Identification: intelligent clouds of self‐organised microorganisms
Variants: clouds of mind‐stealing pathogens, tiny self‐assembling robots, or living nebular dustmotes
Also Known As: Contagians, iNanitis, or Psychoplankton
Origin: an insecurely locked R&D lab just outside the M25 cluster in Sagittarius
LOOKS: | grey goo turns out to come in any colour from foggy beige to sparkling drab | C− |
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BRAINS: | individually they're morons, but a committee of a billion of them is brilliant (that's pretty alien) | 10 |
LETHALITY: | omnipresent, omniscient, and omnivorous | 0.85 |
CULTURE: | traditionally base their worldview on the first book they happen across, whether it's Paradise Lost, The Wizard of Oz, or The Very Hungry Caterpillar | 22 |
HARDNESS: | if we know it's really nanotech, it doesn't count as magic | 7½ |
TOKENISM: | token infinitesimals | 56 |
Lucky Number: 6.022×10²³
Not To Be Confused With: rival world‐eaters such as the Astrolocustoids
Weakness: a stiff breeze
Affiliated With: work closely with the Token Collective to ensure that everyone takes turns – otherwise you get invasion fleets full of virus‐infected Polymorphoids crawling with Neuroparasitoids, and nobody knows who's in charge
Not Affiliated With: the genetics lab escapees of the Moreaunian Movement
See Also: at the opposite end of the scale, Gigabacilloids