Dry Nanotech
|
|
|
|
Dry Nanotech |
From the beginning true nanotechnology, the ability to build machines on the molecular scale, had the potential to turn the world upside down. Using self-replicating nanomachines - tiny sub-microscopic industrial-mechanical assemblers first envisaged by Erich Drexler describes in the early 1st century a.t. in his book "Engines of Creation" - almost anything could be built with atomic precision out of the component atoms.
Thus the promise - and the danger - of industrial dry nanotech was obvious from the beginning. The end of shortages, the end of capitalism, unlimited abundance, true transhumanism, making starships out of dirt, whatever you could envisage...Raw materials could be obtained from the environment with no need for mining or complex extraction processes, and since they are self-replicating the price could become nearly arbitrarily low (equal say to the price of basic agricultural produce) while the scale of operations could range from the microscopic to transforming entire planets. Nanocomputers would be smaller than bacteria, controlling nanodevices that could do anything from acting as a technological immune defence to subtle intelligent weapons. Terrifying doomsday weapons like grey goo (assemblers programmed to eat everything, reducing an entire planet to grey goo (i.e. zillions of assemblers) were possible.
Unfortunately non-biotic assembler nanotech proved to be more elusive than expected in the 1st and 2nd centuries c.e.. Various technological complications have hindered development. Some of the biggest megacorps, like Neotech and IBM-Mitsibishi, and the great technocratic orbitals like Asimov and Von Braun Stations, spent decades and invested billions pursuing limited approaches.
The first simple nanomachines, which were adapted from the machinery of cells, were built in the late first century AT. These machines could construct systems of proteins, polysaccharides and lipids. Together with the great advances in protein design being made at the time this enabled the construction of both pure bioelectronic circuits (so called biochips) and microfilament-based systems capable of more generalised construction from a wider range of elements. These protein-based systems had the disadvantage of being highly sensitive to environmental changes: they could only operate in liquid suspension, and only in a limited range of temperature and pH.
Nanomachines capable of assembling carefully designed crystalline materials were built in AT 125 and over the next few decades revolutionized manufacturing industry by eliminating all unwanted flaws in materials. Diamondoid composites and other exotic materials became cheap to manufacture, allowing the building of the first megastructures. The most impressive achievements of early macroengineering were the corporate arcologies: entire cities contained in single buildings. Even small, mundane objects became much lighter, cheaper and more reliable.
The nanotech revolution proper began with the construction of nanosystems capable of building macroscopic components for larger machines with atomic precision.
The earliest self-reproducing nanosystems were only semireplicators. They could not directly build copies of themselves; instead the nutrient solution bathing them had to be chemically changed to catalyse certain stages in replication. These nanomachines were thus like artificial viruses, with the containing vat acting as a gigantic cell.
The next generation of nanomachines, the true replicators took several decades to develop. The first real success with true artificial replicators was in AT 206 when a joint venture between Neotech Labs in Clarke Orbital, the Xerox Nanoscale Collective in Pasedena, Earth, and the Centre for Self-Replicating Technologies, a Eurasian laboratory on Copernicus Base, Luna, managed to get primitive drexlerian nanoassemblers up and running. More capital was invested, and the technology developed to the extent that it became viable. The builder nanodevices - the Drexler 2 and the later, more robust and intelligent Drexler 3 and Drexler 4 that followed in the ensuring years, remained fragile and functioned best in hard vacuum conditions at ambient temperature. Nevertheless they were able to produce good amounts of chemicals or blocks of matter with a molecular texture. Even this very limited technology revolutionised many areas, and there was further boom in Orbital wealth as chemical industries set up in orbit to take advantage of the conditions or miniaturise their production processes into smaller nano-supported modules that can be sold. Even at this early stage production was cheaper and more versatile than bionanotech allowed.
New assemblers soon followed, including the Merkle 2 and, after several years, the Neotek Universal Micro, the first nanite to be available commercially, albeit with reduced capability and a carefully built in cripple mechanism. The machines were much more sophisticated than the first generation: they were able to replicate themselves in a nutrient solution of constant composition (i.e. without continual changes in the enzymes present). Nanos were also built from many other types of molecule so that they could be used in a wider range of physical and chemical environments. Such systems were both faster and more robust than the earlier semireplicators and so could be used in a much wider range of applications.
New forms of diamondoid, especially the incredibly versatile Carbonite, ultra-strong fibres, extreme low-density aerogels, "smart" microspheres containing other chemicals that will release them under certain conditions and "smart" materials with weird properties flooded the market.
Because of the dangers involved both normal and tweaker Governments, Megacorporations, and military institutions all tried to keep the lid on nanotech, used special assemblers that, following the standard set by Neotek's Universal Micro, only replicated a number of times before self-destructing, radical surveillance, and other such devices.
