Grey Goo

[Kodos]

So, the other night I had an idea. It can be executed in one of several ways (plus, I'm sure, more than what I've thought of off-hand below) and I confess that I am no coder and haven't the slight bit how tenable any of these are.
But, basically, I was thinking: we should be able to have grey goo disasters. For those of you less familiar with the term, it's basically when self-replicating nanotech gets out of control. The Flock Drones and the Blob are both a bit similar to this, but each differ in a few ways.

Anyways. I was thinking the way the grey goo would work, probably, would be something like liquids currently are, or kudzu. It would spread through the station - slowly at first, but exponentially growing in speed. I don't think it would eat/destroy floor tiles, but rather I think it would replace them with grey goo floor tiles or something. It would also extend outwards into space, even, building new floor tiles over space tiles. So in the aftermath of a grey goo disaster, you'd have lots of random extensions to the station possibly. The goo would eat objects/furniture/corpses, as well as walls. I'm not sure what interactions it would have with crew or critters - maybe it turns them into lawless borgs, or maybe it's completely harmless to flesh - a sort of benign blob. I dunno.
How fast it spreads, how fast it eats things, and what it can eat would all probably vary based on how deadly/dangerous we want the thing to be.

OPTION ONE: The grey goo is a random disaster, like asteroids, spatial tears, and so on. There's obviously precedent for this - both the blob and kudzu used to be random disasters.

OPTION TWO: The grey goo is a traitor item, like kudzu is now. Presumably for roboticists.

OPTION THREE: Don't spill nanomachines on the floor, for the love of god!

Whatever the case, I naturally would expect that in the universe of SS13, rather than this sort of event/scenario being called grey goo, it is instead known as the grey tide.

[Wisecrack34]

Wipes ids and changes uniforms grey

[Kodos]

I'm not sure if being turned into a greyshirt is better or worse than being cluwned, but I love it.

[Frank_Stein]

How about, the grey goo is an AI tool? It can disassemble items and things, which goes towards a resource count. Then, it uses those resources to build new things, or perform actions.

For instance, AI uses grey goo to dissolve organic substances like monkey meat, then uses the flesh materials to heal brute damage on the crew

[Wisecrack34]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This would make AI sooo much better

[atomic1fire]

How about, the grey goo is an AI tool? It can disassemble items and things, which goes towards a resource count. Then, it uses those resources to build new things, or perform actions.

For instance, AI uses grey goo to dissolve organic substances like monkey meat, then uses the flesh materials to heal brute damage on the crew

It would be neat if the grey goo had positive AND negative uses. 

The grey goo could eat monkey meat and then dispense bicardine or other valuable items, OR it could dissolve crewmen bodies, possibly while they are still alive.

Perhaps it could even be used to give the AI a organic metal body (With an admittedly high resource requirement)

A way for AI to reuse the parts of the station that it doesn't see vital seems a lot more useful in an emergency then the ability to kill people with doors.

[Wisecrack34]

I like it

[Nnystyxx]

How about, the grey goo is an AI tool? It can disassemble items and things, which goes towards a resource count. Then, it uses those resources to build new things, or perform actions.

For instance, AI uses grey goo to dissolve organic substances like monkey meat, then uses the flesh materials to heal brute damage on the crew

seen here: the wild frank_stein in his natural habitat recommending cool things that horizontally expand the playing field of disregarded crew roles

a+

[Frank_Stein]

It would be neat if the grey goo had positive AND negative uses. 

Yeah exactly what I had in mind. The nanobots just grab bits of things and carry them, so you could transport, build, and interact with just about anything depending how the bots were configured

You could build a needed tool for someone, stabilize atmosphere by generating gases, inject someone with needed blood, track and monitor people's lives and vital statistics.

Having robotics whip up some nanobots and injecting them could be a good way to borrow some of the AI's power but at the same time leaves you vulnerable to some scary things

[Wisecrack34]

Should be limited in some way, perhaps requiring a lot of energy to use

[Frank_Stein]

Should be limited in some way, perhaps requiring a lot of energy to use

I could imagine a couple of limiting factors

• Materials: Goo needs base components to make things. Breaking down things gives it raw materials, and the raw materials are used for construction and certain actions. Kinda like manufacturers on the station use maxuite to make a variety of tools
  
• Configurations: The Nanobots that make up the grey goo are multiple tiny machines built for a single function. The bots that build are different from the bots that deconstruct things. You'd need bots of multiple types, or a way to reconfigure the ones you have to a new task. That's something that'll take time.
  
• Fragility: The Nanobots are individually weak, making them easy to break in different ways. Freezing, burning, or electrically overloading a swarm of Nanobots would be enough to put them out of commission, granted you got them all before they could rebuild themselves
  

I imagine using grey goo as the AI being really similar to playing as a blob. A Roboticist makes some nanobots as a kind of liquid chem and deploys them, forming a grey goo tile. From there the AI spreads it out, using up the units of Nanobots orginally deployed as a resource. It can also build special nodes to perform tasks similar to blob special tiles. Similarly, the grey goo could deconstruct things to add to it's material count, creating more specialized nodes or more Nanobots to increase it's size.

Unlike the blob, the AI could destroy grey goo tiles to regain materials, and be scooped back up into a container.

Players could delpoy the AI to an area to put out fires, handle repairs, restore atmosphere, etc in a good situation. In a bad situation, you've basically got a man made blob

---

I also think it would be interesting if the Nanobots could also be injected, providing huge symbiotic benefits to the player but putting them at risk if the AI I'd turned against them.

For instance the AI could enhance your stamina, strength, defensive capabilities. It could heal you, or give you upgrades similar to the ones cyborgs have. But at the same time it would always be able to track you, or put limitations on what you can do if not outright kill you

[Wisecrack34]

Should be limited in some way, perhaps requiring a lot of energy to use

I could imagine a couple of limiting factors

• Materials: Goo needs base components to make things. Breaking down things gives it raw materials, and the raw materials are used for construction and certain actions. Kinda like manufacturers on the station use maxuite to make a variety of tools
  
• Configurations: The Nanobots that make up the grey goo are multiple tiny machines built for a single function. The bots that build are different from the bots that deconstruct things. You'd need bots of multiple types, or a way to reconfigure the ones you have to a new task. That's something that'll take time.
  
• Fragility: The Nanobots are individually weak, making them easy to break in different ways. Freezing, burning, or electrically overloading a swarm of Nanobots would be enough to put them out of commission, granted you got them all before they could rebuild themselves
  

I imagine using grey goo as the AI being really similar to playing as a blob. A Roboticist makes some nanobots as a kind of liquid chem and deploys them, forming a grey goo tile. From there the AI spreads it out, using up the units of Nanobots orginally deployed as a resource. It can also build special nodes to perform tasks similar to blob special tiles. Similarly, the grey goo could deconstruct things to add to it's material count, creating more specialized nodes or more Nanobots to increase it's size.

Unlike the blob, the AI could destroy grey goo tiles to regain materials, and be scooped back up into a container.

Players could delpoy the AI to an area to put out fires, handle repairs, restore atmosphere, etc in a good situation. In a bad situation, you've basically got a man made blob

---

I also think it would be interesting if the Nanobots could also be injected, providing huge symbiotic benefits to the player but putting them at risk if the AI I'd turned against them.

For instance the AI could enhance your stamina, strength, defensive capabilities. It could heal you, or give you upgrades similar to the ones cyborgs have. But at the same time it would always be able to track you, or put limitations on what you can do if not outright kill you

Perhaps you'd be put under the AI's commands should they go rouge

[cyberTripping]

Perhaps you'd be put under the AI's commands should they go rouge

problem with that is the whole "intentionally making oneself an antag" thing, where it would be possible for people to just  chug a glass of grey goo and suddenly have a license to kill (it's more like self-mindslaving than actually becoming an antag, since you'd still need to be commanded to do things you wouldnt normally be allowed to do, but it opens that can of worms regardless)

[Frank_Stein]

If it's like a chem, more units injected could mean more benefits available while more opportunities for bad stuff to occur. Like, with a smaller dose you could just use them to upgrade your vision to use different view modes. You just need the AI to toggle them for you.

If they were subverted through, They could use you as a mobile camera platform, being able to spy in you even when you try to go into static. Or they could just blind you

Larger doses let the AI have more control over multiple areas, but gives them more room to mess with you. Purging your body of nanobots could involving shocking yourself or setting yourself on fire to destroy them.

[Wisecrack34]

I like the electrocution one, an AI that isn't careful could accidentally free you from their torture. On the mindslave thing, perhaps it would instead slowly turn you into a shell for the AI to use, your mind being pushed into a sort of hivemind state. By the end of it the only way to rescue you would be to remove your brain and put it in a monkey, which would have a few Nanobots leftover that would need purging via shocked door/defibrillator