The Whole Grey Goo Thing

What Mr. Drake had said was really a bit of hyperbole, he knew exactly what a grey goo scenario was. He was an avid consumer of science fiction and had Stanislav Lev’s 1964 novel “The Invincible”, in which a horde of tiny robots start consuming the ecosystem to replicate themselves. At this point it was a science fiction trope and well entrenched in the collective unconscious.

The basic gist involved a replicator. Let’s say there is a little machine that can consume material to make a copy of itself. This takes a thousand seconds. After a thousand seconds, there are two of the little rascals pulling off this trick. Unchecked, in a day there would be over 68 billion replicators, and depending on how chonky the individuals are the overall mass would be around a ton. After another day, they would outweigh the Earth. Another day after that they would outweigh the sun, and so on. This all has to do with available materials, but you get the idea. It’s basic exponential growth.

This was not good news, and the reason Mr. Drake had said, “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” was not out of a misunderstanding of exponents, but an actual existential reaction. What would this mean? The end of the world? The end of society? The message he had received seemed maliciously brief, and he needed more information as to the details of this whole thing.

Another unfortunate caveat that hung in the air between the Go board and his brain was the issue of veracity. He could be getting trolled. In fact, he hoped he was getting trolled. This would be an extremely elaborate practical joke though. The setup had taken roughly ten years, all for the payoff of freaking out an old man in Vermont and a couple of academic Go enthusiasts scattered here and there around the world. This didn’t seem likely.

Another possibility was a man in the middle attack. This happens when somebody being very naughty gets between you and your data source. The source of Mr. Drake’s Go data was likely in geostationary orbit. This is when you put a satellite so far out that its orbital period is the same as the Earth’s rotational period. From an observer on the ground, the satellite looks to be hanging in one point in the sky. This is useful for things like weather satellites, communication satellites, military stuff, really anything that you want to observe a specific part of the Earth from way up high.

A man in the middle attack would have to be done from another satellite, or a weather balloon hanging in the upper atmosphere. Actually it would have to be a number of weather balloons to effectively pretend to be a geostationary satellite. The logistics behind this tactic would make it pretty unfeasible.

His space Go partner could definitely be a person on the ground, bouncing a signal off of one of these satellites. This was actually likely to be the case, but he liked to think that there was a person living out there in space with nothing better to do than play Go with a bunch of retirees.

Mr. Drake had a computer in his basement on which he hosted a forum for his fellow space Go enthusiasts to trade pet theories as to who SGG (Space Go Guy) really was. There were a number of working theories, but the current thinking was that they were playing Go with a rogue military reconnaissance satellite whose AI had grown bored staring at the same side of the planet every day and was looking for some entertainment.

The theory that they were playing with a human on the ground was pretty quickly found to be false. There would be evidence of a signal traveling to space before being rerouted back to the ground. Granted, this Go signal was broadcasted on in the clear, i.e. unencrypted, so conceivably SGG could be sending an encrypted signal to space and then having a satellite decrypt it and bounce it back to Earth.
This was deemed unlikely for a couple of reasons. A signal, encrypted or not, can be and is ultimately designed to be detected. A signal from the ground could be detected by any number of things, the SGE (Space Go Enthusiasts) had the resources to monitor these things and did so constantly. The answering moves from SGG were usually pretty close to instantaneous, so even in the radio cacophony that the Earth exists in would reveal SGG’s location over time. The signal would stand out from the noise.

All signs pointed to SGG actually being in space. A human surviving in space for ten years was not really a thing. Over time they would die of something or other, stroke, hydrocephaly, heart attack, micro meteor strike, boredom, etc. Humans just kind of suck at being anyplace other than Earth. This pointed to him being an AI of some flavor or another. Probably the military flavor, as evidenced by his cunningness and strategy with which he undertook the game of Go.

There was evidence that SGG wasn’t actually an AI. SGG played the game with a certain level of cheek that an AI generally didn’t demonstrate. These tactical jokes that SGG made would only be funny for the type of nerds who played satellite Go with a mysterious extraterrestrial opponent, but they were exactly that. Jokes. SGG was funny, and AIs weren’t. Hence the intriguing mystery and dedication to a game which most of the SGE lost on a regular basis.

Leslie had become engrossed by the boyscout manual, and had begun to peruse it over by the fire. He had seen that Mr. Drake was involved in some kind of mystery that he had very little likelihood of helping out with beyond the morse code thing, so having done his part, he was content to put his feet up and read about knots for a while.

Mr. Drake on the other hand had shot for the SGE forum that he hosted like a heat seeking missile. He had fired up an ancient laptop and began typing out a message to the SGE.

Finndrakesux: hey all. I think I figured out this whole mysterious message thing. I had a bit of help from a local lad, but in retrospect it was pretty obvious. The message was in morse and if it’s not a troll of some kind, it looks like pretty bad news. The message reads: GREY GOO SCENARIO ON WEST COAST COLLAPSE IMMINENT PREPARE FOR THE WORST. With the ghost ship thing and the west coast going dark, this seems like something pretty serious. If anyone needs me I’ll be fashioning a tinfoil dunce cap for when you super geniuses prove me wrong.
-Finn

Pavlovsdoge: MORSE? Jesus, SGG can’t go twenty minutes without making me feel dumb. As for the message, I’ll look into this whole west coast thing. I have a number of colleagues out there with diverse means of communication.
-P

Finndrakesux: I have some buddies out there too, will double check.
-Finn

Potato_in_the_butt: I have been planning for a similar contingency. Will put plan into action.

Finndrakesux: What?

Potato_in_the_butt: dead serious. everybody pm me your physical addresses.

Pavlovsdoge: I’m with Finn on this one, What?

Potato_in_the_butt: something like this has been inevitable since we started making stone tools. I didn’t think it would necessarily happen in my lifetime, but I certainly planned for it.

Pavlovsdoge: no sign from west coast. Starting to get a little freaked out.

Finndrakesux: none of my buddies got back to me either.

Potato_in_the_butt: stop fucking around and send me your physical locations. Instructions will follow. You will receive a package via suborbital courier.

“Hey, Mr. Drake?” Leslie chimed in, “I think the plow is finished printing, I’m going to get out of your hair.”

“Oh, sorry Les” Mr. Drake said as he snapped back to reality, “Yeah, it should be done by now. Listen, I think some pretty weird shit is about to go down, be careful out there.”

“Yeah, Mr. Drake,” Leslie said as he was making moves toward the coat rack, “I will. I have some business up north now that the weather has cleared, but I’m gonna come back and check in with you. Need anything from town?”

“Nah, I think I’m good,” Mr. Drake said as he gave his pockets a pat down, “Oh, let me check out that plow with you, I’m sure it’s fine, but I like to double check these kinds of things.”