Chapter 04 - Dust
It looked like the typical congressional hearing although a little more intimate and there were no cameras. This was a closed hearing – very closed. There were guards outside the door and the windowless room had been swept for surveillance devices even though this was a secured area normally.
There were eleven stern-faced men on the dais. There were five senators representing the states and six senators representing corporations. The 29th amendment, known as the honesty in government amendment, had reduced the state representation to one senator per and had given the fifty world corporations the vacated senate positions. That amendment had made government more honest by making the unseen power visible. Rich corporations didn’t have to rent legislators anymore. They had their own.
The corporations had won the right to rule when their own philosophy of ‘corporations exist only to make profit’ was transferred to the public mind as ‘only money matters in an election’. Matters of social policy were just noise. Now there was no more need for pretense. Political leaders didn’t have to lie to the people anymore -- they just told them how it was going to be and there was no recourse but to accept it. They didn’t have to lie anymore but they did. Old habits die hard and when you think you are really good at something you tend to do more of it.
The chairman introduced Doctor E Steven Rice and invited him to address the committee. As introduction it was mentioned that Dr. Rice and his company supplied NASA, now defunct, and the American military their most advanced artificial intelligent hardware. Doctor Rice was one of them with gross assets of a little over a billion dollars.
If he had not noted himself to the American military as an arms supplier, his status as a scientist would have earned him a completely cold welcome in Washington. 'Scientist' was a curse word among many of these leaders and the vapor brains they represented. Scientists had been warning for decades about the limits of growth, about a coming economic collapse and a climate catastrophe. Now that both had happening, instead of having their eyes opened to the truth around them these people hated those who had tried to warn them. They hated the prophets as if they had created the afflictions they had warned the world about. They only listened to scientists secretly and then would deny it.
Steven had tried to get someone else to give this report. He disliked these ignorant officious bastards as much as they disliked him. Besides they were government - they must know he is gay. That alone would make many of them hate and distrust him. There were no known gays in government, and even women had been expunged in this new ‘no pretenses’ era. Steven had become a good actor over the years and he would do nothing now to show how he despised them.
“Good morning”, began Steven “The president has been briefed and you have all received a complete softcopy briefing of the situation so I will begin with a quick overview of the situation we face."
Some of the legislators hefted their electronic tablets in front of them as if the thick document now in them would add weight. They all give Doctor Rice an ironic “thanks a lot” look.
“If the atomic drill we sent to Europa had simply been disassembled or even duplicated it would have been the most significant discovery of our existence. But when that which we discovered exhibited the ability of interplanetary travel it graduated to the position of the most palpable danger our species has faced — the greatest danger life on this planet has faced since the Cambrian event that annihilated ninety percent of the life on earth.
"Our own nanotechnologies have shown us the possible miracles and awakened us to the most dreadful consequences of molecular level manipulation. Self-replicating nanobots have been categorized as having Humanity Annihilating Capability. When you add intelligence to this, intelligence that may be equal or superior to our own, we have the ultimate threat to life on earth. And, we have no defense against this kind of threat. Let me repeat. We have no effectual defense against this kind of threat."
Steven paused for dramatic effect but none was necessary. He looked at the legislators’ faces and said to himself under his breath “Speaking of fear… “
“Through the years we have imagined invaders from Mars, feared poison from comet tails, invested in detection of near earth asteroids that might crash to earth, but we have not specifically prepared for intelligent macromolecules being dropped on us from space.
“But we are not defenseless…” Steven enunciated loudly to bring back hope.
“The greatest fear comes from uncertainty. We don't know the intentions of this alien organism. It may be coming to investigate the creator of the hardware it found on Europa, — to introduce itself as another sentient life form in the galaxy – something we recognize as the trumpet herald of the next epic of human life – we are not alone. Or it may have other motivations and objectives. It may be coming to assimilate more complex structures, like machines, DNA, people.
“We humans tend to believe more readily and react more quickly to threat then to anything else. It is our heritage as evolved biological creatures. Our prime objectives are survival and procreation. We use fear and greed as the prime drivers of our actions – they have worked to bring us to our current state.
"We have no way of knowing what the evolution of the European nanobots is. We don’t know what its motivations are. We know it is capable of charting an interplanetary course and executing it. We don’t know where it got that knowledge. It could have assimilated it from the probe it dissolved. Perhaps we sent the instructions for our own destruction to Europa. There is little to be gained now by assigning blame. We need to find a solution.
"What we feel is this: If this substance reaches the surface of Earth — and there seems to be nothing to stop that — there is nothing here that would stop it from transforming the planet into the gray goo we fear from our own nanotechnology.
“The last image we saw from Jupiter before the range of the optical telescope was exceeded was one of a solid objects changing into a cloud of dust. If it congregates and changes back into a solid form there is a chance we could, as it approaches, explode nuclear devices in space close to it to vaporize the whole mass. It may have to assume a solid to change velocity to match Earth orbit or landing speed. Deep space radar will be watching and our missiles will be ready.
If it remains as space dust, it could arrive undiscovered and slam into Earth atmosphere anywhere and everywhere. The megamolecules are smaller than a micrometer and reentry would not heat them up enough to destroy many. Most would survive. Much of this dust would reach the surface in rain or dust clouds. It could take days or months. We have no way of tracking it, of knowing where it lands, or what it is doing.
"Even if it didn’t start transforming what it touches it could be an almost undetectable problem. If it lands in the oceans, it could pollute fish we eat. If it lands on fields, it could pollute the vegetables, grain, and fruits we eat. It is a global cancer for which we have no immunity.
“Now the bad news; I may be painted an inaccurate view of the situation because frankly, we don’t know the capabilities of this dust.”
There was an uncharacteristic silence among the legislators when Steven paused. Were they dumbfounded by all this or had they been instructed to remain mute? He was explaining yet another story of doom, an action that had earned his predecessors reviled status in the eyes of the current political power wielders. Was he protected by his status as a millionaire business head?
“The only defense we scientist have been able to conceive of is not much less frightening. Our solution is to, as one of our numbers calls it, fight fire with fire. We intend to develop our own nanobots to match the capabilities of those headed at us from space. These would be created to reproduce exponentially and to blanket the earth and wait for signs of the invaders. This is the only method that could produce and distribute the nanos defenders in time. These defenders have to be everywhere on the planet since we do not know where the in
vaders will first appear. We have to be there waiting because a delay in detecting or getting to the location would allow them to time to multiply beyond our ability to stop them.
"These nanos would be designed not to attack existing life forms. There is enough carbon and other inorganic material for them to use as raw material. As a byproduct, the sequestering of carbon dioxide would mitigate our global warming problem. Nanos are not part of the food chain so the carbon they remove from the oceans and atmosphere stays removed."
This flippant reference elicited the first audible reaction from the congressional interrogators.
“You mean this will solve our climate change problem?” interjected the chairman.
“No, I’m sorry. We have passed the trigger point. It will take a century even with this reduced CO2 effect to get us back to where we were.
The chairman waved his hand to indicate that he didn’t like that answer and for Steven to continue.
“These domesticated nanobots would be designed to seek out alien counterparts and to destroy them or to take control of them before they can destroy our ecosphere or our population. Even this defense will probably be less than 100 percent effective but it is the only hope we imagine. The biggest danger in this defense is that our own nanobots might go rogue and do to the planet what the alien nanobots would have done. Or that the alien nanobots overpower our own and turn them against us. These are real possibilities. Our salvation is not assured. But be assured we will do everything that we can in the design to avoid this Armageddon affect.
“I am reminded of the Manhattan project, when our predecessors brought the specter of nuclear holocaust into the world in order to save the world from a Nazi nuclear holocaust. We feared that the first atomic detonation could destroy the atmosphere. It didn’t do that but living with the bomb changed us. We had for the first time in history consciously constructed thousands of devices that if used as designed would destroy the world — devices that still exist as tempting targets of acquisition for terrorists and perverted governments.
“Our situation now is similar to that in 1940; our options are basically the same – to counter a technological threat with a technological defense of the same type and magnitude.
The congressional panel was still mute. The chairman fiddled with the screen in front of him trying to compose something to say. Steven didn’t have to ask for questions. He could see in the faces of every panel member the reluctance to face what was before them. There are limits even to courage that only stupidity can mount. Despite reports to the contrary, there were none on this panel whose previously demonstrated stupidity was sufficient for today’s challenge.
“With your permission” Steven continued after several seconds’ silence “I will delineate our rough design and assumptions.” Now he would find out if they were listening or if they were tuning him out. After all, these were legislators. They had need of the skill of shutting out the mindless prattle of filibuster and a great many other profound pronouncements, and of course the presentation of any opinion different from theirs.
"The nano defense system we propose will combine designs already well under way. We combine nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. I have already addressed elements of the nanotechnology. We observed intelligence in the alien threat – it is that intelligence we also need to counter. In planetary exploration, we have put machine intelligence onboard to direct actions because the response time from Earth is just too long, so it is with nano defense — we need to equip our defense system with artificial or synthetic intelligence in order to react in the time scale of the activity we can expect from the alien. Not only can it come quickly but it is global. There is no way human reaction can combat this.
"Combining these two technologies is not a new thought. This combination does not already exist for reasons of caution. This combination was branded a possible annihilator of humanity as early as 2001. We risk it now because we face annihilation if we do nothing. We humans are ambivalent about this — we fear A.I. yet we admire its capabilities and are coming to trust its decisions more than our own."
Steven straightened himself to renew his energy and as emphasis and introduction to the technical information to follow even though he thought this group would not appreciate even this low level of detail.
"We will build a system imitating what we saw in the Jupiter videos. It will exist as a cloud of nano scale macromolecules with various functions. Individually the macromolecules will be far smaller than 100 micrometers diameter. This satisfies the definition of dust. ‘Dust’ will be the code name for this project. We will be sending out the good dust to do combat with the bad dust.
"Collectively the macromolecules will be mobile, self repairing, and intelligent. Each nano-molecule will have communication capability and propulsion provided by the same system of photon and ion emission. In atmosphere each macromolecules can jet through air by ingesting molecules from the air and ejecting ions. They can use static electric fields to maintain relative positions.
Power is nothing exotic. Each molecule absorbs sunlight or other available radiation. Each molecule can emit photons and other particles to share information and energy and control their own velocities. Information and sunlight energy from one side of the globe can be transmitted to the far side of the planet.
Communication is hierarchical and that makes whole system hierarchical. Communication will be super secure and immune from external takeover. We will use quantum entanglement to validate encrypted messages between second echelon hubs. We will use short time horizon transmissions between hubs and individual molecular units. Any communication partner who can't turn a message around in fifty nano seconds is ignored.
“There are two categories of macromolecule: manipulator molecules have the functions of: Hoover molecules — these disassemble any molecule or structure they are directed against. These are what we are depending on to neutralize the alien threat. They work like the enzymes in your body that disassemble the protean you eat to provide the building material for the proteins your body needs. If we use that analogy, our nanos will eat the alien nanos.
By controlled contortion, they can act as constructor molecules — these are akin to the old Electron Scanning Microscope atom manipulators only millions of times faster. These will build copies of themselves and of the other molecule types expanding the size of our defense and replace molecules that are destroyed or lost.
The second type of molecule, holding it all together are processor molecules. These, in addition to the communication and locomotive capabilities, have a Field Programmable Gate Array trainable to process signals it receives from others of its own type and of the other types and to send processed messages. Working together with half a trillion others of its kin, it will constitute a distributed super computer or neural network with quantum computing ability.
“The tactics our defense can employ are destruction by disassembly, or takeover of enemy nanobots by breaking into their communications while preserving the integrity of our own. Failing that, merely jamming communications should be sufficient to immobilize the enemy until it can be neutralized.
“Some data molecules will solve four hundred billion simultaneous equations a second to keep track of every molecule in the body and to translate the photons detected by individual molecules into images of the world around them. The body can hear by measuring the vibrations of molecules.
“After a kernel set of nano-molecule are manufactured by conventional methods and communications are established between processor nano-molecules we will download the instructions for manufacturing all of the nano-molecule types so that the collective can direct its own growth faster than the rate of our manufacturing abilities. When paired these two types will be called a cell because it can reproduce itself. Its numbers will grow exponentially. When a cell, with all the required constituents of sufficient numbers, reaches the requisite size it will split in two
– mitosis if you will – and thus the earth will be populated with functioning groups of nanos on guard against invaders of its own kind. The processor collective should increase in intelligence as it increases in size and absorbs all the information we can feed it.
“That's the part that scares people. More so than creating devices that could destroy the world – we have lived through the cold war – but creating a machine that can think, that is more intelligent than humans. That is what scares people the most. They would rather live poorly as number one on the planet than live better as number two.
“What will keep these from continuing to multiply ad nauseam like all biology does; even human populations do, if not constrained by competition or resource depletion?
“The programming will tell it what its purpose is and will include a self disassemble instruction when the earth is no longer threatened. It doesn't reproduce unless it needs more parts for some mission critical reason. This nature will be build into its kernel.
Shifting gears Steven slowed down – a retard and decrescendo — leading to his conclusion. “The good news, from engineering prospective, is that most of this technology has already been looked at. All we need is to put it all together. We should be ready well before our guests arrive from Jupiter.”
“What we need your help establishing an international coordinating body for the development, deployment, and monitoring of the nano defense system. We are not asking for funding. My corporate partners and I will take care of that. As you can see on the final pages of your briefing, the cost is modest but the alternative is possible extinction. Overall, it is less expensive and with fewer participants than the Manhattan project. What we are asking is your help in keeping the secret since this project has been classified TOP SECRET. We all know how little skill the general public has in handling crises. This news could destroy what is left of the global economy which we need operating to complete our work.
"There is one other thing — as I said, most of this technology already exists, and it's patented. I hold some of the patents. Some of the companies that will be working with us hold some patents. Others we will have to use without permission in order to preserve the secrecy of this project. If we survive, we will compensate the patent holders. If we don't survive, it won't matter.
"Thank you.”
“Thank you, Doctor Rice.” said the chairman with a tone of ‘glad that’s over.’ “What you have told us and the documents you have given us are indeed very frightening but what worries me most is the problem of “can we trust you?” Are you telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
“I!” said Steven.
“You will get what you asked for Doctor Rice” said the chairman, cutting Steven off. “In case what you say is true; but you will be watched, Sir, just in case. I for one am struck by the coincidence that you were there to observe the discovery of this threat and you are the person best qualified to head up a global task to combat it. I find that damn curious indeed.