Replying to
a discussion about how Zoë was rebuilt in 4U City:
CheeseWhisper wrote:
As I recall, the explanation was "if the nanites don't have a snapshot, they'll just rebuild you according to your DNA" -- which apparently means you get a blank brain. Of course that doesn't explain why she couldn't learn anything after that, but hey, this is sci-fantasy.
One possible explanation is that after the first rebuild, the nanites identified her blank brain as a problem serious enough to warrant a full rebuild, which again left her with a blank brain, which was again identified as a problem, and so the nanites got stuck in a loop of constant rebuilds that kept wiping out all of her brain's attempts to learn things.
That would of course be a serious flaw in the nanites' programming.