Nomad (Star Trek)

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Nomad is a fictional space probe featured in the Star Trek episode "The Changeling".

[edit] Description

Historical schematic for the Nomad MK-15c space probe. (TOS: "The Changeling")

Nomad is an early robotic interstellar probe launched from Earth in 2002 on a mission to search for new life-forms. It was created by the brilliant Earth scientist Jackson Roykirk. Nomad was presumed destroyed in flight by a meteor collision. In the aftermath of the accident, Nomad somehow repaired itself, merging its control programmes with those of an alien space probe called Tan Ru. The resulting combination of their benign programmes became deadly, Nomad's new purpose was to seek out and sterilise imperfect beings, which perfection was judged against Nomad's own "perfect" logic. Nomad destroyed all living beings in the Malurian system in 2267, and shortly thereafter attacked the USS Enterprise The probe the Enterprise encountered was roughly cylindrical in shape, weighing 500 kilograms, and measuring about one metre in length, Nomad had offensive, defensive and propulsion systems superior to the Enterprise, it had an advanced artificial intelligence and was capable of independent, logical thought. The deadly probe destroyed itself when it realised it was imperfect, having confused Enterprise Captain James T. Kirk with its creator, Jackson Roykirk.