Nomad
Nomad is a dangerous combination of a human space probe and an alien probe that appears in TOS "The Changeling". It amounts to a technology of the week.
Attributes
"Nomad" was original an Earth probe "launched in the early 2000s". It was Earth's first interstellar probe, and it's purpose was to seek new forms of life. At some point after launch it collided with a meteoroid and was presumed lost. The damaged probe drifted into contact with an alien probe called Tan Ru, which was also damaged. Tan Ru was capable of self-repair, but it lacked the parts it needed to repair itself. When the two probes came into contact, Tan Ru used its self-repair capabilities to merge both probes into a single entity.
The hybrid probe had the following properties:
- It was just over 1 meter in length had a mass of 500 kilograms.
- It could sustain a direct hit from a photon torpedo without damage.
- It could fire weapons of its own that struck with the energy of 90 photon torpedoes.
- It could propel itself through space at high warp speed.
Tan Ru's original purpose was to collect soil samples and sterilize them for later analysis. During the reconstruction, incomplete memories from Tan Ru and Nomad merged. Following the reconstruction, the hybrid's new purpose was to "probe for biological infestations" and to "destroy that which is not perfect." It killed 4 billion people in the Malurian star system in the pursuit of this "prime function".
Fortunately, Captain Kirk was able to point out that it had made several errors when it came into contact with the Enterprise. Faced with knowledge of its own imperfection, Nomad executed its prime function and self-destructed.