Beetle Mania

It is well known in the field of entomology that the beetle is a diverse, vital, and vastly ecologically important type of insect. Beetles can range in size from almost two-hundred millimeters to not even half of one, and can live anywhere in the world, from seashores to mountainsides to other insect burrows. Millions of species have been identified, and the beetle is considered by many to be the most important organism on the planet. So, in 2043, when news began circulating in the scientific community of a catastrophic decline in beetle populations worldwide due to widespread chemical pollution, alarm bells went off and important people began to take notice. The “neo-40s,” as they were known, comprised a decade in which the entire world was declining socially, politically, and environmentally, but not to the extent that hope had been lost completely. So, to try and stave off the collapse of an already severely weakened biosphere, a global coalition of researchers and government officials assembled with the purpose of saving the beetles. They were too late, of course, and when they failed to meet their initial goal, the coalition switched tactics, deciding that, instead of trying to prevent the extinction of these all-important insects, they would replace them with artificial copies. The coalition enlisted a young startup company known as Edi-Tech to help them design and manufacture a series of tiny, self-replicating BE-44 robots, or beetle bots. Unfortunately for society, Edi-Tech’s ingenuity led the beetles to become too much of a success. Their self-replication abilities were far too efficient, and soon the coalition found themselves with a beetle bot population growing quickly out of control…