The microarmies developed in two stages. In the first stage, the unhumaned microweapons were still designed and built by people. In the second stage, microsoldiers were designed, combat-tested, and sent to be mass produced by "construction battalions" of nonliving microdesigners.....A phenomenon known as "sociointegrative degeneration" displaced humans first from the military and later from the weapons industry....A greater role, then, was assumed by the pseudo-sociointegrative collective of microsoldiers. Each nonliving army was incomparably more complex than a beehive or an anthill. In internal structure and interrelationships it was more akin to an ecological unit in nature......

Meanwhile, in addition to computer rule, which was gradually replacing natural, human rule, there appeared certain phenomenon that once would have been called natural; but now no one knew by what or by whom they were caused, if indeed they were caused by anything or anyone at all. Acid rain had been known in the 20th Century. But now there were rains so corrosive that they destroyed roads, power lines, and factory roofs, and it was impossible to determine whether they were caused by pollution or by enemy sabotage. It was that way with everything. Livestock were stricken - but was the disease natural or artificial? The hurricane that ravaged the coast - was it a chance thing, or was it engineered by by an invisible swarm of micrometeorological agents, each as small as a virus, covertly diverting ocean air masses?....