Ha! This shows up in pop culture in the game Star Control II (awesome game btw): spoiler alert | You are travelling thru space encountering an ever-increasing

Ha! This shows up in pop culture in the game Star Control II (awesome game btw): spoiler alert | You are travelling thru space encountering an ever-increasing number of what appear to be robotic ships with whom you can briefly interact before they end communication and attack you. Long story short: a planet-bound race, the Slylandro, purchased a robotic ship for exploration and to establish friendly contact with other races. The ship had the power to self-replicate; it also carried a small defensive weapon and a powerful lightning-bolt type tool for breaking-down and gathering resources for ship replication. The Slylandro wanted more probes faster so they turned the replication priority up to 11, overriding all other priorities. When a ship meets you, it attempts to initiate contact but is quickly forced into resource-gathering/replication mode & proceeds with breaking apart your ship into raw components. It is, essentially, a paper-clip maximizer. :) http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Probe http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Probe