Nanobots
Nanobots
[Megan and commander are on a space station.] Megan: Commander! Come quick! It's the nanobots—they've STOPPED!
Megan: They devoured 40% of the Earth, and then just... quit! They're just sitting there! Why?!
Ponytail: It's a mystery. ...unless... What's the volume of each nanobot? Megan: A few cubic microns. Why? Ponytail: I think the year 1998 just bought us some time. [Earth's surface, covered in mountains of nanobots.]
In the swarm: Nanobot: What do you mean, "Run out of addresses?" Other Nanobot: Look, we should've migrated away from IPv6 AGES ago...

Megan and Ponytail are in orbit while nanobots are devouring the earth in a swarm. The nanobots stop after devouring 40% of the planet. This is a take on the " Grey goo " scenario in which self-replicating nanobots destroy the earth while creating more and more of themselves non-stop.
However, the nanobots are only able to destroy 40% of the planet because (40% of the earth's mass) = (# of IPv6 addresses) x (A few cubic microns) x (density of nanobots). Without more IP addresses, the nanobots cannot continue to replicate (assuming that each nanobot must be individually addressable).
IPv6 supports approximately 3.4×10 38 addresses, while the Earth's mass is around 5.972×10 24 kg. Assuming "a few cubic microns" is the minimum of 2 µm 3 (according to 1070: Words for Small Sets ), the nanobots would have a density of 4 g/cm 3 , a bit less dense than the earth.
This is a joke on the shortage of IPv4 addresses. The only difference is that we are on IPv4 and the nanobots are on IPv6 .
1998 is when the IPv6 Specification (RFC 2460) was published and IETF is the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Note that an April fool joke for IPV9 exists and would have guaranteed Earth's doom in this comic's scenario.
[Megan and commander are on a space station.] Megan: Commander! Come quick! It's the nanobots—they've STOPPED!
Megan: They devoured 40% of the Earth, and then just... quit! They're just sitting there! Why?!
Ponytail: It's a mystery. ...unless... What's the volume of each nanobot? Megan: A few cubic microns. Why? Ponytail: I think the year 1998 just bought us some time. [Earth's surface, covered in mountains of nanobots.]
In the swarm: Nanobot: What do you mean, "Run out of addresses?" Other Nanobot: Look, we should've migrated away from IPv6 AGES ago...
