...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Grey Goo
- 629 statements
- 119 feature instances
- 114 referencing feature instances
| Grey Goo | type |
FeatureClass | |
| Grey Goo | label |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo | page |
GreyGoo | |
| Grey Goo | comment |
Grey Goo is like a Horde of Alien Locusts, only replace Alien Locusts with Nanomachines or any other self-replicating material — and instead of grass, they "eat" anything. Or, if the protagonists are lucky, just anything mineral, metal, or electronic. They're worse than alien locusts. Grey Goo destroys resources by turning them into more grey goo — more nanomachines or whatever matter the grey goo is composed of. It's The Virus for nonliving things — though it may be able to take down living things as well, and likely will turn them into nonliving things if they're in the wrong place (i.e.: outside). In theory, you can end up with a planetary body made of nothing but grey goo. Physical laws regarding energy, thermodynamics and the like are an obstacle, but even a partial success in this case is likely to suck for everyone involved. If you want to guarantee large scale destruction with free Green Aesop implications, make your goo specifically designed to clean up oil spills so that it has a built in taste for organic compounds, and is hard to kill. Essentially always a Snowballing Threat as an antagonist. Can cause The End of the World as We Know It — typically anything up to Class X on Apocalypse How — and is very often considered a Superweapon as a result. Compare Blob Monster, Planet Eater, Explosive Breeder and Clone by Conversion. For the Real-Time Strategy game about (and playing as!) the grey goo, see Grey Goo (2015). |
|
| Grey Goo | fetched |
2024-03-21T23:46:39Z | |
| Grey Goo | parsed |
2024-03-21T23:46:39Z | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to AIIsACrapshoot: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to AWizardDidIt: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to BerserkButton: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to BigBad: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to BigGood: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to BlobMonster: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to BodyHorror: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to BrainUploading: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to EldritchAbomination: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to ExtremeOmnivore: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to HollywoodAcid: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to HumongousMecha: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to LiteralSplitPersonality: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to MatterReplicator: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to NovaPraxis: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to OmnicidalManiac: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to PoweredArmor: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to RecycledScript: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to SpaceWhale: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to SuperSmoke: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to TheTopicOfCancer: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to TheyMightBeGiants: Not an Item - IGNORE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to TrueFinalBoss: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingComment |
Dropped link to nicejobbreakingithero: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Grey Goo | processingUnknown |
Nova Praxis (Tabletop Game) | |
| Grey Goo | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| Grey Goo / int_11b7db91 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_11b7db91 | comment |
Adventure Time: The short "Have You Seen the Muffin Mess?" has Princess Bubblegum accidentally creating nanites that threaten to turn all of Ooo into muffins. | |
| Grey Goo / int_11b7db91 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_11b7db91 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Adventure Time | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_11b7db91 | |
| Grey Goo / int_11c6567a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_11c6567a | comment |
In one of the Thursday Next novels, Thursday's time-traveling father tells her of a future wherein the world was overtaken by such a scenario; the world is consumed by pink slime. It turns out to be strawberry pudding. | |
| Grey Goo / int_11c6567a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_11c6567a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Thursday Next | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_11c6567a | |
| Grey Goo / int_13349140 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_13349140 | comment |
Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): The Metal Virus. It is literally grey goo (it looks like liquid metal) that spreads between all organic being, and converts them to "zombots", starting a mechanical Zombie Apocalypse. Just a single touch is enough to infect anyone and anything. A fly can get infected by touching an infected person and then the fly will touch somebody else and infect them and the person running over the grass will turn the grass to metal that will infect the trees, and it just. keeps. going. Silver travels back to time reporting that in the Bad Future there is absolutely nothing left on earth but ruined cities and and bits of metalic plants. The Metal Virus damn near brings the planet to its knees in a matter of days. If Sonic was one second slower, life would just be gone. | |
| Grey Goo / int_13349140 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_13349140 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_13349140 | |
| Grey Goo / int_1364a9c3 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_1364a9c3 | comment |
In Prey by Michael Crichton, the main plot is a Grey Goo experiment which has gone rogue and escaped containment. This one's slightly more innocuous in that it's partly biological and relies on E. coli bacteria to produce new nanobots rather than instantly dissolving anything it touches into more goo (it does seem to have some limited ability to "eat" silicon chips from integrated circuits). Of course, this really just means it needs to find a culture medium to grow E. coli in, and there are all these bags of moisture and nutrients wandering around... | |
| Grey Goo / int_1364a9c3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_1364a9c3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Prey | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_1364a9c3 | |
| Grey Goo / int_18025cdf | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_18025cdf | comment |
In Project Sunflower, a meteor crashed into earth carrying a colony of alien nanomachines that consumes everything on the planet, forcing humanity to jumpstart the eponymous interdimensional portal project to find a new home. | |
| Grey Goo / int_18025cdf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_18025cdf | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Project Sunflower (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_18025cdf | |
| Grey Goo / int_1a567c4a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_1a567c4a | comment |
AI War 2: The appropriately-named Nanocaust is a nanite plague capable of infecting and spreading from spaceship to spaceship like a plague, and forming hives upon planets to consume everything in them for the purpose of more reproduction and consumption. It's unknown where it came from (both aliens and renegade humans are suspected), but even the AI has problems handling it; the description mentions it's the sort of rampaging threat that usually keeps it busy outside the galaxy with its back turned to you. | |
| Grey Goo / int_1a567c4a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_1a567c4a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| AI War: Fleet Command (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_1a567c4a | |
| Grey Goo / int_1f9f4419 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_1f9f4419 | comment |
In The Thing (1982) and its 2011 prequel, the so-called "Thing" is an organic variant that gruesomely assimilates living tissue. | |
| Grey Goo / int_1f9f4419 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_1f9f4419 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Thing (1982) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_1f9f4419 | |
| Grey Goo / int_20a3fbbb | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_20a3fbbb | comment |
Vexxarr has the Locutrons create a Grey Goo while making a new startship paint. This Grey Goo succeeds in spreading across the entire universe, only to to send back a sentient avatar from the Natural End of Time to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. | |
| Grey Goo / int_20a3fbbb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_20a3fbbb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Vexxarr (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_20a3fbbb | |
| Grey Goo / int_234b73a9 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_234b73a9 | comment |
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) tries to reboot the Earth with this. It was more a "Grey Cloud" than Goo, but same strategy. | |
| Grey Goo / int_234b73a9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_234b73a9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_234b73a9 | |
| Grey Goo / int_29950026 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_29950026 | comment |
In Godzilla: The Series, one of the first Monsters of the Week is a colony of self-replicating petroleum-eating nanomachines that, inevitably, goes out of control and turns into a Zilla-sized shapeshifting blob on a feeding frenzy. | |
| Grey Goo / int_29950026 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_29950026 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Godzilla: The Series | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_29950026 | |
| Grey Goo / int_2ae406c1 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_2ae406c1 | comment |
In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, one of the Special Projects shows the video of several containers placed on the site of a battle, littered with debris and dead bodies. The containers open, releasing nanites that look like glowing goo. They proceed to consume everything in sight, including the dead, and use the materials to create a brand-new Hover Tank. Miriam Godwinson also very specifically warns against this type of scenario: |
|
| Grey Goo / int_2ae406c1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_2ae406c1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_2ae406c1 | |
| Grey Goo / int_2e3e7ac2 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_2e3e7ac2 | comment |
The Justice League Unlimited episode "Dark Heart" dealt with alien nanomachines that were in the process of taking over Earth this way. Their species appears to be made artificially for a war from fifty-thousand years ago, and is meant to consume every planet they're sent to, spread to some other planets, and repeat until they're all dead. | |
| Grey Goo / int_2e3e7ac2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_2e3e7ac2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Justice League | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_2e3e7ac2 | |
| Grey Goo / int_2eb5ea5f | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_2eb5ea5f | comment |
Adam Warren's adaptation of the Dirty Pair revealed that the Earth had been destroyed decades earlier in a massive Grey Goo outbreak, the "Nanoclysm", which led to nanotechnology being regulated and virtually outlawed. The villain of the miniseries planned to use a cache of nanotech to take over Heroes "R" Us's Central Computer, and from there, the known universe. Unfortunately, the Central Computer revealed that it was partially based on something the Nanoclysm left humanity as an apology… | |
| Grey Goo / int_2eb5ea5f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_2eb5ea5f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dirty Pair | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_2eb5ea5f | |
| Grey Goo / int_31a73c68 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_31a73c68 | comment |
The Filth features creatures like this, but portrays them in a very sympathetic light during the stages of their evolution. The more they spread, the more the world is seen from their perspective. | |
| Grey Goo / int_31a73c68 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_31a73c68 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Filth (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_31a73c68 | |
| Grey Goo / int_33c6f4ec | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_33c6f4ec | comment |
In Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, the "alien" antagonists have a Disassembler cannon which fires nanites that are programmed to rip apart matter on a subatomic level. This avoids the usual grey goo problem of endless replication, as the nanites just run out of steam, while still producing similar destruction. It fires at a city and reduces it to mush. It's up to you to blow up the cooling radiators before it fires its third salvo and destroys Central, the world capital. Once you do that, the next shot blows it to hell and spreads disassemblers throughout their base. | |
| Grey Goo / int_33c6f4ec | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_33c6f4ec | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_33c6f4ec | |
| Grey Goo / int_3794fa48 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_3794fa48 | comment |
Star Wars Role Playing Game: In the supplement The Unknown Regions, the Mnggal-Mnggal is described as something like a naturally-occurring, organic variant of Grey Goo. It is sentient, and able to infect any form of matter, as well as take control of creatures as "zombies". Its origins are unknown, and it's likely biological. | |
| Grey Goo / int_3794fa48 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_3794fa48 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Star Wars: Roleplaying Game (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_3794fa48 | |
| Grey Goo / int_381246aa | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_381246aa | comment |
A possible story line from Duskers talks about the gray goo possibly wiping out life in the universe, or just within the Drone pilots area of operation. | |
| Grey Goo / int_381246aa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_381246aa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Duskers (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_381246aa | |
| Grey Goo / int_3fbd173e | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_3fbd173e | comment |
In Freefall, Dr. Bowman points out that if robots have human desires as their sole and singular goal, as well as the ability to reproduce, then what you wind up with isn't too far off from grey goo. | |
| Grey Goo / int_3fbd173e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_3fbd173e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Freefall (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_3fbd173e | |
| Grey Goo / int_42e35a17 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_42e35a17 | comment |
Biological version in Outpost 2: Divided Destiny. A terraforming microbe runs wildly out of control, breaking down organic matter, among other things, and forcing both colonies on the planet to try to evacuate-one of the rare versions in which the Goo truly is unstoppable, though one colony can delay it briefly, and the omnipresent threat during the campaign. | |
| Grey Goo / int_42e35a17 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_42e35a17 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Outpost 2 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_42e35a17 | |
| Grey Goo / int_42ffb88e | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_42ffb88e | comment |
SCP Foundation: SCP-009 is red colored water that freezes when warm and melts when cold and turns normal water into more of itself. The number is likely a reference to ice-nine from Cat's Cradle. SCP-1689 is a Bag of Holding that distributes endless potatoes. Excavations into it's interior imply it's a version of Earth that got overrun by a self-replicating potato apocalypse. SCP-204 is a downplayed example, as the cloud of nanomachines usually only destroys animals (including living people) to serve as fuel. But SCP-204 is still ranked at the highest threat level possible, probably because from organic matter to anything else is a quick jump. SCP-3049 is a gas oven that creates an entire miniature universe inside itself. In most cases, one planet within this universe will develop sentient life that then creates nanotechnology, eventually leading to a Grey Goo event that transforms the entire universe into an apple pie in a glass dish. SCP-3280 is a sapient water-like substance that converts any water it touches into more of itself, and which seeks out humans to force itself into, killing the victim from within. And it managed to take over the Earth's water cycle. The protagonist reading the SCP entry turns out to have an instance of SCP-3280 within itself, and as they fall against a window, they realize that the rain outside isn't just any rain pounding on the window, it's falling up towards them, as the equally killer water inside of them expels from their throat. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_42ffb88e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_42ffb88e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| SCP Foundation (Website) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_42ffb88e | |
| Grey Goo / int_43e9884a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_43e9884a | comment |
In The Long Cosmos, one of the parallel Earths has been entirely devastated by a matter replicator run amok. The matter replicator was originally supposed to absorb enough vegetable matter to produce a book of the complete works of Shakespeare, but once a glitch caused it to produce another replicator just like it... which in turn produced other replicators. It did not help that the replicator owner, who was only concerned with spreading the knowledge of Shakespeare across the parallel Earths, completely failed to anticipate the dangers of a rogue self-replicating machine let loose on a planet. | |
| Grey Goo / int_43e9884a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_43e9884a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Long Earth | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_43e9884a | |
| Grey Goo / int_48e3c003 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_48e3c003 | comment |
21st Century Fox points out the concept is actually kind of stupid here. | |
| Grey Goo / int_48e3c003 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_48e3c003 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| 21st Century Fox (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_48e3c003 | |
| Grey Goo / int_4937d0d9 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_4937d0d9 | comment |
The Vasari from Sins of a Solar Empire, who specialize in Nanotechnology, have ships that are able to throw blobs of destructive nanobots at enemy ships. | |
| Grey Goo / int_4937d0d9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_4937d0d9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sins of a Solar Empire (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_4937d0d9 | |
| Grey Goo / int_4a6934df | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_4a6934df | comment |
Discussed derisively in Schild's Ladder, which is set in a post-Singularity galactic society: an AI character mentions the conspiracy theory that metaverse-dwelling minds would assimilate planets for computational resources, calling it as preposterous as accusing organic beings of plotting to turn the world into chocolate for infinite desserts. | |
| Grey Goo / int_4a6934df | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_4a6934df | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Schild's Ladder | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_4a6934df | |
| Grey Goo / int_522ff155 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_522ff155 | comment |
Ice-nine in Cat's Cradle turns any water it touches into more ice-nine. | |
| Grey Goo / int_522ff155 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_522ff155 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Cat's Cradle | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_522ff155 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5561d1c3 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_5561d1c3 | comment |
Part of the plot of Mighty No. 9. The Final Boss, Trinity, was accidentally programmed to absorb everything it can, and it does. Which results in it absorbing nearly an entire building, transforming it into the game's cube-like equivalent of nanobots. | |
| Grey Goo / int_5561d1c3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5561d1c3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mighty No. 9 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_5561d1c3 | |
| Grey Goo / int_56dce3c1 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_56dce3c1 | comment |
Ego's plan in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 involves this, albeit in an organic fashion: he plans to make every planet in the universe an extension of him by way of implanting a piece of him on each planet that, when activated, creates a giant blue blob that eats everything in its path. Although we don't see much of what it does besides "consume things", we can assume that it assimilates everything it touches into Ego. | |
| Grey Goo / int_56dce3c1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_56dce3c1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_56dce3c1 | |
| Grey Goo / int_594706c6 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_594706c6 | comment |
The last "secret" life form class on SimEarth, robots (unlocked by bombing a Nanotech-class city, fittingly enough), are very well-suited for survival. By this, it means that they reproduce rapidly, they can live in any habitat — even the ocean — and thus can spread across the entire map with little effort, competing against organic life can't even be called a competition, and — oh yeah. They're immune to disasters, even ones activated by the player. All organic life on your planet will quickly go extinct when these guys show up. | |
| Grey Goo / int_594706c6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_594706c6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| SimEarth (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_594706c6 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5a9588e8 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_5a9588e8 | comment |
The Four Horsemen Universe: The Bounty Hunter protagonist of the Short Story "The Last Guardsman" is mortally wounded when his quarry wings him with a grey goo bullet that eats him alive from the inside out. | |
| Grey Goo / int_5a9588e8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5a9588e8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Four Horsemen Universe | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_5a9588e8 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5b6175ca | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_5b6175ca | comment |
The Chrome in Fortnite came out of nowhere, swiftly 'chromifying' the Island and most of the Seven. Players can spread it themselves using 'Chrome Splash' items, and even 'chromify' themselves, allowing them to transform into metallic blobs capable of phasing through walls. As a result, the Island's population have evacuated to blimps and flying cities to prevent the spread. | |
| Grey Goo / int_5b6175ca | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5b6175ca | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Fortnite (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_5b6175ca | |
| Grey Goo / int_5c897f4a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_5c897f4a | comment |
Schlock Mercenary: Hostile nanoswarms are so common that there's standard-issue tactics and equipment to stop them; people worried about nanobot infection drink nanotech-fighting chemicals to control them, "nanofilm" is routinely employed to control rogue nanobot swarms, and worst comes to worst, the nanobots will be isolated by ubiquitous AI with gravity-control technology. The comic does point out one of the biggest weaknesses of nanobots: Extreme heat. Even when they have evolved plasma shielding, any reasonably dangerous level of heat will overwhelm any defenses the nanites have and cause their inner workings to warp and fail. If a gravitic-enabled AI isn't around to help, it's common to bust out the plasma weapons on wide spread to handle hostile swarms. For bonus points, most Powered Armor in the setting can handle fire without too much difficulty, so you don't even have to worry about your own men. Unarmored civilians, however, can at best hope to get off with third degree burns to their entire body. Good thing medical technology has made a few advances... Sergeant Schlock has been mistaken for grey goo a couple times. And to be fair, they're not that far off, and when pitted in a who-eats-who duel against the actual stuff he was evenly matched.As in...The nanobots were halfway to figuring out his biology without him actually noticing, until they got to his eyes, which weren't a native development. Then he quickly spat them out. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_5c897f4a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5c897f4a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_5c897f4a | |
| Grey Goo / int_5cdd252 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_5cdd252 | comment |
Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski's The Killing Star includes weaponized Grey Goo which is used to pick off one of the few surviving outposts of humanity. | |
| Grey Goo / int_5cdd252 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5cdd252 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Killing Star | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_5cdd252 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5ec0f48 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_5ec0f48 | comment |
∀ Gundam features Black Goo in the form of the Moonlight Butterfly (GekkÅ�chÅ�), which is named because it manifests as giant shimmering energy contrails that emerge from the titular Humongous Mecha's back like wings. The nanomachines only target technology, but do so on an immense scale; the last time the Moonlight Butterfly was used, it sent humanity into a Dark Age that they're still recovering from (when the series begins, technology is roughly on par with the early 1900s). | |
| Grey Goo / int_5ec0f48 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_5ec0f48 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| ∀ Gundam | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_5ec0f48 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6059ad6b | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_6059ad6b | comment |
xkcd: This page jokes about how IPv6 is perfect in that the nanobots will only be able to devour about half the planet before they run out of addresses. Another comic on "Scary Names" noted "Grey Goo" might not sound scary, but is something as terrifying as "Bird flu" and "Demon core." |
|
| Grey Goo / int_6059ad6b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6059ad6b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| xkcd (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_6059ad6b | |
| Grey Goo / int_608089b6 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_608089b6 | comment |
Iron Man's Technovore is a nanotechnological entity driven to assimilate and integrate foreign technology into itself. | |
| Grey Goo / int_608089b6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_608089b6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| IronMan | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_608089b6 | |
| Grey Goo / int_60e46926 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_60e46926 | comment |
One of the early comic issues of MAD had the planet Mars consumed by the Gookum, a jelly-like pink substance which eats anything organic. It breaches The Great Wall built to contain it, and, worse, It Can Think. It stays dormant for 500 years at a time, and the joke/Mandatory Pulp Sci-Fi Twist is that cherry Jello parfait is completely indistinguishable from dormant Gookum. One day... one day the Gookum will quiver, will stir... | |
| Grey Goo / int_60e46926 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_60e46926 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| MAD (Magazine) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_60e46926 | |
| Grey Goo / int_617d8a43 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_617d8a43 | comment |
Black★★Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall has Arche, grey goo composed of sperm-like nanites that can break down both organic and inorganic matter. It's so prevalent that humans have to wear masks to avoid breathing the stuff in. Unusually, Arche can not only self-replicate, but also construct new machines for Artemis, the AI it serves. The Ishtmus of Panama has been turned into a giant lake of the stuff, dubbed the "Iron Ocean", into which humans are fed and from which new machines are constructed. Black★Rock Shooter can also manipulate the stuff to construct her signature BFGs. | |
| Grey Goo / int_617d8a43 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_617d8a43 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Black★★Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_617d8a43 | |
| Grey Goo / int_638e1020 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_638e1020 | comment |
The title creatures in Bio-Meat: Nectar. | |
| Grey Goo / int_638e1020 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_638e1020 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Bio-Meat: Nectar (Manga) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_638e1020 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6658fd80 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_6658fd80 | comment |
A grey goo like attack is possible in Supreme Commander 2. The Cybran Nation can upgrade their engineers to have weapons, by doing this and building nothing but engineers you will get an ever growing blob of engineers that will automatically shoot every enemy in sight and use the remains to build more engineers. Full instructions here. | |
| Grey Goo / int_6658fd80 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6658fd80 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Supreme Commander 2 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_6658fd80 | |
| Grey Goo / int_671d5c19 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_671d5c19 | comment |
The Powerpuff Girls (1998): "Nano of the North" features a swarm of Grey Goo nanobots dropping from a raincloud and destroying Townsville, though the bots thankfully ignored living creatures. Since the girls are too big to fight them (it only ends up with them eating their clothes) they are shrunk to their level to fight. When they are overpowered by the girls, the nanobots fuse into a relatively-Humongous Mecha... which is just as big as an insect, allowing Professor Utonium to crush it under his foot. | |
| Grey Goo / int_671d5c19 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_671d5c19 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Powerpuff Girls (1998) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_671d5c19 | |
| Grey Goo / int_68196440 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_68196440 | comment |
The culture fluid from Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly multiplies when it absorbs a person, the stronger, the better. After absorbing Bio-Broly it expands to cover the whole island but luckily seawater turns it to stone. | |
| Grey Goo / int_68196440 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_68196440 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_68196440 | |
| Grey Goo / int_68237790 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_68237790 | comment |
Pathfinder: The main game has stats for this as a monster, right down to the name. It's considerably dangerous, able to rapidly devour characters (and their gear!) in its space, infest a single target to devour them even faster, and disperse itself to hide from pursuers. And as a swarm, its immune to weapon damage and targetted spells, meaning depending on your party composition you may have a hard time hurting it at all. (Incidentally, this isn't a case of A Wizard Did It — Pathfinder Grey Goo is an actual cloud of high-tech nanomachines. It's assumed to come from Numeria, where an ancient crashed spaceship left a bunch of high technology scattered throughout the landscape.) Starfinder has the Assembly Ooze, runaway nano-fabrication units that thankfully do not grow uncontrollably (and only rarely make more of themselves), but instead turn inorganic matter they eat into whatever they were programmed to make. They may seem harmless (unless you happen to be an android or other robotic lifeform), or even beneficial, until one gets loose in your ship and tries to turn the engine into a pile of laser rifles. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_68237790 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_68237790 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Pathfinder (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_68237790 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6ac55ec7 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_6ac55ec7 | comment |
Dungeons & Dragons: A green slime converts anything it touches into more green slime. (Except stone, which is immune to it, and wood is more resistant than most. It dissolves metal very fast, however.) Fortunately, it's immobile, so you can avoid it if you just stay away from it. Clockwork horrors, introduced in Spelljammer, are tiny mechanical beings that methodically and very efficiently scour areas of metal, which they use to build more clockwork horrors and continue the cycle. They leave stone, soil and organic material alone, but if left unchecked can easily devastate entire countries or even strip whole worlds of worked and unworked metal, killing anything that interferes or that the adamantine horror directing the swarm considers a threat. They'd actually consumed their home planet and were effectively trapped there, until the neogi made the mistake of visiting, allowing the horrors to hijack their spelljamming vessels and spread across the crystal spheres. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_6ac55ec7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6ac55ec7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dungeons & Dragons (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_6ac55ec7 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6eef78c2 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_6eef78c2 | comment |
The WORMS in Sky Girls are related to this. Sort of. | |
| Grey Goo / int_6eef78c2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_6eef78c2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sky Girls | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_6eef78c2 | |
| Grey Goo / int_70814599 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_70814599 | comment |
The Replicators of Stargate SG-1 are this trope scaled up to Lego size. When they eventually evolved to silver goo, their diet changed from "any kind of metal" to "neutronium only", thus keeping the new model a rarity. | |
| Grey Goo / int_70814599 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_70814599 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Stargate SG-1 | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_70814599 | |
| Grey Goo / int_70851e3c | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_70851e3c | comment |
In SA Swann's Terran Confederacy universe, the human colonies on Titan and the outer moons were devoured by a Grey Goo swarm, leading to Nanomachines being made one of the Heretical Technologies. The Confederacy and its successor states continued this policy, enforcing it with things like hundred kilometer asteroids. It's the Only Way to Be Sure! | |
| Grey Goo / int_70851e3c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_70851e3c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Terran Confederacy | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_70851e3c | |
| Grey Goo / int_77677ed1 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_77677ed1 | comment |
Grey goo missiles called the "Nano Virus" are a high-level planetary siege weapon in Sword of the Stars. It is amusingly classified as a bio-weapon, meaning you have to go through several tiers worth of gene modification to access it. The Nano Virus is harmless to organics, but the planet's industrial output will be heavily damaged and it will wipe out an AI rebellion as if they were living creatures hit by a regular bio weapon. It is the only bio weapon that will affect the Zuul, since their machinery is made of the same metal as everyone else's. | |
| Grey Goo / int_77677ed1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_77677ed1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sword of the Stars (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_77677ed1 | |
| Grey Goo / int_7988cb68 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_7988cb68 | comment |
In the Mass Effect games, you can find a planet called Zaherux, which is covered with seas of silicon. The flavor text mentions that a popular extranet meme says that the oceans are actually a huge swarm of 'disassembler' nanites. | |
| Grey Goo / int_7988cb68 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_7988cb68 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mass Effect (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_7988cb68 | |
| Grey Goo / int_79c43540 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_79c43540 | comment |
Seedship: Alien nanobots can potentially attack the ship, and the player has to determine how to handle them. | |
| Grey Goo / int_79c43540 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_79c43540 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Seedship (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_79c43540 | |
| Grey Goo / int_7dc973ed | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_7dc973ed | comment |
gen:LOCK: The Union mainly rely on nanotechnology to quickly destroy organic matter in their path - neither humans, animals or plants are exempt from this. It's due to this that The Vanguard spent the next four years on the defense prior to the use of the titular technology. Doctor Weller eventually figures out a way to disrupt the nanotech swarms by mimicking the signals that Union troops and symapathizers use to mark themselves as being friendly, which effectively turns the tide of the war from a slow retreat to a stalemate. | |
| Grey Goo / int_7dc973ed | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_7dc973ed | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| gen:LOCK (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_7dc973ed | |
| Grey Goo / int_80d8708a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_80d8708a | comment |
Numenera: At least one (and quite possibly several) of the ancient civilizations made extensive use of nanotechnology, and feral, out-of-control nanobots remain common and widespread in the setting's present. The Iron Wind is a natural disaster (insofar as anything in the setting is truly "natural") that takes the form of vast red sandstorms filled with microscopic, airborne nanites. These nanites are badly malfunctioning (the corebook outright refers to them as insane) and chaotically reshape anything and everything they come across, landscape, machine and creature alike. Living beings caught in the Iron Wind are reshaped into writhing, malformed monsters and usually die soon afterwards, if they aren't outright disassembled. Much more harmless nanites are also fairly well integrated into the ecosystem. They fill similar niches to organic fungi and bacteria, and generally go beneath most people's notice. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_80d8708a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_80d8708a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Numenera (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_80d8708a | |
| Grey Goo / int_83d41855 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_83d41855 | comment |
In the Gargoyles episode, "Walkabout," an artificially intelligent nanite mass begins a grey goo surge and the only way to stop it is to communicate with it in the Dreamtime. Once that was achieved, the mass was convinced to stop by interesting it in learning about human law and order and it bonded with Dingo's power armor for that purpose. | |
| Grey Goo / int_83d41855 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_83d41855 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Gargoyles | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_83d41855 | |
| Grey Goo / int_84377fd8 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_84377fd8 | comment |
GI Joe The Rise Of Cobra had "Red/Black" weaponized Goo (which is green for the viewer's convenience), which ate any metal it came into contact with. Thankfully, the designers were smart enough to build them with cutoff switches which neutralized them instantly. It also had a limited life span which meant that if its food source was too far away it would die out, depending on how much of a start it got. Eating the Eiffel Tower would give it enough of a start to devour all of Paris, but it would likely not reach another city. Devour a single ship high in the stratosphere and it dies out long before it reaches anything else. It's unlikely that the nanomites were self-replicating at all. A self-replicating nanomachine is, by necessity, much more complex that a simple molecular disassembler. And if you're foresighted enough to build in a kill-switch, the very last thing you'd want to risk is the possibility of generational copying errors disabling that function. | |
| Grey Goo / int_84377fd8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_84377fd8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_84377fd8 | |
| Grey Goo / int_853824bc | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_853824bc | comment |
PixelFace: In "You're History", Alexia receives a gift from her Russian uncle: a red jigsaw block. But the block starts multiplying, and soon the console is overrun with coloured shapes falling out of the air. And these shapes are replicating by 'eating' the console's memory. If they consume all of it, everything in the console, including the player characters, will be wiped out. | |
| Grey Goo / int_853824bc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_853824bc | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Pixelface | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_853824bc | |
| Grey Goo / int_85a5a3b9 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_85a5a3b9 | comment |
Transformers: Prime would later return to this plot when it introduced the Scraplets (adapted from The Transformers (Marvel)). | |
| Grey Goo / int_85a5a3b9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_85a5a3b9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Transformers: Prime | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_85a5a3b9 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8a16c430 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_8a16c430 | comment |
Tasty Planet is a game based on Grey Goo where a cleaning agent gets bigger and bigger as you guide it through the levels starting on a Petri Dish until it eats the planet, then the solar system, galaxy, universe, space and time! Then it explodes and everything starts over. | |
| Grey Goo / int_8a16c430 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8a16c430 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Tasty Planet (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_8a16c430 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ac4e993 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ac4e993 | comment |
Gundam ∀ Gundam features Black Goo in the form of the Moonlight Butterfly (GekkÅ�chÅ�), which is named because it manifests as giant shimmering energy contrails that emerge from the titular Humongous Mecha's back like wings. The nanomachines only target technology, but do so on an immense scale; the last time the Moonlight Butterfly was used, it sent humanity into a Dark Age that they're still recovering from (when the series begins, technology is roughly on par with the early 1900s). In Yoshiyuki Tomino's original novel, the full powered version of the eponymous Gundam can affect the area from Earth to Jupiter with the Moonlight Butterfly — that's over 600 million miles. The DG Cells in Mobile Fighter G Gundam are a combination of this and The Virus, though strangely enough they were designed to be beneficial, as their original purpose was breaking down dead or decaying matter and using it to foster new life. The Devil Gundam instead uses them to reanimate dead humans under its control, or infect live humans and Mind Control them. The G-Lucifer in Gundam: Reconguista in G (a series that takes place after Turn A Gundam) also has a Moonlight Butterfly system. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_8ac4e993 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ac4e993 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Gundam (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_8ac4e993 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ba95144 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ba95144 | comment |
"The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill" from Creepshow features the opening phase of a Green Goo scenario, as Jordy and his farm are overgrown by the alien "weeds". | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ba95144 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ba95144 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Creepshow | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_8ba95144 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8d8157e0 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_8d8157e0 | comment |
The villain Mantrid in the second season of Lexx used Mantrid drones — basically flying arms — to systematically disassemble and convert all matter in the universe into more Mantrid drones. By the end of the season, nearly three-quarters of the universe had been converted, and the remainder would have been finished off within a few days. Kai tricks Mantrid into flying the sum-total of his drones directly to the center of the universe, precipitating a Big Crunch which destroyed that universe but ejected the Lexx and crew into the next one over. | |
| Grey Goo / int_8d8157e0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8d8157e0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Lexx | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_8d8157e0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ec33a87 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ec33a87 | comment |
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 gives a more benevolent example with the Cloud Sea. Instead of water, it's comprised of self-replicating reconstructor particles with the same density as water (but spread out over the surface) to help the world recover from Klaus' experiment. What makes it benevolent is that it doesn't just use whatever odds and ends it can find (like the Titans). Instead, it uses whatever's been inert for too long as material to rebuild any technology from before the experiment for the new world he created as The Architect. | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ec33a87 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8ec33a87 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_8ec33a87 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f497f51 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f497f51 | comment |
In Atomic Robo, Biomega (the setting's resident Kaiju) turn out to be a biological form of this. If left unchecked, they will eventually devour the Earth, then the solar system, the galaxy, other galaxies... | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f497f51 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f497f51 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Atomic Robo | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_8f497f51 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f5a9a60 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f5a9a60 | comment |
An über-example would be Charles Stross' Accelerando, where pretty much the same events as in Bloom happen deliberately, and for the betterment of mankind. | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f5a9a60 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_8f5a9a60 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Accelerando | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_8f5a9a60 | |
| Grey Goo / int_904473bf | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_904473bf | comment |
The Blob (1958): The monster could be either this or The Virus. No one's really ever gotten close enough to examine it without being eaten. All that's known about it is that it's of alien origin. Oh, and it prefers to devour organic life as opposed to inorganic matter. | |
| Grey Goo / int_904473bf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_904473bf | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Blob (1958) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_904473bf | |
| Grey Goo / int_9044741c | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_9044741c | comment |
The Blob (1988): The remake of the movie had the Blob be the spawn of a secret government germ warfare project. There it acted less like mindless spreading Grey Goo and more like a malicious, semi-intelligent monster. | |
| Grey Goo / int_9044741c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_9044741c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Blob (1988) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_9044741c | |
| Grey Goo / int_972e277f | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_972e277f | comment |
Death from the Skies by Phil Plait presents a berserker Von Neumann probe, which is essentially grey goo on a cosmic scale. | |
| Grey Goo / int_972e277f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_972e277f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Death from the Skies | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_972e277f | |
| Grey Goo / int_98670fed | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_98670fed | comment |
The Modular Man from Tom Strong is a hi-scale example of this. Each individual module is about the size of your head. Once he gets to Venus, though, he multiplies until he has something closer to the proper Grey Goo appearance. | |
| Grey Goo / int_98670fed | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_98670fed | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Tom Strong (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_98670fed | |
| Grey Goo / int_986e857e | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_986e857e | comment |
Ben 10 (which did not have Wise as a writer) had the imagination to not name it after the creature: instead of something like "The Megawhatts Attack", the critters are first encountered in Tourist Trap. (Unusually, the Megawhatts go on to be a seldom-seen but established part of the setting. They're actually an alien race called Nosedeenians, and make a return appearance in which Ben and company had to save them from villains who were kidnapping and enslaving them as a power source. Ben later gains one as an Omnitrix form, which he calls Buzzshock.) It's not as obligatory as the "Fantastic Voyage" Plot, but watch enough cartoons and you'll know it by heart. | |
| Grey Goo / int_986e857e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_986e857e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Ben 10 | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_986e857e | |
| Grey Goo / int_9ed0f682 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_9ed0f682 | comment |
Waterworks has black goo of the biological variety. At first assumed to be a corrosive liquid, upon closer inspection it's revealed to be composed of cells that slowly devour anything organic they come in contact with and are capable of evolving. | |
| Grey Goo / int_9ed0f682 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_9ed0f682 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Waterworks (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_9ed0f682 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a15c03fd | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_a15c03fd | comment |
Starfinder has the Assembly Ooze, runaway nano-fabrication units that thankfully do not grow uncontrollably (and only rarely make more of themselves), but instead turn inorganic matter they eat into whatever they were programmed to make. They may seem harmless (unless you happen to be an android or other robotic lifeform), or even beneficial, until one gets loose in your ship and tries to turn the engine into a pile of laser rifles. | |
| Grey Goo / int_a15c03fd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a15c03fd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Starfinder (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_a15c03fd | |
| Grey Goo / int_a183d57f | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_a183d57f | comment |
Parodied in Futurama episode "Benderama", thanks to an invention of the professor's that can make two half-sized duplicates of an object using consumed matter. Bender integrates the device into himself and starts making half-sized duplicates of himself by eating random objects. Each of the duplicates has the same ability. Eventually the replica-Benders become small enough to manipulate atoms directly and start consuming the planet's mass. Eventually, though, the quintillions of nano-Benders get fed up with doing work for Bender and leave the planet. At one point in the episode, Bender says the trope name word-for-word. | |
| Grey Goo / int_a183d57f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a183d57f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Futurama | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_a183d57f | |
| Grey Goo / int_a2a386c9 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_a2a386c9 | comment |
In Orion's Arm, there are many kinds of self-replicating nanomachines that are all categorised as goo, with grey goo among them. One outbreak of grey goo caused massive damage to humanity early in the setting's history, and this event is known as the Technocalypse. However, the relatively realistic nature of the setting means that dangerous goo is far from unstoppable, being vulnerable to extreme heat, extreme cold, loud sounds, radiation and many other things. The Technocalypse was halted thanks to the usage of blue goo (nanomachines created specifically to neutralize grey goo). Humanity would actually have been able to recover if it wasn't for the subsequent actions of GAIA. | |
| Grey Goo / int_a2a386c9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a2a386c9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Orion's Arm (Website) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_a2a386c9 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a4e01e38 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_a4e01e38 | comment |
An episode of the 1980's animated The Incredible Hulk involved a scientist bioengineering a Blob Monster that could eat literally anything except the special glass of its container, and would get bigger the more it ate. Of course the glass breaks and it starts eating Gamma Base. Fortunately, it turns out that the one thing it's allergic to is gamma radiation, which the Hulk constantly emits. | |
| Grey Goo / int_a4e01e38 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a4e01e38 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Incredible Hulk (1982) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_a4e01e38 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a8c2b7fc | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_a8c2b7fc | comment |
The God Eater series has Oracle Cells, single-celled organisms that seek out and consume compatible matter to grow and evolve. What matter is "compatible" differs on a cell-by-cell basis known as "bias factor", and everything on Earth is accounted for (except, oddly, water). It's not just a gooey tidal wave though: when a cluster of Oracle Cells can get a pile of the right compatibility to form, you get an Aragami, a monster who goes around eating matter to distribute it to its constituent cells (which are still trying to consume each other, resulting in a constantly-evolving beast). Pretty much the only reason humanity hasn't been wiped out completely yet is because these Aragami try to out-Darwin each other just as much as going after raw material, but Fenrir is still in a race against time against a nightmare scenario of an Aragami capable of adsorbing all others forming. So far they've only been able to delay this, by having their God Eaters destroy the core cells, causing all Oracle Cells in an Aragami to lose cohesion and start from scratch. | |
| Grey Goo / int_a8c2b7fc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a8c2b7fc | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| God Eater (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_a8c2b7fc | |
| Grey Goo / int_a9c126b5 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_a9c126b5 | comment |
Brawlhalla in the backstory of Barraza, it's described how Meyer's Baby Food Corporation attempted a desperate move on a rogue agent's hideout by deploying a self-replicating nanobot cloud on them. These nanobots bricked anything that relied on computer circuitry... which in 2150 was everything. The nanobots were supposed to go inert after 20 minutes, but for some reason they didn't. The end result was the Mad Max-esque post-apocalypse world that Barraza comes from. | |
| Grey Goo / int_a9c126b5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_a9c126b5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Brawlhalla (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_a9c126b5 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ace263fa | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_ace263fa | comment |
In Deltora Quest, the Shadow Lord has a literal grey goo flood set up as a final Xanatos Gambit. It was designed to kill everything on the continent, but the Shadow Lord didn't count on dragons. | |
| Grey Goo / int_ace263fa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ace263fa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Deltora Quest | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_ace263fa | |
| Grey Goo / int_b295cab3 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_b295cab3 | comment |
Aeon 14: Nanotechnology is common in the series and nanotech weapons easily combated. However the picotechnology mastered by scientists aboard the colony ship Intrepid is potentially very dangerous: the Intrepid Space Force under Tanis Richards successfully uses picobombs several times against opposing ships, but there are reports of people trying to replicate the weapons and getting entire planetary civilizations eaten for their troubles (or killed by Orbital Bombardment when the Orion Guard gets wind of the experiments, in the case of the birth family of Tanis's adopted daughter Sanavi). | |
| Grey Goo / int_b295cab3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_b295cab3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Aeon 14 | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_b295cab3 | |
| Grey Goo / int_b576fa4d | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_b576fa4d | comment |
This is the final fate of Earth in Friendship is Optimal. | |
| Grey Goo / int_b576fa4d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_b576fa4d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Friendship is Optimal / Fan Fic | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_b576fa4d | |
| Grey Goo / int_b848381c | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_b848381c | comment |
The Tarr in Slime Rancher are an organic example. They are formed when too many slimes eat too many plorts from other slimes and all they do is drag slimes and meat like the player and chickens and eat them. If they eat a slime they produce a copy of themselves. | |
| Grey Goo / int_b848381c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_b848381c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Slime Rancher (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_b848381c | |
| Grey Goo / int_b85e49ce | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_b85e49ce | comment |
In the Stitchers episode "Two Deaths of Jamie B", the eponymous victim was trying to make nanobots to clean up oil spills and accidentally programmed them to recognize the wrong kind of organic molecules, so that they specifically target living things. Fortunately, he figures this out before they are released and shuts the project down. Unfortunately his boss is Stupid Evil enough to want to restart it as a weapons project. | |
| Grey Goo / int_b85e49ce | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_b85e49ce | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Stitchers | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_b85e49ce | |
| Grey Goo / int_bc3382f | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_bc3382f | comment |
The novel How to Mutate and Take Over the World ends with nanites from a dessert factory transforming the world into key lime pie. And this gets spoiled about a third of the way in, in a fictional review of the book. | |
| Grey Goo / int_bc3382f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_bc3382f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| How To Mutate And Take Over The World | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_bc3382f | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcadd7cb | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcadd7cb | comment |
Warhammer 40,000: Virus Bombs work on a similar principle to the Red or Black Goo scenario noted above. They utilize something called the Life-Eater virus, which consumes everything organic on a planet and leaves behind massive, highly flammable swamps and gas clouds. A follow-up series of incendiary missiles ignites a planet-wide firestorm that scours any remaining life from the surface, leaving nothing behind but a glowing, lifeless rock. The Imperium uses them in dire situations when a problem can only be solved by destroying a planet. For added Nightmare Fuel, note that the Life-Eater is absolutely in the Chaos God Nurgle's wheelhouse. Many of those who have the authority to use these world ending protocols have wisened up, and will prefer to use a Cyclonic torpedo instead. | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcadd7cb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcadd7cb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Warhammer 40,000 (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_bcadd7cb | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcb32dc6 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcb32dc6 | comment |
Shadowrun: Discussed. Nanotech became very pervasive in 4th edition, and the Grey Goo concept is brought up, only written off as "unlikely to ever come to pass" and "an urban myth" by some of the (legit) top scientific experts in universe. Ultimately Averted as even when nanotech starts to fall prey to hostile A.I., it's shown that it isn't capable of destruction on anywhere near this scale, though it still proves to be very dangerous. | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcb32dc6 | featureApplicability |
-1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_bcb32dc6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Shadowrun (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_bcb32dc6 | |
| Grey Goo / int_bf172077 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_bf172077 | comment |
Torment: Tides of Numenera: The Iron Wind from the tabletop setting makes a cameo; one of the people you meet has some of it caught in a jar. If you mess with the jar too much, it breaks, and although your character usually just comes back from the dead, this one they don't come back from. | |
| Grey Goo / int_bf172077 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_bf172077 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Torment: Tides of Numenera (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_bf172077 | |
| Grey Goo / int_c399cd39 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_c399cd39 | comment |
In Eclipse Phase, Grey Goo swarms are among the nastier surprises left behind by the TITANs. There are various types ranging from regular roving disassembler swarms covering much of Earth That Was to the rather more... artistic fractal bombs, which restructure matter into interesting fractal patterns as they spread (nobody is entirely sure why. Presumably, their AI creators simply liked the look...). Their presence is basically the setting's primary Godzilla Threshold... if nanoswarms are involved, even the heroic factions will tend to break out the scorched-earth type weaponry, collateral damage be damned. And then there's "Creepers", swarms of floating black bubbles that are theorized to be femtobots, if ordinary grey goo wasn't scary enough. | |
| Grey Goo / int_c399cd39 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_c399cd39 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Eclipse Phase (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_c399cd39 | |
| Grey Goo / int_c851c4bb | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_c851c4bb | comment |
Nobody Scores!: When all you have is a jar of nanorobots, everything looks like a problem best solved by the application of nanorobots. | |
| Grey Goo / int_c851c4bb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_c851c4bb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Nobody Scores! (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_c851c4bb | |
| Grey Goo / int_ccc80720 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_ccc80720 | comment |
In the My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "Party Machine", an army of tiny multiplying aliens invade Earth, which Jenny and Brad defeat with a vacuum cleaner-like tool created by Dr. Wakeman to defeat them. | |
| Grey Goo / int_ccc80720 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ccc80720 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| My Life as a Teenage Robot | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_ccc80720 | |
| Grey Goo / int_cdbbf4c9 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_cdbbf4c9 | comment |
Provides the backstory and setting for Hawken. In the endless Corporate Warfare on the planet Illal, one of the three dominant Mega Corps collapsed, triggering a self-replicating nano virus that converts the environment into a labyrinth of patchwork metal—known as the "Giga Structure" and "Hawken Virus." At the time of the game's launch, the virus covered a third of the planet. | |
| Grey Goo / int_cdbbf4c9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_cdbbf4c9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Hawken (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_cdbbf4c9 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1548747 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1548747 | comment |
Tiberium in the main Command & Conquer series is a crystalline substance that, over the course of half a century, drastically alters Earth's climate and mutates its life forms as it spreads across the planet. Tiberium Wars reveals that not only is Tiberium an extremely valuable resource, it's used as a form of Hostile Terraforming by the alien Scrin, who seed planets with it, wait for the natives to wipe themselves out fighting over the stuff, and move in to harvest once everyone who could resist them is dead. | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1548747 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1548747 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d1548747 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1940512 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1940512 | comment |
Hal Duncan's The Book of All Hours has Magitek nanites charged with the souls of dead gods. It's an ideal medium for carving new identities on people's minds and souls by tattooing their bodies. A large collection also gets loose at the end of the first book, leading to a Grey Goo scenario that gnaws at the very substance of reality. All that's left are pockets of semi-stable time and narrative as spacetime gets even more fractured than it already was. | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1940512 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d1940512 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Book of All Hours | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d1940512 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d2f4b8ae | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d2f4b8ae | comment |
Grey goo has completely devoured Mercury by the time of Battle Angel Alita. | |
| Grey Goo / int_d2f4b8ae | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d2f4b8ae | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Battle Angel Alita (Manga) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d2f4b8ae | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4642985 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4642985 | comment |
In the Revelation Space universe the humans finally wipe out the all-destroying robot race that's been killing all the spacefaring races - only to discover they were keeping in check a much worse all-destroying robot race: out-of-control terraformers called Greenfly. They were programmed to convert matter and energy into vegetable-rich biospheres, and they're doing it with enthusiasm - with all the matter and energy. They end up driving the remnants of humanity out of the Milky Way altogether, and may or may not eventually go on to consume the entire universe. | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4642985 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4642985 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Revelation Space Series | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d4642985 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4d17cca | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4d17cca | comment |
In Scott Westerfeld's book Specials, the main characters break out of a weapons storage facility using nanotechnology-based silver goo (much more flashy and dramatic than plain old gray goo, to paraphrase the author). | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4d17cca | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d4d17cca | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Uglies | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d4d17cca | |
| Grey Goo / int_d5714b02 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d5714b02 | comment |
Noita: Draught of Midas converts any solid material into Gold on contact but is not consumed in the process. If a Fungal Shift converts Gold into Draught, every pixel of gold becomes the seed for an exponentially growing mass of Draught which will convert every non-liquid material into more of itself. Acid converts solid substances into a large volume of Flammable Gas but is consumed in the process. Fungal Shifting the Gas into Acid causes any free Acid to explode in volume, faster than even Draught. Void Liquid converts any Toxic or Fungal material into more Void Liquid on contact. This isn't an issue for most of the game world except for the Overgrown Caverns biome. Aside from the large amounts of free-growing fungus, all of the soil in this biome is considered Fungus. Even a single pixel of Void Liquid released near the top of the biome will wipe out a massive swathe of terrain. Concentrated Mana rapidly converts any water it contacts into more of itself and dissolves all metals. While the potion's effects make this entirely beneficial for the player, the potential ecological consequences of converting the entire water supply of a region into a liquid that does not evaporate or freeze would be dire. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_d5714b02 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d5714b02 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Noita (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d5714b02 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d6423831 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d6423831 | comment |
John Carter of Mars: In Synthetic Men of Mars something goes horribly wrong in one of the tissue vats from which the Hormads are created; instead of individual Hormads, one colossal pile of flesh, bone, organs etc. is created, with multiple arms, screaming heads and other body parts sticking out. It keeps growing, sustaining itself by eating its own fleshnote With a passing reference to a generic food supply provided to all growth vats, and threatens to eventually engulf all of Barsoom. | |
| Grey Goo / int_d6423831 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d6423831 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| John Carter of Mars | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d6423831 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d930a4c7 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d930a4c7 | comment |
Clockwork horrors, introduced in Spelljammer, are tiny mechanical beings that methodically and very efficiently scour areas of metal, which they use to build more clockwork horrors and continue the cycle. They leave stone, soil and organic material alone, but if left unchecked can easily devastate entire countries or even strip whole worlds of worked and unworked metal, killing anything that interferes or that the adamantine horror directing the swarm considers a threat. They'd actually consumed their home planet and were effectively trapped there, until the neogi made the mistake of visiting, allowing the horrors to hijack their spelljamming vessels and spread across the crystal spheres. | |
| Grey Goo / int_d930a4c7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d930a4c7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Spelljammer (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d930a4c7 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d9be958a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_d9be958a | comment |
In Superman Returns, Lex Luthor creates a Kryptonian island that will grow over America if not stopped. The novelization and Comic-Book Adaptation imply that it's growing into a planet after Superman pushes it into space. | |
| Grey Goo / int_d9be958a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_d9be958a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Superman Returns | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_d9be958a | |
| Grey Goo / int_da3eef3a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_da3eef3a | comment |
Parasite Eve features massive amounts of Pink Goo. The Big Bad is actually a Patient Zero infected with intelligent pink goo by accident. Every enemy in the game was created by the pink goo. If you go on to the Chrysler Building in the EX game, the building itself is infected with the pink goo (which is the in-world reasons that mode has random maps) and pink goo is literally everywhere. | |
| Grey Goo / int_da3eef3a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_da3eef3a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Parasite Eve (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_da3eef3a | |
| Grey Goo / int_dc30219c | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_dc30219c | comment |
Lancer: Called Greywash in-universe, outbursts of grey goo are not unheard of, and enough have come to pass from printer sabotage and actual nanotech warheads that Whitewash nanite mixtures have been developed and included with regular fire supression systems. Meanwhile, HORUS - haven of unorthodox and horrifying thinking it is - weaponized it in unusual manners by developing the Balor pattern group, which is essentially The Worm That Walks made out of hungry, barely-controlled nanites. While utterly unarmored and very slow, Balor mechs are incredibly difficult to bring down thanks to their fluid composition, constant reconstruction and the fact they can just eat the surroundings (including enemies) to restore themselves in the heat of battle, and getting too close will mean getting Eaten Alive within moments. | |
| Grey Goo / int_dc30219c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_dc30219c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Lancer (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_dc30219c | |
| Grey Goo / int_de61796a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_de61796a | comment |
The G-Lucifer in Gundam: Reconguista in G (a series that takes place after Turn A Gundam) also has a Moonlight Butterfly system. | |
| Grey Goo / int_de61796a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_de61796a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Gundam: Reconguista in G | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_de61796a | |
| Grey Goo / int_e235270c | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_e235270c | comment |
The Stellaris story pack Distant Stars centers around a deactivated Portal Network that connects to the "L-Cluster," a clump of planetary systems beyond the borders of the known galaxy. What happens when you reactivate the L-Gates to reach it is randomly chosen at the start of a new game, but all are different snapshots of the same Gray Goo scenario. The most common outcome is the release of the "Gray Tempest," a swarm of crazy-strong nanobot starships that wiped out the L-Cluster's original inhabitants and will try to bury the galaxy proper in nanomachines. If this happens, the first thing you get out of the L-Gate is a degraded recorded message from the lost inhabitants of the Cluster warning you to NOT open the gate. The good news is that destroying the Gray Tempest's control hub and claiming the L-Cluster nets valuable strategic resources, and any worlds compromised by nanomachines can be easily terraformed into any climate type desired. Another outcome unleashes a cluster of "L-Drakes," a variant of ether drake, instead of a starship swarm. These are nonaggressive unless attacked, but if that happens, there's the Robotic Reveal that these creatures are comprised of nanomachines — they're the Gray Tempest after it's calmed down from Kill All Humans mode and assumed more natural forms. A third outcome has your survey ship discover a bunch of dead worlds... and a single individual of your species walking on an airless planetoid. This is Gray, the Gray Tempest coalesced into a single sapient entity, who has grown bored enough to be willing to join your empire as an immortal specialist, or he can shapeshift into a warship that will eventually reconstitute itself if destroyed. The final outcome is the discovery of the Dessanu Consonance in the L-Cluster, an advanced and friendly civilization... unless you ask about nanites, or enter a certain forbidden system that turns out to contain a nanomachine control hub. They too are the Gray Tempest, grown remorseful about the eradication of their creators, leading them to atone by rebuilding the L-Cluster into Gaia Worlds and taking the forms of the people they destroyed. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_e235270c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e235270c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Stellaris (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_e235270c | |
| Grey Goo / int_e5226bfe | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_e5226bfe | comment |
One of the possible upgrades for your Alchemy Labs in Cookie Clicker is called "Beige Goo" According to the description, it turned three whole galaxies into cookies. If you bake enough cookies, the news blurb claims that the universe itself has turned into cookies to the molecular level. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_e5226bfe | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e5226bfe | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Cookie Clicker (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_e5226bfe | |
| Grey Goo / int_e542bff1 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_e542bff1 | comment |
The Secret Return of Alex Mack: The Collective loses containment on a self-replicating nanobot swarm in Nevada, prompting a Heroic Sacrifice by Shar to wipe it out in spectacular (yet traumatic) fashion. | |
| Grey Goo / int_e542bff1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e542bff1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Secret Return of Alex Mack (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_e542bff1 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e5c5bc22 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_e5c5bc22 | comment |
GURPS: Gray Goo is discussed in GURPS Ultra-Tech in a section on Von Neumann machines, which points out the waste heat of the goo eating a planet is likely a more pressing threat than being eaten by it. On the upside, they require extremely high levels technology and are expensive to make; on the downside, some versions might be able to fly or travel through space. | |
| Grey Goo / int_e5c5bc22 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e5c5bc22 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| GURPS (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_e5c5bc22 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e68decb8 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_e68decb8 | comment |
The same idea on a much larger scale happens in Star Control II. The Slylandro, a planet-bound race, purchase a space exploration probe from some interstellar traders. They can afford only one, so they set its "replication" priority extremely high, causing it to attempt to break down everything it encounters into component compounds to build new probes. By the beginning of the game's timeline the quadrant is already swarming with these things, and it's projected that they'll continue to grow exponentially until they devour the galaxy unless you find a way to stop them. | |
| Grey Goo / int_e68decb8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e68decb8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Star Control (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_e68decb8 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e7410020 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_e7410020 | comment |
Empowered has a Grey Goo eruption that created Sexbots, for reasons too complicated and silly to explain but which involved someone trying to use alien nanobots with an untranslated interface for perverse purposes. | |
| Grey Goo / int_e7410020 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e7410020 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Empowered (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_e7410020 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e782b6f4 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_e782b6f4 | comment |
In the late 20th century of the Chaos Timeline, nukes are scrapped because nanobots made them obsolete. The so-called Braunschleim scenario is the casual armageddon scenario everybody fears. On the eve of World War III, this fear urges a bunch of Playful Hackers to seize control over the military and the rest of the world, in order to prevent the danger of nano annihilation. | |
| Grey Goo / int_e782b6f4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_e782b6f4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Chaos Timeline | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_e782b6f4 | |
| Grey Goo / int_edbc9738 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_edbc9738 | comment |
Transmetropolitan: This is mentioned as a possible weapon if the commonly used "makers" are reprogrammed. The standard MO for handling a "grey goo" scenario is to release "blue goo" — disassembler nanites that degrade matter, all matter, to the point that grey goo can't make more nanites out of it, and then destroy the grey goo nanites — to contain the grey goo and restrict its damage to a small area. One brief mention is made of someone who lost his legs because he decided to shut off the grey goo instead of releasing the blue goo (and succeeded). He's then fired for violating protocol and ends up homeless. Foglets — people who have their minds uploaded into a swarm of nanocomputers — work on a smaller scale, since the most practical way to turn someone into a Foglet is to have another Foglet do it. (They can reassemble matter on a molecular scale, so building the drones is easy.) Since they're controlled by a human intelligence, they don't go out of control and start destroying everything. At least, they haven't so far... |
|
| Grey Goo / int_edbc9738 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_edbc9738 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Transmetropolitan (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_edbc9738 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ef7b3325 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_ef7b3325 | comment |
One issue of Fantastic Four claimed that the reason Reed has never tried to market the unstable molecules the team's suits are made out of is that if a careless person gets ahold of the stuff and pokes it the wrong way with an electron microscope, it starts destabilizing all surrounding matter into an ever-expanding blob of goo. Naturally in that issue someone careless got ahold of the stuff. | |
| Grey Goo / int_ef7b3325 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ef7b3325 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Fantastic Four / Comicbook | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_ef7b3325 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f1360d68 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f1360d68 | comment |
The DG Cells in Mobile Fighter G Gundam are a combination of this and The Virus, though strangely enough they were designed to be beneficial, as their original purpose was breaking down dead or decaying matter and using it to foster new life. The Devil Gundam instead uses them to reanimate dead humans under its control, or infect live humans and Mind Control them. | |
| Grey Goo / int_f1360d68 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f1360d68 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mobile Fighter G Gundam | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f1360d68 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f186f924 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f186f924 | comment |
A variation of this occurred in Horizon Zero Dawn - a line of robotic soldiers that consumed biomass as fuel (supposed to only be in emergency situations) and could self-replicate was one day stricken with a glitch that made them ignore all commands and go rogue, and due to their highly advanced coding and the fact that the CEO of the company that created them specifically told the engineers to not install a backdoor, it was nigh-unstoppable and these rogue robotic soldiers consumed all organic life on the planet in less than two years. The title is derived from the in universe project meant to not only shut the rogue bots down, but to also bring life back to Earth through a highly advanced AI system. How did the aforementioned bots consume their biomass? They had nanites of their own, which stripped the biomass and carried it back to the bot. And sometimes they targeted humans. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_f186f924 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f186f924 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f186f924 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f367511c | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f367511c | comment |
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Cards in the Graydle archetype fall under this. The Graydles themselves are a race of parasitic, alien, metallic Blob Monsters which assimilate other living creatures that come in contact with it, which is reflected in gameplay by allowing their player to take control of an opponent's monster when the graydle is destroyed and sent to the graveyard. The art of cards like Graydle Cobra and Graydle Alligator show the infected creatures bodies gradually decomposing and being converted into even more grey goo while their syncro summon monster, Graydle Dragon, shows the various creatures being combined into one large monstrosity with the Graydle's matter becoming an armored, mechanical hide over most of the body. | |
| Grey Goo / int_f367511c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f367511c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f367511c | |
| Grey Goo / int_f472291d | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f472291d | comment |
The eponymously-titled "Grey Goo" story in Issue #21 of Regular Show sees Rigby accidentally releasing nanites that attempt to consume everything around them. They also have artificial intelligence. | |
| Grey Goo / int_f472291d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f472291d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Regular Show (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f472291d | |
| Grey Goo / int_f64ceaf2 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f64ceaf2 | comment |
The Creepypasta Achilles IV is about a starship thst picked up an unknown substance (later discovered to be a type of fungus) that converts other forms of matter into more of itself, which then forms into a cityscape. The protagonist details how it ate the rest of his crew and started gnawing on the structure of the Achilles IV during the remainder of his trip to Alpha Centauri. | |
| Grey Goo / int_f64ceaf2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f64ceaf2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Creepypasta | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f64ceaf2 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f6d6627 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f6d6627 | comment |
The End of the World has the "Nanopocalypse" scenario in its fourth book Revolt of the Machines, where a swarm of nanobots originally developed to destroy cancer cells starts consuming everything carbon-based, including trees, asphalt, soil, and people. It's among the bleakest of the scenarios in the book or any other books — not only is almost all of the Earth left a lifeless desert of inorganic dust in the span of about two weeks, what remains of humanity lives in the Antarctic, as the nanobots can't stand the cold. Even then it's implied that there aren't enough renewable resources to go around, leaving humanity — and all life on Earth — to slowly die a cold, lonely end. | |
| Grey Goo / int_f6d6627 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f6d6627 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The End of the World (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f6d6627 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f70241e2 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f70241e2 | comment |
Hermione Granger The Arithmancer realises that it's possible for a combination of transfiguration and runic magic to create a self-replicating swarm, and promptly freaks out until she examines the problem more carefully and decides that it would be very hard to accidentally create a self-sustaining swarm; most configurations would eventually degrade and/or run out of power. She does create a carefully limited swarm for herself as a last-ditch weapon, and uses it to kill Bellatrix Lestrange. | |
| Grey Goo / int_f70241e2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f70241e2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Arithmancer / Fan Fic | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f70241e2 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f724b70d | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f724b70d | comment |
Code Lyoko In the episode "Marabounta", Jeremie tried to create a virus that would destroy XANA's monsters, using Franz's Hopper's journal and basing it off African army ants. At first the huge blob-like monster seemed to work, attacking and devouring XANA's minions. Then something went wrong, and it tried to attack Aelita. Jeremie realized too late that her connection to XANA was causing it to mistake her for one of the monsters, but by then it was out of control and growing larger by the minute, threatening to consume all of Lyoko. (Leading to one of the most chilling scenes of the series to date, Yumi trying to protect Aelita, only to be devirtualized when she was Eaten Alive by the thing.) Fortunately, XANA, who at that point needed Aelita alive to complete his plans, instructed his monsters to help the heroes, and due to the brief alliance, they bought enough time for Jeremie to program an anti-virus that eradicated it. An earlier episode "Amnesia", had XANA infecting nanobots from a class as an infestation to cause massive amounts of memory loss. |
|
| Grey Goo / int_f724b70d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f724b70d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Code Lyoko | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f724b70d | |
| Grey Goo / int_f8402a7a | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_f8402a7a | comment |
Neatly inverted in Charles Stross' Saturn's Children—robots think of organic life as "pink goo," reproducing without limit. | |
| Grey Goo / int_f8402a7a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_f8402a7a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Saturn's Children | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_f8402a7a | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff04a417 | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff04a417 | comment |
The RTS game Grey Goo (2015) has you-know-what as one of the factions. Apparently it was originally designed by humans to explore space, but its programming got corrupted somewhere and now it just attempts to consume all before it. Though eventually it is revealed it is attempting to consume all before it for a reason and not just due to programming corruption — it's a desperation move to build up an army against an attacking alien intelligence. | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff04a417 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff04a417 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo (2015) (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_ff04a417 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff9ab17f | type |
Grey Goo | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff9ab17f | comment |
A minor example of this is the nanite colony Wesley Crusher is running in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Evolution". Fortunately, this goo turns sentient and is willing to be moved to a better food source before it disables the ship. | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff9ab17f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Grey Goo / int_ff9ab17f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Star Trek: The Next Generation | hasFeature |
Grey Goo / int_ff9ab17f |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.