John Ringo - Von Neumann’s War

“Although we lost all contact with the Mars ISR probe, we can report that the mission was a success to some degree. We were able to piece together the timeline of events and the details of the mission and data collected are shown in the classified final report you have in front of you.” Ronny held up a copy of the Neighborhood Watch final report.

“Analysis of the alert messages in the telemetry data from the probe suggests that at 1 minute and 4 seconds after reaching its closest approach altitude of about 54 kilometers at a Mars-relative velocity of about 15 kilometers per second the spacecraft was completely destroyed. All systems were functioning properly and no unusual loads were being created by any of the spacecraft systems. Then within a period of less than a second the spacecraft was lost. This at first appears to suggest that the spacecraft was, for want of a better term, ‘shot down,’ that is, destroyed in an act of immediate and catastrophic destruction. The spacecraft was well above the atmosphere and a micrometeor impact would not have been as catastrophic. An analysis of the sequence of alerts suggests that the spacecraft was pulled apart from the outer periphery equipment inward to the spacecraft structure. In other words, something dismantled it in about a second.” Ronny flipped through the report in front of him to the data section.

“If you’ll turn to the data section, you’ll find there is more startling information. We were able to capture a complete image with 60 meters per pixel resolution and a partial image of 20 meters per pixel resolution before contact was lost with the spacecraft. The imagery was obtained by the spacecraft and downloaded just before its destruction and it shows the change in the surface of Mars.”

Ronny flicked his laser pointer at the reconnaissance image on the screen.

“There are vast grids and infrastructure like textures and structures on scales of tens and hundreds of kilometers. There are several single structures many times larger than the Great Pyramids of Giza. Impact craters as large as cities have been excavated and built upon and their specular content has dramatically increased, suggesting refined materials.

“The general reflectance of the region in the imagery shows that the region is much more specular than Mars should be. The large specular regions suggest shiny, most likely metallic, structures, consisting of synthetic, smoothed minerals or concrete, or glass-covered structures.

“Also, a fractal analysis of the imagery has been conducted and the fractal dimension of these images is that of an artificial landscape.

“In summary, it’s very little doubt that the changes in Mars are due to intelligent design . There are, in fact, now canals, as well as roads and buildings, on Mars.

“Alarmingly, the structures are much larger than human standards and even in Martian gravity must require advanced knowledge of manufacturing principles. Also, these structures must have been constructed in a period of no more than about two years as no changes in Mars were detectable before then. This suggests rapid construction on a planet-wide scale, which is far beyond human capabilities.

“Finally, the Neighborhood Watch team has discussed at great length the data and implications of this occurrence. We have gathered a team of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, exobiologists, cosmologists, and others, and after much debate, it’s our opinion that our new ‘neighbors’ can only be considered as hostile; they first destroyed all of our probes that were already there; second, moved in on a massive scale without contacting us although they knew we were somewhere in the neighborhood due to our probes; and third, they destroyed our ISR probe while they must have been able to realize from its trajectory that it would fly by Mars causing it no harm.

“This conclusion is alarming. The rapid occurrence and large scale of the phenomenon suggest that the implementation was automated and likely mechanized. It’s our best guess that self-replicating automatons would be most suited for this task. This suggests either robots or insectlike culture and capabilities. The most likely candidate description that comes to light is that of Von Neumann probes as described by the Hungarian mathematician John Von Neumann in the previous century.”

“What are Von Neumann probes?” the NSA interrupted.

Ronny paused and caught his breath for a second.

“Well Madam Security Advisor, the mathematician John Von Neumann described that the best approach to interstellar travel would be to send self-replicating robots to the new star system. One or a few robots would land at the new star system and use in-situ resources to replicate until they reached a critical number. This critical number being that which is required to either construct a civilization infrastructure for the real inhabitants that would arrive much later when the new star system has been equipped and ready for occupation or to create more bots to move on. The implications of that are… disturbing.” Ronny paused again.

“Disturbing,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs muttered. “Nice use of understatement, Dr. Guererro. Can I send a couple of nukes now?”

“All in favor say ‘aye,’ ” the NSA responded. “Aye.”

Ronny nodded, acknowledging the comments.

“The worst part, General, is that such automatons would be driven by one of those two goals — replication for further interstellar movement or preparing the new system for colonization. In either case, then we can only assume that Mars is not where they will stop. The Von Neumann probes would use every in-situ resource within a solar system for either goal. The point here being, whether they intend to colonize or simply are ‘passing through,’ there is no indication that they will not do the same thing to Earth that they have done to Mars. Whether their intentions are hostile or simply… uncaring, the damage to the Earth will not be survivable by the human race.

“We suggest tasking the Hubble Space Telescope to look at the spectra and albedos of the outer planets and possibly Kuiper Belt Objects to determine if Mars is the only planet within the Sol system being transformed.

“We also suggest that we begin to prepare for an invasion that could occur at any time. We have no way of knowing or understanding the alien devices’ motivation or timeline. What is the critical mass required before they move to the next target planet? Perhaps the Hubble experiment will give us some insight. Or perhaps they will move from Mars to the Moon first, if we’re lucky. Who knows? We’re not certain of any of these things, but we’re certain that these are aliens. We’re also pretty certain of the Von Neumann probe theory although it could be some sort of biological equivalent. And finally, several of our team members concur with the Chairman: Nuke Mars Now. However, given the scale of the change and the fact that our probe was intercepted well outside of any reasonable engagement range it’s unlikely that we can, in fact, get a nuke onto the ground. Or that any number of nuclear devices would, in fact, help.”

“In other words,” the President said, sighing. “We’re too late.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Roger said, sitting down at the table in Hooters with a sigh. “Ronny called. He wants us to start using the Hubble to look for more traces in the system.”

“We’re systems engineers,” Alan said, frowning. “Why us?”

“Not we three in particular,” Roger corrected, looking over at Tom with a raised eyebrow. “He wants the group that’s doing it reporting to us. Then I report to Ronny and he sends it on. And we just got Asymmetric Soldier dumped on us, too.”

Project Asymmetric Soldier, from the perspective of the team, might be the critical linchpin of the defense of the world.