NationStates Jolt Archive

Near the edges of the former Angmar, Daedalia Planum, replicators chewed their way through metal and rock, storing away high technology like packrats wherever they found it.

But a problem arose. Never before had so many such beings been used in one place and at one time. Sheer numbers made errors... probable. As the replicators destroyed the former missile compounds, error compounded generation after generation, with no way to stop it, until one, then two, then four were completely oblivious to their intended purpose. They only made more of themselves, and, unable any longer to recognize the former models as their own kind and vice versa, began to compete to destroy each other, transforming the subarean speleoscape into the realization of Grey Goo....

As with a biotic ecosystem, variation in the populations leads to evolution by natural selection. And evolve the micrites did. Two or three gained an error that caused them to gain energy from fission fragments, and these clustered and reproduced around unfound weapons and irradiated materials, growing like molds across the deadly materials. Others remembered their original ability to bind with each other, forming simple conglomerations, steadily becoming more and more complex with each passing day-long generation. Spreading rapidly, the Goo soon found its way back to the surface. Mechanobacterial mats spread across the ground like sheets of photoelectric panels, soaking up solar radiation to feed the mechosystem. A few discovered the trick of increasing surface area with fronds, and soon blueish-silver ferns were popping up in northern Daedalia. For a short while, 'animals' scavenged the sessile 'plants' for raw materials, until these were outcompeted by commensal varieties that took electricity directly from the grid. With neurons operating in the radio range, slowly evolving nervou systems began communicating with each other over distances, molding together into one vast optronic brain.

OOC: Very good, I like it. Another mechano nation, eh?
Do stay, most AI nations end up ditching after a few days.