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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxi!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!ukc!dgd
From: dgd@ukc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: The Great Silence
Message-ID: <3945@ukc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Oct-83 12:56:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ukc.3945
Posted: Mon Oct  3 12:56:08 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Oct-83 02:55:21 EDT
Organization: Computing Lab. Kent University, England
Lines: 8

von Neumann (sp?) probes are intelligent, self-replicating machines
which are originally constructed by a race searching for other intelligent
life, resources etc.
It was proposed that a particularly xenophobic race may have sent these
out into the Galaxy (that's what I'm going to call it!!) to search for
and destroy other technological races.
I think the estimated propagation time to cover the Galaxy was around
1 million years.