Trope-a-Day: Horde of Alien Locusts

Horde of Alien Locusts: Much more common (although still by no means common) in the form of out-of-control von Neumann replicators (“hegemonizing swarms”) than as lifeforms.  Fortunately, most things this single-minded are not terribly efficient, innovative, or adaptable – intellectual monocultures rarely are – so they rarely become a serious problem, or the sort of thing that takes more than one or two task forces to deal with.