Years ago I read this short SF story that has hung with me ever since… long after I forgot what book it was in or who wrote it. Today, thanks to several awkward google searches (aliens + probes + AI = the dark side of the internet) I found the story again! And the frosting on the cake is that the author has it freely readable on his website!!
The story is called Lungfish. It was written by David Brin, and falls into the category of hard SF. In other words, no faster than light travel, no super-mega-death-rays, no monsters. The story centers around this strange culture made up of million year old, self replicating probes.
The idea is simple, it takes hundreds of thousands of years to travel to even nearby stars. So why not let machines do it for you? If the destination proves interesting or habitable, the probe will build a society, replicate itself as necessary, and when ready will clone beings of your race from DNA data in its memory banks. It can then teach the clones about your culture, and bingo – autonomous space colonization.
Now imagine a universe where many alien societies (over the last 100 million years) have launched probes like this, but with differing intent… some for colonization, some for exploration, but some are simply xenophobic. They send out probes to self-replicate, and then detect and destroy other societies.
So some probes meet and form alliances. Some lay in wait to trap and destroy predatory probes… some will simply orbit a planet waiting for the life there to evolve so it can make contact!
The story is only about 20 pages when printed in trade paperback, so it’s a quick read, but the idea is truly amazing. Like I said, it’s one of my favorites—but don’t take my word for it…
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