was predicated on the fact that there was a large number of them with their own sensors constantly updating their collective map, with everyone sleeping, no one knows the galaxy has changed. Life can evolve as more supernova seed the galaxy, remember that the species that built these were one of the first, during a time where stars exploded much more frequently than now, and there would have been plenty of dust left over because they can't eat what they can't see. Dark matter (meaning regular matter that's not lit or hot) is invisible to it.

 

[Drakkith]

Okay, so once they go dormant they won't seek out new stars that form during their dormancy.

Dark matter (meaning regular matter that's not lit or hot) is invisible to it.

Remember that dust is frequently hot enough to radiate in the infrared band.

They can store a massive amount of energy, can fly at near light speed for a hundred years or so, more than enough to get to a nearby food supply, but not enough to infect other galaxies.

Why is there a limit to how far they can fly? Once their acceleration to near lightspeed is over with they just coast the rest of the way. Can they not shut down for the duration of the trip?

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Why is there a limit to how far they can fly? Once their acceleration to near lightspeed is over with they just coast the rest of the way. Can they not shut down for the duration of the trip?

Ok, so I'll change it a little, they will have three mode: Active, Coasting, and Dormant. When active, they use their engines and all of their computing power. When they are going long distances, they prepare themselves by shutting down non-essential systems: the replicator, their legs... Once they reach full speed, they shut off their engines too, but they still have to communicate, maneuver, scan ahead of them, keep up maintenance, and think. That's what can last 100 years without refueling, beyond that it has to start shutting other systems down too. Maybe some bots headed out towards Andromeda, but without matter to munch on on the way, they'd quickly start shutting down systems. The bots that would actually make it would have gone dormant before it got anywhere near it's destination. Once dormant, they only wake up if activated by a proximity sensor, or an instruction from the swarm. So billions of years ago, bots raced towards our nearest galaxy neighbours, but went to sleep on the way. Most of the galaxy being empty space, when it finally got there, it sailed clean through it, never getting close enough to anything to reactive.

 

[mfb]

Somehow the drone design becomes less and less intelligent.

 

[Drakkith]

Most of the galaxy being empty space, when it finally got there, it sailed clean through it, never getting close enough to anything to reactive.

That seems like a pretty big design flaw. Any drones capable of interstellar flight would have to be complex enough to find out the distance to their target, flight time, and be able to calculate gravitational interactions of various stellar bodies over the course of the flight. I can't imagine their designers somehow not programming them to keep track of all this during their dormancy state. If they don't, then what was the point of the dormancy state anyways? It certainly doesn't seem to accomplish anything if it allows for the swarm of drones to just float there without any sort of navigational correction or even a simple timer to wake them up.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

That seems like a pretty big design flaw.

Not really, it wasn't designed to cross galaxies, it wasn't even expected to reach more than a few dozen light years. It was a genocide weapon built by a species who hadn't had any resistance in millions of years. They had become arrogant and believed that they would never have any trouble controlling their weapon. They would release it around a star system or a handful of them, let them do their dirty work, then shut the weapon down. Most species were obliterated in minutes, but even huge space empires didn't take much more than a thousand years and a hive a hundred light years across. They had a cutoff switch, and it didn't pose a threat to them, so they saw no reason to limit it's abilities, they had no regard for what would happen if the weapon were released and they weren't there. Nobody cares about what happens once they are dead.

Considering that these machines self produce, the cost of building more is almost zero. Designers wouldn't care how much waste there was as long as the job got done. They also wouldn't really care what happened to lost bots that got really far away, it's not close to the war and there is no cost to make more. Humans have thrown tons of junk into space with no care where it ends up. Voyager has a nuclear battery right? If in a million years it smashes into an inhabited world, won't it burn up in the atmosphere and blanket the entire planet in radioactive material? That's a factor of a thousand times longer than mission designers cared about.

Same thing, if they designed it with an expected mission time of a thousand years max, even ten thousand to be safe, engineers wouldn't really care what happens to it over millions, it's a factor of a thousand.

 

[mfb]

If you don't care what happens over millions of years and don't design the devices for that timescale, then your devices won't work after millions of years.
Oh, and I doubt any species able to make those drones would include such obvious design flaws. Humans wouldn't, and we are nowhere close to the ability to make autonomous replicating interstellar drones.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Rather than the obvious design flaws why not make dormancy part of their programming? Their makers could program them to replicate and swarm with the idea of using them as a weapon against an enemy. But cautious of not wanting to destroy the galaxy (that they themselves live in) they programmed the swarm with a shut off mode. Perhaps if an individual unit goes a certain amount of time with no encounter with the enemy it broadcasts to the others and goes dormant. After the war was over they would all shut down eventually.

Fast forward a few million years; one of these dormant units begins to receive radio transmissions. After a few years of listening its systems cause it to activate. It's well designed but there's been degradation. All that leads to it to determine that these signals are from the enemy. It fully wakes up and charges, transmitting to any other element of the swarm. When the others receive the transmission they repeat the war cry and head to nearby systems to replicate before charging the source of the radio transmission.

Of course the source of the transmissions aren't the ancient enemy...they're humans...totally, unprepared humans.

 

[Drakkith]

It was a genocide weapon built by a species who hadn't had any resistance in millions of years.

So why does it devour all material to replicate? Does the species who built it not want the real estate left behind by their now dead enemies?

They also wouldn't really care what happened to lost bots that got really far away, it's not close to the war and there is no cost to make more.

I'd think the possibility that these drones are going to devour the entire galaxy unless a kill-command is transmitted would be a serious motivation to make them care about what happens to these lost drones.

Voyager has a nuclear battery right? If in a million years it smashes into an inhabited world, won't it burn up in the atmosphere and blanket the entire planet in radioactive material? That's a factor of a thousand times longer than mission designers cared about.

Sure. Voyager 1 and 2 use Plutonium 238 in their RTG's. In a million years it would have decayed to various isotopes of Uranium, Thorium, and other heavy elements. But the Voyager spacecraft aren't self-replicating machines with the ability to devour all matter. At that point they are just hunks of inert metal with a slowly decaying, useless power source traveling on ballistic trajectories through the galaxy. The chances of either spacecraft colliding with any planet, let alone an inhabited one, are astronomically small.

Rather than the obvious design flaws why not make dormancy part of their programming?

I was under the impression that the dormancy was already part of their programming. It's the 'launch yourself into intergalactic space without a way to wake up and stop when you reach your destination' that wasn't.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

So why does it devour all material to replicate? Does the species who built it not want the real estate left behind by their now dead enemies?

Not really, they can call their bots back to them and melt them down for energy themselves. They would have little interest in planets at all other than as a source of matter. Planets are randomly sized with random atmosphere, their ships are precision built with no waste.

I'd think the possibility that these drones are going to devour the entire galaxy unless a kill-command is transmitted would be a serious motivation to make them care about what happens to these lost drones.

Again, why? It's a guarantee. Submit or die, even if you defeat us, our weapons will still obliterate you. Humans did the same thing. Communists over there, capitalists over there, either side flinches and we'll wipe out the entire planet. We developed nuclear and biological weapons that could cause our own extinction and render our planet barely habitable for hundreds of years, and rigged them to go off if they thought their side was gone. And after millions or billions of years, they would be arrogant and believe that they were invincible, even to their own creations.

I was under the impression that the dormancy was already part of their programming. It's the 'launch yourself into intergalactic space without a way to wake up and stop when you reach your destination' that wasn't.

That's probably better, I had the idea originally that they simply wouldn't be aware of the great distances involved and head out anyway, but with even a small number of them spread out, there would be enough parallax information to start mapping distances before anything started heading out.

 

[Drakkith]

Again, why? It's a guarantee. Submit or die, even if you defeat us, our weapons will still obliterate you. Humans did the same thing. Communists over there, capitalists over there, either side flinches and we'll wipe out the entire planet. We developed nuclear and biological weapons that could cause our own extinction and render our planet barely habitable for hundreds of years, and rigged them to go off if they thought their side was gone. And after millions or billions of years, they would be arrogant and believe that they were invincible, even to their own creations.

Parallels to modern history aside, we're talking about a weapon that literally devours all non-stellar matter it can get its grubby, robotic hands on. If let loose there wouldn't be any planets in the galaxy left to colonize. That may not be an issue considering this race has the technology to destroy and create matter at will, but in such a case I have to question what possible motivation this race has to create this weapon in the first place. Matter-energy conversion technology would allow the creation of an unimaginably vast number of 'conventional' weapons and would itself be potentially one of the most powerful weapons imaginable depending on the details of its operation and deployment.

That being said, there's no need to go into these kinds of details if you just want a weapon like you've described and don't care to get into all the moral/technical implications and all that.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

They aren't colonists, this is a K2 almost K1 civilization, they don't care about planets, they only care about stars. They consider non K2 level civilizations to be like insect colonies. A human civilization on a planet isn't an enemy, or a potential trade partner, it's an infestation. When dealing with a civilization that's had no resistance for millions of years, it wouldn't even be fair to classify this as a weapon of war, more like an extermination and cleanup tool. A war implies some sort of fighting, they wage "war" on undeveloped species the way you wage "war" on termites. Humans and Earth to a civilization like this would simply be in the way, or a potential threat in the future that they might as well get rid of now.