Grey Goo Archives - The von Neumann Pathfinder Mission

The following is a transcript of a webpage with missing images, which have been replaced here with images recovered from the Internet Archive. The original webpage can be viewed here.

Within the Grey Goo universe lies keyholes that bridge vast distances in space and time. Keyholes are essential for establishing interstellar communication infrastructure and gathering data towards locating super-wormholes.

With no ability to interact or observe the other side of these keyholes, nanoengineers at the University of Manchester created a swarm intelligent system called the Pathfinder (Goo), its prime directive: Explore, Gather, Report. The Pathfinder was instrumental in tracing routes to The Eight, which are eight discovered habitable exoplanets in the Galaxy.

The first discovered wormholes were no bigger than a pea, earning the name keyholes. The von Neumann style Pathfinder system provides mass transfer between keyholes too small for humans or machinery to pass through.

There are three stages of use when first accessing a newly discovered keyhole:

Stage 1 - Entry: A relay node is immediately constructed around the keyhole. The Goo are then directed toward the keyhole, where they enter and begin to traverse the full length.

Stage 2 - Transfer: The Goo are now completely within the keyhole and with pinpoint precision, map the keyholes traceroute and determine how useful the keyhole may be for repeated trips.

Stage 3 - Exit: The Goo successfully exit the keyhole and construct a relay station, sending back a continual stream of information about the coordinates and distance of the keyholes exit location.

The Grand Model

The zettabytes of data gathered by the Pathfinder and delivered to the Stronghold fed the calculation of the Grand Model. Calculated by the massive analytic machine, MUM, the Grand Model served as the ultimate map of the Galaxy for Human exploration. When MUM deemed the Grand Model 'complete', and after generations of enduring the wars and disasters that came with expansion and competition of resources, Humanity's best response was to stop exploring and end the wars. Humanity halted the incoming data from the Pathfinder, and committed their focus to refining their society.

Self-Organization

Humanity changed its directive, but the Pathfinder did not. With no guidance from Earth, the Pathfinder began to self-organize continuing on its directive of Explore, Gather, Report. Without the ability to verify its reports with Earth, the Pathfinder evolved storage capabilities. Turning itself into a parity drive the Pathfinder now had a memory and an evolving concept of time. It could now make plans…