In one of Ai-chan's sci-fi novel (yet to be written), there is a race of mechano-biological amoeba-like beings that infest everything that they touch. They don't have beam weapons, but they can eject a spike from their ships which will penetrate shields and lodge itself in the victim ship's armour and hull. Once attached, the being reproduces exponentially, making use of materials both metallic and organic that it uses to reproduce as well as using the hull's own structural integrity field and power conduits to power its reproduction. Even without direct power, they can break apart materials to harvest the charge between molecules to reproduce slowly. Beam weapons only empower them and bullets are absorbed into raw materials. If the spikes or even the ships themselves fall on a planet, it will also infest the planet by turning the minerals and organic materials into their cells where they form monsters and new ships. The protagonists found one such ship by accident and unknowingly reactivated it during a recon mission. They feel responsible for the activation and tries to prevent it from infesting a nearby civilization. Ai-chan's question is, how does one fight such horrors? This may be unrelated, but the protagonists fly a huge city ship with 5000-6000 souls inside. It has a shield system that will hold for as long as there is power and will not weaken despite repeated attacks, and is the only shield in-universe that can block the spikes because it disperses attacks through sending them into hyperspace. They don't know how this shield works and can't replicate its effects as it was gifted by an advanced alien race that can't be contacted anymore.
Does fire/poison/toxin/acid and such work? Or maybe some way to rust them..... Can you inject some sort of virus that causes cancerous cells into them? -- Can/do they eat those cancerous cells if found? If so, maybe some way to stimulate that protocol, thus making them eat themselves. Also, does electricity work on them? Eg. Overloading them to short circuit the mechanical part; which may also kill the bio one.
Fire does kill them, but it requires heat that is enough to melt the materials they've assimilated. For example, if they assimilate human cells, it's easy to use heat on them, but if they assimilate titanium, it will take a lot of heat to melt them, and they have to be purged completely or the surviving cells will reinfest the melted material. Toxins doesn't work as even their biological parts constantly regenerate and renews. Acid will kill off some parts of the entity, but it can be reinfested and some minerals are not affected by acids. Ai-chan isn't sure if there is such a thing as a virus that works on metals. They are different from the Borg, they are basically microorganisms that are bound together for safety. They are not networked or require an OS.
Edited the post: Can/do they eat those cancerous cells if found? If so, maybe some way to stimulate that protocol, thus making them eat themselves. Also, does electricity work on them? Eg. Overloading them to short circuit the mechanical part; while, maybe, also killing the bio one. With current information, I'd probably try researching them, by having them assimilate with dead flesh/bodies and contain them in some thermal field.
Sounds like nuclear weapons will solve most of the absorbtion material problems. America to the rescue!
Not enough explanation about the process. It went somewhat detailed onto molecule level, but then provided no actual details about atom interaction principles, except that they use charge between molecules as energy source (charge would mostly be ions, so electron potential? They eat electrons? Or energy in electrons, thus forcing them to drop their energy levels, which should collapse electron orbital system completely, destabilising the atom structure. Good luck with the resulting mess). So it turned into "anything it touches is doomed without exception". Drop into black hole, where the matter will collapse into itself? Melt them in a star, where the heat and pressure will mix everything as a part of stellar nucleosynthesis? Just hit them with non-metals, if they only infect metallic and organic stuff. Create a race of silicon based lifeforms to combat them. If they actually need electrons, use some weapon to strip electrons off - though that requires energy in our world physics, so "beam weapons" should be effective...
They can eat cancerous cells, and they will convert it into organic material. They don't have a mind, they just live to consume and reproduce. So if you give it food, it will eat, even if it's so obviously a trap. Electricity empowers them, they can take the charge to reproduce faster. They can't be overloaded, as they immediately make use of the energy to spread.
Without destroying everything in the process, flash freeze then destroy the nucleus. Other than that, would take planetary level extremes to destroy these nigh invincible things.
rapid change in gravity, EMP, feeding them something that makes them turn cannibal or suicidal. Infect them with something that allows the carrier to control those things.
Then a virus might work; something similar to that one about rats, where someone genetically modified one, making it so only male rats are born. Can do something similar here, by having it cause cancerous growths on the cells, and as they fed on those cells and spreads, so too does the virus.
Based on previous answers, the best way to deal with the horrors is to lure them in with a trap and then implode the trap so that nothing is left. Not even ashes. Also, the protagonist could trap the horrors inside the huge city ship so that nothing escapes. Story would be a tragedy, but that's how most horror stories end.
Sounds to me like you need powerful psychics. The psychics can suppress the creatures sex drive so they don't f*** everyone's spaceships to death. Kill their minds and instincts, then mine them for resources to make space ships that can f***, er... fight back against the monster race.
Yes, anything it touches is doomed without exception. They're like a demoleculizer, if it takes energy from oxygen molecules, not only will it be reduced to oxides, it will go ahead to reduce it to hadrons. They prefer not to do this as the net energy gain is very small. So they will not reduce planets into dust, but they will try it if they have no other choice. Ai-chan has thought about dropping them into a star, but the being's self-preservation instincts will make it fight tooth and nails to avoid from being thrown into a star. So Ai-chan doesn't know if it's possible, since using another ship to push it into the star will mean that ship will be sacrificed assuming it is strong enough to push the being into the star before it is assimilated. Not to mention that photons from the star can probably be harvested for energy.
Oh, forgot about the space-faring aspect; wonder how you'll bait them there though. Kiting them with a remote controlled ship? Or will people have to be sacrificed?
Classic sci-fi troupe. Quick fast solution. Since it’s biological. Maybe using decompression by opening the ship to space will kill it. Personally I would seal than blow off affected sections.
It is indeed a sci-fi tragedy, but they can't die here. This is not even the worst horror they will face. It's like Lovecraft in space, except Lovecraft's horrors are babies compared to the horrors they will face later.
If we're talking giant amoebas, I mainly think microbio. There tends to be three types of antibiotics, a bactericidal which kills the microbe but leaves a corpse, bacterilytic which explodes the microbe and the corpse, and bacteriostatic which only stalls or prevents the microbe from replicating, allowing the immune system to take over. This would have to look at key aspects of the amoeba though, specifically how they recognize targets, how they absorb targets, and how they expand/reproduce. You'll be looking for key enzymes or key interactions that you can inhibit or stall. Of course, then the microbe can undergo mutation for resistance. From a sci-fi standpoint, if the amoeba absorbs materials does it also inherit their properties? Such as magnets? You can either use powerful magnets to capture and drag the amoeba into stars?