Nano-plague questions

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Miramor
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Nano-plague questions

Post by Miramor »

This is treading a bit far into suspension of disbelief territory, but how is the nano-plague supposed to tell the difference between "nanotech" of organic and inorganic origins? If it targets any sort of nanoassembler, for instance, then how would it not target human ribosomes?
jackS
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Post by jackS »

Shortest version: The techbase that created the nano-plague is >= a few tens of millions of years beyond humanity's. (Invocation of Clarke's third law)

Short version: The nano-plague was created by entities that A) were sufficiently advanced that UtCS-era extant species still can't figure out how the things really work except in broad characterizations (forms colonies, probably has collective AI capabilities, reacts violently to attempts to eradicate it, individual entities operate from unknown power source, etc.) and B) apparently didn't consider most (note, not all) organics to be a target.

Spoiler-teaser version: The extant species finally figure out (some of) what the nano-plague was actually designed for (more or less) in another few centuries from the UtCS era, although they still won't know how it actually works (See, again, Clarke's third law). If you're interested in wandering into spoiler-ville, we can take further discussion of the nano-plague off-line.
Halleck
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Post by Halleck »

After reading through all the material I could find, I still did not find a concise description of what the nano-plague *is* or *does* in the context of what is known in the UtCS era.

It... eats nanites?
Miramor
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Post by Miramor »

Prevents them from working properly somehow. Like the melding plague in Alastair Reynold's (asskicking) novels, although from what I gather it's a bit more targeted and a bit less perverse.
MostlyconfusedFPSer
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Post by MostlyconfusedFPSer »

...What the hell are you talking about?
loki1950
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Post by loki1950 »

Just the history of the vegastrike universe :wink:

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MostlyconfusedFPSer
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Post by MostlyconfusedFPSer »

o....k...... *steps off camera awkwardly*
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