Basic Trope: Artificial life that creates artificial life.
- Straight: ALI-C3 is a lab experiment created by Clyde that goes on to create more artificial life.
- Exaggerated:
- ALI-C3 creates a whole army of clones based on herself.
- Multiple lab experiments create artificial life.
- Downplayed: ALI-C3 experiments with, or helps with, creating artificial life.
- Justified:
- ALI-C3 was designed as an artificial lab helper; it makes sense that she'd be curious about creating her own life.
- ALI-class drones are colonization robots. When they need to explore a wide area (like a new planet), they create a number of BOB-class drones. When BOB's run into hostile elements, they create CLA-class drones to protect themselves. When the world is entirely mapped/pacified, ALI's begin creating DVE-class construction drones to build infrastructure for the actual colonists, and another ALI to continue searching for habitable exoplanets.
- Deconstructed:
- ALI-550N, being a copy of a copy of etc for innumerable generations, is never "told" that her primary purpose isn't to self-replicate, and she begins to breed out of control, like a robotic cancer.
- Mechanical Evolution results in ALI drones that are xenophobic and don't care that habitable planets have native sapients whose physiologies don't nescessarily agree with air that has quite so much oxygen. Worse yet are the drones that think semi-organic components are much more useful than purely mechanical ones. Or ALI's that see a single other space probe and write off a viable solar system as already claimed.
- Reconstructed:
- There needs to be a group of ALI drones gathered before replication can begin, to check a new probe's programming for errors against multiple uncorrupted copies.
- If a probe is detected to be replicating out of control or evolving malevolence, immune system protocols activate and its "healthy" fellows will try to destroy it.
- ALI's only self-replicate if they're about to be destroyed in order to act as a light unto the future. Since it only happens rarely (ideally, never but accidents happen), ALI's don't try to eat the universe.
- Inverted: ???
- Subverted: It's revealed that ALI-C3 is just fixing something.
- Double Subverted: ...She's actually giving the robot BOB-606 an upgrade that makes him smarter!
- Parodied: ALI-C3 creates ALI-C3 in a nested loop - from Clyde's perspective, it is an unending kaleidoscope of ALI-C3 creating ALI-C3.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: ALI-C3 shows zero signs of creating something of her own.
- Enforced:
- An Establishing Character Moment on how intelligent ALI-C3 is.
- The work is a treatise on Von Neumann's "Universal Constructors," explained in a dramatized fashion.
- Lampshaded: "Look what my experiment is making! She's so smart, she can make more artificial life just like her."
- Invoked:
- ALI-C3 is encouraged to create artificial life.
- There are many androids, gynoids, and babybots, but no robotics factories.
- Exploited: Clyde creates ALI-C3, but then sees that she is shaping up to create life of her own, thus he prepares for when ALI-C3 does so.
- Defied: Clyde decides to prevent ALI-C3 from creating artificial life.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Hey, look at what the lab experiment is making over at the main page!
