Basic Information
Nanotech is technology on the incredibly small scale. This may be robots or computers (often called nanites, nanobot, or nanomachine), but the broad term nanotechnology also encapsulates nanomaterials which can be just extremely small objects that don't necessarily have to include any moving parts. Nanites might be ultra-complex and sophisticated, or elegant and surprisingly simple. The term applies to anything on the nanoscale: a nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and generally nanotech is considered to be objects 100 nanometers or smaller in at least one direction. Technically, if you made a new form of dust that'd be nanotechnology. Usually, you can't see nanotech, or at least not most individual pieces, but if you get enough of it together they may be collectively noticeable. Proteins and other structures inside cells are essentially naturally-occurring nanomachines… so in a lot of ways every plant and animal is just a big ol' sack of nanotech.
See Also:
- News / Advertisement: New Futuristic Patch Uses Breakthrough Nanotech To "Turn Down" Pain
- News: The Future of Nanotechnology In Medicine
- News: Smart Dust Aims To Monitor Everything
- News: Nanotube-producing Bacteria Show Manufacturing Promise
- Nanotech Disaster: Ecophagy / Grey Goo
- Nanotechnology in Warfare
- Artificial Blood
- Computronium
- Genetic Engineering and CRISPR
- Protein Item
- Nanofabrication / Nanoassembly
- Nanodisassembly / Smart Corrosive
- Fullerene / Buckyball / Graphene
Sources
Game and Story Use
- Fertile cause for body horror and disaster scenarios. Could be a contagion, poison or the end of the world as we know it, depending on the specifics of the nanotech and how it's being used or abused.
- Alien Invasion by way of microscopic Von Neumann Probes.
- A victim may be re-written cell-by-cell after being injected or infected by nanobots.
- An ooze, slime monster, or something vaguely like a jellyfish might actually turn out to be a hivemind colony of tiny robots.
- Nanites destroy just the humans, leaving all our technology behind. Only a few people survive after finding a way to stop it just a little too late for the masses. Or maybe it targeted something in the brain, killing all humans but leaving some uplifted animals to inherit the earth. For ideas of earth without us and the consequences in our aftermath, see post-apocalyptic decay.
- Nanotech is a great form for your Applied Phlebotinum. Take your favorite tech idea. Shrink it down super-small. Did that make it cooler? Better for your plot or setting?
- Justification for Healing factor and healing potion technology. Could be medicine or wetware. See The Future of Nanotechnology In Medicine.
- A government conspiracy or espionage plotline might involve a teeny-tiny tracking device. See: Smart Dust Aims To Monitor Everything
- Mind control and mind reading may be possible if nanites invade your brain.
- Nano-implants let you look and feel human, but secretly be a cyborg.
- In realistic terms, a nanite has rather limited processing ability and is vulnerable to heat. This suggests a few ways of disposing of nanotech-based MacGuffins: scattering them so that they can't use distributed processing, or breaking out the flamethrower to destroy many of them at once.