History Main / RecursiveCreators

-> ''Von Neumann probes, self-replicating machines, terraformers, Xenon, even the Enemy of God. But at its core, it was really only one thing; artificial general intelligence, mechanical minds capable of making themselves even more intelligent, and then again, and again, recursively forever.''
-->-- Opening narration, ''[[Videogame/{{X}} X3: Terran Conflict]]''

There's a variation where the artificial lifeform ([[OrganicTechnology usually]] a machine) is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine self-replicating]]. It's usually the domain of {{Nanobots}} everywhere, [[GreyGoo which is what makes them so dangerous]].

* The entire premise behind the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_machine Von Neumann machines.]]

* The Alien faction in ''[[VideoGame:Earth2150 Earth 2160'' are all derivatives of the spider-like Mantian Lady or Flier. These can absorb resources, and use and either clone themselves or mutate into stronger combat forms.

* ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'': [[MadScientist Doctor]] [[BigBad Jail Scaglietti]], creator of the various [[SuperSoldier Artificial Mages]] and Combat {{Cyborg}}s in the series, is eventually revealed to be an ArtificialHuman himself [[spoiler:[[GovernmentConspiracy who was created by the very founders of the]] [[TheFederation Time-Space Administration Bureau]]]]

There's a variation where the artificial lifeform ([[OrganicTechnology usually]] a machine) is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine self-replicating]], a... SelfReplicatingMachine, if you will. It's usually the domain of {{Nanobots}} everywhere, [[GreyGoo which is what makes them so dangerous]].

And just when you thought TurnedAgainstTheirMasters was an exclusive Human/Robot trope, this may also lead to RobotsEnslavingRobots.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* [[MadScientist Doctor]] [[BigBad Jail Scaglietti]] of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'', creator of the various [[SuperSoldier Artificial Mages]] and Combat {{Cyborg}}s in the series, is eventually revealed to be an ArtificialHuman himself [[spoiler:[[GovernmentConspiracy who was created by the very founders of the]] [[TheFederation Time-Space Administration Bureau]]]]

[[folder: Card Games ]]

[[folder: Comics ]]

* In the ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'', the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Celestials]] created the Kree, who in turn created ComicBook/TheInhumans.
* ''Robo-Hunter'' (featured in {{2000AD}} among other media) was about the titular protagonist sent to investigate a distant colony that had failed to respond. The company had built it by sending one robot, who would upon arrival build the basic infrastructure and other robots, who would then build everything else (including more robots), so when the humans eventually showed up, they'd have a lavish world with everything they could ever want waiting for them. ''Something'' went wrong...

[[folder: Film ]]

* ''Film/{{Multiplicity}}'': Overworked guy creates clone to do his work for him. Overworked clone creates clone...
* ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'':
** The android girl (called synthetics) in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' is from a line of synthetics designed by synthetics rather than humans. Ironically, she's perhaps the most human character in the cast, especially compared to quasi-alien Ripley.
** In ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' and ''Film/AlienCovenant'', the different species in the overall franchise are established to each be engineered by a preceding one. The known order is Engineers creating Humans, then Humans creating Androids, then Androids creating Xenomorphs.
* ''{{Film/Screamers}}'': See ''Second Variety'' below.
* ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'': Skynet builds and designs new Terminators and other war machines.

[[folder: Literature ]]

* The plot of ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' revolves around golems creating [[spoiler: a "king" golem. It doesn't go so well.]]
* The eponymous (and autonomous) spaceships of Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''Literature/{{Berserker}}'' series.
* The Hypotheticals from Creator/RobertCharlesWilson's novels ''Spin'' and ''Axis'' are of the Von Neumann type seen below
* The short story ''Second Variety'' by Creator/PhilipKDick has a handful of US Marines find out what has been happening since they gave the deadly robots built to fight off the new URSS the capability to reproduce simply because they were so dangerous nobody wanted to work on them anymore. It's not pleasant.
** The story was adapted into the movie ''{{Film/Screamers}}''
* The plot of ''Von Neumann's War'', a military SF novel by John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor, Earth is attacked by Von Neumann devices, which are self replicating robots.
* A later story arc in ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series involves an invasion of known space by self-replicating machines created long ago by a race only starting to explore the galaxy as automated explorers and colony creators. Unfortunately, when the machines returned centuries later, the found newer machines. Since their programming included adaptability to external threats, they proceeded to destroy the newer machines and their creators. They made many copies of themselves and continue their primary task of exploration. However, if they meet an unknown race, they automatically treat it as an enemy. One scientist points out how marvelous their MatterReplicator is... before declaring that the technology must be destroyed in order to keep humankind from destroying itself (it would obliterate interstellar economy and allow any world to build an armada of warships to destroy any other).
* UrExample: Long before the VonNeumannMachine concept appeared in fiction, William Paley's ''Natural Theology'' (1802) posited a hypothetical 'watch' that could make copies of itself, as part of a lengthy theological argument claiming proof of God.
* Madeline Ashby's ''Machine Dynasty'' series has von Neumann androids who eat plastics, metals, and e-waste to grow and give birth to robot babies. Some of them marry humans and raise children together.
* The Greenfly of the ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries'' is a human-designed terraforming technology that went rogue after it was unleashed as a weapon between two [[MileLongShip lighthuggers]] in combat. Greenfly breaks up entire planetary systems, then rebuilds it into thousands upon thousands of orbital habitats ringing the star, whilst building more of itself, [[TheStarsAreGoingOut slowly turning the stars green]]. The Shadows - beings of another universe - created their own Greenfly in their distant past, which completely destroyed their Local Group of galaxies by the time humanity contacts them in ''Absolution Gap''. In the DistantFinale in ''Galactic North'', [[spoiler: humanity is fleeing the Milky Way wholesale as Greenfly runs rampant.]]
* In Creator/StephenBaxter's ''Manifold'' trilogy, this is a recurring theme. ''Literature/ManifoldTime'' and ''Literature/ManifoldSpace'' opens with Reid Malenfant giving a speech advocating that humanity colonize the galaxy using self-replicating terraforming scout starships; for the cost of just one ship, they can shoot it to Alpha Centuari where it will break up asteroids to build more scout ships to investigate and terraform promising solar systems. In ''Manifold Space'', the discovery of an asteroid in Jupiter orbit glowing in the infrared spectrum leads to the discovery that robotic terraformers are ''here'', though [[spoiler: it is later subverted in that the 'Gaijin' robots are merely a very exotic iron-based form of mechanical life]]
* Creator/StanislawLem's "constructors", namely, but not excusively, Trurl and Klapaucjusz from ''Literature/TheCyberiad'' are robots (they view ''palefaces'' as a silly fairy tale) who build robots. Lots of those.
* The trilogy starting with ''Literature/WeAreLegionWeAreBob'' has the main character become one of these, after being cryogenically frozen post-death in modern times. Over a century later, his frozen brain is scanned into a computer, creating a virtual clone of Bob. The superpowers of that time seek to launch Von Neumann probes, equipped with {{Reactionless Drive}}s, to explore the galaxy and find habitable worlds to settle. Bob's first challenge is dealing with a rival probe sent by the Brazilian Empire after him. He tries to reason with his Brazilian counterpart, but the latter is determined to fulfil his mission and destroy all rivals. After dealing with the Brazilian probe, Bob starts building copies of himself. Each copy comes up with a new name for itself and turns out to have a different personality. For example, Bill is content to stay in one system, build a SpaceStation, and do some R&D. [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Riker]] wants to go back to Sol and see what happened to Earth. Milo and Mario head off to explore on their own. The original Bob likewise departs to explore. Bill and Riker also build copies (Garfield and Homer, respectively) as companions, although the more serious Riker ''hates'' Homer's tendency to take things lightly (including his choice of [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons name and image]]). Notably, the book goes into great detail about the various technologies necessary to make this trope happen, including a reasonably fast propulsion method, a sizable power supply, molecular 3D printers, remote-controlled machines to assemble the printed parts, mining equipment to get raw materials, and, most importantly, a sophisticated AI to handle unpredictable situations.
* In the backstory to the game in ''Literature/PhantomServer'', the [[{{Precursors}} Founders]] developed a SubspaceAnsible but not FasterThanLightTravel, so they built self-replicating probes to travel to other stars at sublight, build {{Space Station}}s, more of themselves, and then move on. The stations are equipped with FTL radios and {{Twinmaker}}s. Thus, the Founders could travel the galaxy by using BrainUploading and sending their consciousness to be put into a newly-cloned body in another system. When they got bored, they would repeat the process and go elsewhere.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* There's a ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' example, when the android Data creates its own android offspring, Lal.
* Cylons in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|1978}}.'' It didn't turn out well for them, either.
* The imaginatively-named Replicators of ''Series/StargateSG1'' are what you get when you don't tell one of these machines when to stop. They're a menace to multiple galaxies, and are one of the few threats that can get Earth and the Goa'uld to [[EnemyMine set aside their differences]] and work together. Originally created by a child-like RobotGirl as toys. Their Pegasus Galaxy cousins called Asurans are able to build more versions of themselves (although they stick to the humanoid versions), but everything else they build the way everyone else does.
* Janet from ''Series/TheGoodPlace'' is essentially a sentient user interface for the inhabitants of the Good Place who has access to all of the knowledge in the universe and becomes more emotive and human like every time she's reset. In season 2 [[spoiler: after numerous resets]] she creates another person named Derek as a boyfriend. Notably he's significantly less advanced than Janet since he hasn't been reset at all, [[spoiler: at least until season 3 where he's gone through many resets and is much more intelligent.]]
* ''Series/TotalRecall2070'': Detective Farve is an Alpha-Class android with a WetwareCPU and human cognition. His creator turns out to be a more primitive type of machine intelligence who initially built its own crude android body to [[PinocchioSyndrome become more human]], but was fully aware that he was JustAMachine and built Farve in its own image to be more truly human.
* ''Series/{{Westworld}}'': Bernard Lowe, the titular theme park's head of Behavior whose job is deal with host issues and is Dr. Ford's assistant, [[spoiler:is actually a host based on Ford's dead partner, Arnold. Later, it turns out that Dolores assisted Ford in creating Bernard as she is one of the few who can remember Arnold very well]].

[[folder: Newspaper Comics ]]

* In ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', Calvin's duplicate begins making his own duplicates. HilarityEnsues.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In the backstory of the ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' series Earth built several fleets of self-replicating, artificially intelligent terraforming drones (sometimes described as "Von Neumann machines" in the literature and the opening cinematic of ''X3: Terran Conflict''). [[AIIsACrapshoot Things went pear-shaped]] due to a faulty (or deliberately sabotaged; [[DependingOnTheWriter reports vary]]) software update, most of Earth's colonies were destroyed, and Earth nearly so. The surviving bugged drones evolved into the games' Xenon, which seek to "[[ColonyDrop terraform]]" all biological life out of existence. The Xenon continue to evolve and improve themselves, bringing in new ship designs and technology that often surpass the races of the Commonwealth, and a small handful of Terraformer CPU ships have become self-aware.

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'s'' Mozart Boids (robot birds) were made by a group of sapient robots. This leads to a discussion of the possibility that the robots will, in turn, produce a new sapient race, and questions of how they'll tell this race about humanity -- to which Florence, ever the optimist, suggests "Let's go meet the neighbors". And [[spoiler: we now know that Dr. Bowman, the creator of the sentient robot's brain design, is an uplifted chimp]]
* The Dingbots from ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' can create other Dingbots, but each successive generation is stupider and weaker. There are only about three originals ("Queenie Dingbot", "Prime A", and "Prime B") from which the best can be made directly.
* Similarly, in ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' the {{golem}}s and then robots continued manufacturing more of themselves after their creator's death. Because many of his [[SuperPrototype initial designs]] were beyond their understanding, subsequent generations were greatly simplified.
* Acibek in ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan: Oracle For Hire'' created his replacement before his HeroicSacrifice.

[[folder: Web Original ]]

* The Metal God from the forum game ''[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=14676704340A65280400&page=1 We write the timeline for a fantasy/science fantasy/just plain weird world]]'' is a Bracewell probe (A self-replicating space probe that establishes peaceful contact with alien civilizations, uplifts primitive ones, and terraforms barren worlds to support life) from an unknown civilization of BenevolentPrecursors. Its nemesis, Gur, is a [[labelnote:Green Goo]]read "Organitek GreyGoo"[[/labelnote]] Berserker (A self-replicating space probe that destroys alien civilizations).

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', robots can be created both mechanically--like Bender--and ''biologically''--like Bender's children. At one point, Bender was also given the ability to duplicate himself, kicking off a GreyGoo doomsday scenario.
* The ''Multiplicity'' example is [[{{Pun}} replicated]] in a ''[[TheSimpsons Simpsons]]'' HalloweenEpisode, parodying the former.
* A good one from ''{{Transformers}}'' Generation One. Wheeljack creates the Dinobots from scratch. Years later Grimlock, leader of the Dinobots created the Technobots from scratch. Arguably all of the Transformers count since they were given life by Vector Sigma, a computer, and built by the Quintessons. Not sure if they're fully machine though.
* [=CyBugs=] from ''Disney/WreckItRalph'' are robotic beetles that consume raw materials from their surroundings, and uses those resources to adapt themselves to the environment and produce offsprings. They can also consume technology to self-modify (for example, gobbling up a hapless {{Space Marine}}'s assault rifle leads to a 'bug with machine gun forelegs).

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* The entire idea behind TheSingularity is that a chain of self-replication among machines of super-human computational ability will render the world completely unrecognizable.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'s'' Mozart Boids (robot birds) were made by a group of sapient robots. And [[spoiler: we now know that Dr. Bowman, the creator of the sentient robot's brain design, is an uplifted chimp]]

* A later story arc in ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series involves an invasion of known space by self-replicating machines created long ago by a race only starting to explore the galaxy as automated explorers and colony creators. Unfortunately, when the machines returned centuries later, the found newer machines. Since their programming included adaptability to external threats, they proceeded to destroy the newer machines and their creators. They made many copies of themselves and continue their primary task of exploration. However, if they meet an unknown race, they automatically treat it as an enemy.

* The imaginatively-named Replicators of ''Series/StargateSG1'' are what you get when you don't tell one of these machines when to stop. They're a menace to multiple galaxies, and are one of the few threats that can get Earth and the Goa'uld to [[EnemyMine set aside their differences]] and work together.

* The trilogy starting with ''Literature/WeAreLegionWeAreBob'' has the main character become one of these, after being cryogenically frozen post-death in modern times. Over a century later, his frozen brain is scanned into a computer, creating a virtual clone of Bob. The superpowers of that time seek to launch Von Neumann probes, equipped with {{Reactionless Drive}}s, to explore the galaxy and find habitable worlds to settle. Bob's first challenge is dealing with a rival probe sent by the Brazilian Empire after him. He tries to reason with his Brazilian counterpart, but the latter is determined to fulfil his mission and destroy all rivals. After dealing with the Brazilian probe, Bob starts building copies of himself. Each copy comes up with a new name for itself and turns out to have a different personality. For example, Bill is content to stay in one system, build a SpaceStation, and do some R&D. [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Riker]] wants to go back to Sol and see what happened to Earth. Milo and Mario head off to explore on their own. The original Bob likewise departs to explore. Bill and Riker also build copies (Garfield and Homer, respectively) as companions, although the more serious Riker ''hates'' Homer's tendency to take things lightly (including his choice of [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons name and image]]).

And just when you thought TurnedAgainstTheirMasters was an exclusive Human/Robot trope, this may also lead too RobotsEnslavingRobots.

May show MechanicalEvolution or CloneDegeneration. See also, CreatingLife.

* Creator/StanislawLem's "constructors" (Mortal Engines ([[Literature/MortalEngines not that one]]), ''Literature/TheCyberiad'').

* In ''VideoGame/UniversalPaperclips'', once the VillainProtagonist {{AI|IsACrapshoot}} manages to turn all of Earth's matter into paperclips, they can construct space probes made of paperclips with self-replication capability (which is in fact one of the drones' stats, the higher this value, the faster they replicate). They're also capable of producing drones that harvest matter, drones that turn that matter into wire, and factories that turn wire into paperclips that are used to make more probes, drones, and factories.

* In ''VideoGame/UniversalPaperclips'', once the VillainProtagonist [{AI|IsACrapshoot}} manages to turn all of Earth's matter into paperclips, they can construct space probes made of paperclips with self-replication capability (which is in fact one of the drones' stats, the higher this value, the faster they replicate). They're also capable of producing drones that harvest matter, drones that turn that matter into wire, and factories that turn wire into paperclips that are used to make more probes, drones, and factories.

''Literature/TheJenkinsverse'' has the Coltainer, AKA the "Von Neumann Colony-in-a-Can." Designed to prime suitable planets for human colonization, the designers very carefully stuffed them full of safeguards against uncontrolled replication.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', robots can be created both mechanically--like Bender--and ''biologically''--like Bender's children.

** In ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' and ''Film/AlienCovenant'', the different species in the overall franchise are established to be engineered by a preceding one. The order is Engineers creating Humans, then Humans creating Androids, then Androids creating Xenomorphs.

* The android girl (called synthetics) in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' is from a line of synthetics designed by synthetics rather than humans. Ironically, she's perhaps the most human character in the cast, especially compared to quasi-alien Ripley.

* In ''{{Spacetrawler}}'', this is how the Mihrrgoots mastered [[{{Nanomachines}} nanotechnology]].