Is anyone else completely lost by the trope description? The way it talks about different colors of "Grey Goo" makes it sound like it's describing an example of the trope, rather than the trope itself. "Golden Goo" especially; it's so specific.
Hide / Show Replies
It appears the colors of the Goo correspond to specific situations which self-replicating nanites might be engineered for. "Grey" seems to be either just a catch-all term for such nanites, or for a situation in which the goo goes out of control, refuses to limit itself, and just devours everything.
That being said, I'd never heard of the differently-colored situation-specific goos; the slang has always only ever been 'grey goo' for me; I'm curious about more examples which use the differently-colored goos, it sounds like an interesting concept.
My pretty blue eyes sparkle rock and roll!
Ancient topic, but I deleted that paragraph on account of being horrible. If someone wants to put it back please give a reason here so we can discuss it.
Uncle Sumer Sez
methinx Neal Stephenson's novel "Diamond Age " should be treated here - a milleau polluted by nano-war fallout like the soot of the early industrial era ... among other such nano-glut trope's ...
Edited by UncleSumer
Caliban
Would Greg Bear's nove "Blood Music" call under this category? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)
It basically describes a grey goo (or possibly a pink goo) scenario as it's taking place, from the viewpoint of someone who becomes incorporated into the grey goo. It is different in that as a result of the grey goo being essentially a hive mind of billions of sentient clusters of nanites, the amplify the "observer effect" and somehow ascend/leave for another reality.
The page quote and the linked article are utter bullshit, and that's being polite. The writers of the article don't know anything about the subjects they're writing about, considering "the LHC causing a false vacuum" ranks a 3, and somehow they're mentioning dark energy along with the quantum Zeno effect. (That was also the point at which I clicked away to say that it is complete bullshit.)