[antepodius]

Haha, nah, it was more the general idea. An amalgam of sci-fi. Greg Egan had a story where an advanced civ sends a gram-sized slug into the gas giant of a solar system, which bootstraps to machinery that 3d prints people and machinery, which is a plausible enough inspiration that I can give it here. Just remove the implausible 'nobody just decides to go bacteria-mode' aspect from Egan's far-future stories.

[Intermernet]

Do you happen to remember which story? I like Greg Egan and that one sounds interesting.

[antepodius]

Found it eventually: https://outofthiseos.typepad.com/blog/files/GregEganGlory.pd...

All his stories are listed here, whether they be published on his website or elsewhere: https://www.gregegan.net/BIBLIOGRAPHY/Online.html

[Intermernet]

Thanks!

[brainbag]

It's not the Egan book but Accelerando by Charles Stross is my favorite near-current day up to post-singularity book and it covers topics like this in a fantastic and fun way.