Editing Self-replicating spacecraft (section)

=== Berserkers ===
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A variant of the self-replicating starship is the ''[[Berserker hypothesis|Berserker]]''. Unlike the benign probe concept, Berserkers are programmed to seek out and exterminate lifeforms and life-bearing [[exoplanets]] whenever they are encountered.

The name is derived from the ''[[Berserker (Saberhagen)|Berserker]]'' series of novels by [[Fred Saberhagen]] which describes a war between humanity and such machines. Saberhagen points out (through one of his characters) that the Berserker warships in his novels are not von Neumann machines themselves, but the larger complex of Berserker machines – including automated shipyards – ''do'' constitute a von Neumann machine. This again brings up the concept of an ecology of von Neumann machines, or even a von Neumann hive entity.

It is speculated in fiction that Berserkers could be created and launched by a [[xenophobia|xenophobic]] civilization (see ''[[Anvil of Stars]]'', by [[Greg Bear]], in the section [[#In fiction|In fiction]] below) or could theoretically "mutate" from a more benign probe. For instance, a von Neumann ship designed for [[terraforming]] processes – mining a planet's surface and adjusting its atmosphere to more human-friendly conditions – could be interpreted as attacking previously inhabited planets, killing their inhabitants in the process of changing the planetary environment, and then self-replicating to dispatch more ships to "attack" other planets.