I imagine she’d have to possess at least SOME degree of replication capacity, otherwise the swarm would slowly start to collapse.
At least some number of nanites would be lost, damaged, or destroyed naturally over time – especially whenever she barfs and changes bodies, or loses limb and has to reattach it, because you’re never going to find all the little liquid droplets that go everywhere and somehow get them back inside her host body.
More likely is that she has an intrinsic limit on her replication speed, and probably also a cap on her total volume or number of nanites, making a gray goo scenario impossible.
I think you’re forgetting who designed her. Dr Lee and proper safety protocols don’t really go together. I mean she’s capable of doing it, but she just, doesn’t. It’s one of the things that makes her so dangerous. The other main one being that unlike a true mad her devices can be reproduced properly by normal people.
Dr. Lee also made Nick – but that doesn’t mean that she gave him an unstable nuclear reactor as a power source, nor that she suspended his brain in lime Jell-O instead of real science goop.
Lee might be borderline insane, but she’s not stupid. And more than that, she takes pride in her work and has a streak of perfectionism. Her pride and sense of self worth wouldn’t allow her to produce shoddy inventions that don’t function as intended.
Sure, if you asked her to build a nuclear doomsday machine, she probably would, and that can be dangerous. But if you ask her to build a toaster, she’s not going to inadvertantly build a toaster capable of accidentally destroying the world in nuclear fire. That would just be sloppy design work.
When building Nick, Dr. Lee put in an override system. She also put one in Unity. Why? Solely because the people she was creating these projects for asked her to, even thought she didn’t really agree with the idea.
Clearly her semi-mad genius doesn’t get in the way of her dedication to meeting design requirements. So all it would take for Unity to be Gray Goo Proof is for the people in charge of her creation to have asked Dr. Lee to design her that way.
This calls for Calypso!
(“Zombie Jamboree” by Lord Invader)
It was a Porcupine Zombie
Body was a-blocking the AC
It was a Porcupine Zombie
Body was a-blocking the AC
Found a blockage deep in the air vent
When I grab it, had an accident
My zombie colleague wanted a look
So she revived it with zombie puke
It was singing:
“Spikey back, fuzzy ol’ belly
I don’t give a damn, I done dead already
Spikey back, fuzzy ol’ belly
I’m Zombie Porcupine.”
Meet zombie apocalyptic porcupine (ZAP, to his friends). And to think, we were there at the origin storyline. A trope, waiting to be born in the bowels of Annex 1.
Hooray for science barf!
That filthy, juicy, screamy, gooey science barf,
Which any zombie who was part organic
Can start a panic, without brains in the brain pan.
A problem with a clogged up air-vent can be nightmare-ent,
Both with and without a plan.
Hooray for science barf!
To play it pretty straight or for a larf.
To use the go while going porcupining,
It gets them whining about some anthropomorph.
You watch them use their fluid and really spew-it,
Hooray for science barf!
—from, yeah, “Hooray for Hollywood.” Ad-libbed right here—family complications kept me from finishing what I worked on Monday and Tuesday, and this is a better fit for today.
Weirdness of the day:
I ran across mention of Skin Horse in the online catalog for Baker & Taylor, a book and media distributor for libraries and stores. So, I took a look at the details of their entry. They listed an e-book version of three volumes, through Andrews McMeel. So, I looked at one, to see what was going on.
There, in the status field, they listed it as “Publisher out of Stock.”
A status of “Out of Print” would have meant that the publisher no longer had the right to distribute the book, but “Publisher out of Stock” on an e-book implies that they ran out of pixels…
Well, look at how we’ve been squandering pixels left and right over the past two decades. It’s hardly a surprise if there are occasional supply bottlenecks.
Science barf, science barf, viscous zombie goo!
Making friends or body parts, science barf, I love you!
There. A filk almost as short as Unity’s attention span. (Roughly to the tune of “Jingle Bells”.)
Oh lord. She’s weaponized herself. If her nanites were capable of replication, then she’d be a walking zombie apocalypse waiting to happen.
She is! Just slowly.
But isn’t it amazing how much like the nano soldiers in schlock mercenary unity is? Same idea, VERY different worlds
I imagine she’d have to possess at least SOME degree of replication capacity, otherwise the swarm would slowly start to collapse.
At least some number of nanites would be lost, damaged, or destroyed naturally over time – especially whenever she barfs and changes bodies, or loses limb and has to reattach it, because you’re never going to find all the little liquid droplets that go everywhere and somehow get them back inside her host body.
More likely is that she has an intrinsic limit on her replication speed, and probably also a cap on her total volume or number of nanites, making a gray goo scenario impossible.
I think you’re forgetting who designed her. Dr Lee and proper safety protocols don’t really go together. I mean she’s capable of doing it, but she just, doesn’t. It’s one of the things that makes her so dangerous. The other main one being that unlike a true mad her devices can be reproduced properly by normal people.
Dr. Lee also made Nick – but that doesn’t mean that she gave him an unstable nuclear reactor as a power source, nor that she suspended his brain in lime Jell-O instead of real science goop.
Lee might be borderline insane, but she’s not stupid. And more than that, she takes pride in her work and has a streak of perfectionism. Her pride and sense of self worth wouldn’t allow her to produce shoddy inventions that don’t function as intended.
Sure, if you asked her to build a nuclear doomsday machine, she probably would, and that can be dangerous. But if you ask her to build a toaster, she’s not going to inadvertantly build a toaster capable of accidentally destroying the world in nuclear fire. That would just be sloppy design work.
Case in point:
http://skin-horse.com/comic/and-is-to-be/
When building Nick, Dr. Lee put in an override system. She also put one in Unity. Why? Solely because the people she was creating these projects for asked her to, even thought she didn’t really agree with the idea.
Clearly her semi-mad genius doesn’t get in the way of her dedication to meeting design requirements. So all it would take for Unity to be Gray Goo Proof is for the people in charge of her creation to have asked Dr. Lee to design her that way.
Thank you for my phone’s new lock screen.
We get a new lock screen every week from this comic.
The last one was of Unity barfing science onto a bird in the Yukon. So, consistency.
This calls for Calypso!
(“Zombie Jamboree” by Lord Invader)
It was a Porcupine Zombie
Body was a-blocking the AC
It was a Porcupine Zombie
Body was a-blocking the AC
Found a blockage deep in the air vent
When I grab it, had an accident
My zombie colleague wanted a look
So she revived it with zombie puke
It was singing:
“Spikey back, fuzzy ol’ belly
I don’t give a damn, I done dead already
Spikey back, fuzzy ol’ belly
I’m Zombie Porcupine.”
[I accidentally posted this back in time, too…]
Meet zombie apocalyptic porcupine (ZAP, to his friends). And to think, we were there at the origin storyline. A trope, waiting to be born in the bowels of Annex 1.
Hooray for science barf!
That filthy, juicy, screamy, gooey science barf,
Which any zombie who was part organic
Can start a panic, without brains in the brain pan.
A problem with a clogged up air-vent can be nightmare-ent,
Both with and without a plan.
Hooray for science barf!
To play it pretty straight or for a larf.
To use the go while going porcupining,
It gets them whining about some anthropomorph.
You watch them use their fluid and really spew-it,
Hooray for science barf!
—from, yeah, “Hooray for Hollywood.” Ad-libbed right here—family complications kept me from finishing what I worked on Monday and Tuesday, and this is a better fit for today.
As soon as she said it, I KNEW this filk would be awaiting me down here. Good on ya.
Well, I hope to finish what I was working on and post it later, time permitting.
Is this one of those Cat-in-the-Hat scenarios where each problem’s solution creates a bigger problem?
Gosh, I sure hope so.
I NEED A “HURRAY FOR SCIENCE BARF” TSHIRT. AND I NEED IT YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Weirdness of the day:
I ran across mention of Skin Horse in the online catalog for Baker & Taylor, a book and media distributor for libraries and stores. So, I took a look at the details of their entry. They listed an e-book version of three volumes, through Andrews McMeel. So, I looked at one, to see what was going on.
There, in the status field, they listed it as “Publisher out of Stock.”
A status of “Out of Print” would have meant that the publisher no longer had the right to distribute the book, but “Publisher out of Stock” on an e-book implies that they ran out of pixels…
Well, look at how we’ve been squandering pixels left and right over the past two decades. It’s hardly a surprise if there are occasional supply bottlenecks.
I just hope we haven’t reached Peak Pixel yet.
It’s easy to forget how disturbing U.N.I.T.Y. can be.