In the 23rd century discoveries in molecular biology and applied energy fields created the long-imagined Nanite. The Nanite was neither fully machine nor fully biological. Often smaller than a virus, Nanites borrowed from existing cell structures and became the backbone of microscopic machines. At the same time developments in neural networking allowed Nanites to function as small thinking machines, each unaware of its greater goal, but on the lowest level, a living organism. The Nanite Factory had become a reality.